Preview: First Look 2025 at MoMI

A highlight of the MoMI’s annual film programs, the 14th edition of First Look returns March 12–16 with a diverse lineup—38 films including 4 world premieres and 23 U.S. or North American premieres, representing 21 countries—beginning with the New York premiere of Durga Chew-Bose's Bonjour Tristesse with the director and star Lily McInerny in person. Half of all films in the festival this year, including opening night, are directed by women. The full schedule and advance tickets are available here.

Below are some of the most intriguing titles I was able to sample:

Bonjour Tristesse - Durga Chew-Bose The original 1958 version, a cautious coming-of-age tale directed by Otto Preminger, made a star out of pixie-cut Jean Seberg (later to be immortalized in Godard's Breathless). It seemed Bonjour Tristesse was primed for an update. Durga Chew-Bose, a Canadian filmmaker, makes it her feature debut with Claes Bang as Raymond, a widowed father, Chloe Sevigny as Anne, Raymond's old friend, an elegant fashion designer from Paris and Lily McInerny as Cécile, a wide-eyed seventeen-year-old, trying to fix up her father's love life. In Chew-Bose's hand, this sun-drenched, French Riviera set fairy-tale-gone-wrong plays out like an elegant chamber piece, beautifully shot by Maximilian Pittner. She concentrates on the tender father-daughter relationship with a hint of sadness.

Sevigny, playing against type as an uptight, motherly Anne, with an air of unapproachability, a wounded woman being denied of her long-lost love for the second time. With decidedly old fashioned - costumes, the old parent-trap theme, Bonjour Tristesse doesn't feel like it belongs in 2025, but this reboot is fun, nonetheless. Desert of Namibia (2024) - Yoko Yamanaka Yoko Yamanaka, who made splash with her first low budget feature Amiko (2017) when she was just twenty, is at it again with her second feature, Desert of Namibia. This time, her protagonist is not a High School girl, but a wayward 21-year-old, bouncing from one boyfriend to another, having a hard time fitting into a rigid society, where things are in decline and there's no real prospect for the future, as a young zoomer woman.

Kana (Yuumi Kawai), a gazelle like beauty is first seen wondering around Tokyo, meeting a friend, who informs her the suicide death of one of their friends. But she is distracted by other peoples' conversations spilling in her earshot. The dissociation is a dominant feature in the film. One minute Kana is happy and sunny, the next, she is moody and unresponsive. After leaving a live-in boyfriend in their tiny apartment, she moves in to another crammed one with Hayashi (Daichi Kaneko), an artist. Both men are enamored of her. But she soon finds faults in men and become volatile in her relationships.

There's a scene Kana takes a tumble on the stairs outside their apartment after a heated argument. She is briefly hospitalized with a neck brace. But Kana's anger doesn't stop there. Everyone tells her that she is free to do whatever she wants and choices she makes in life is entirely hers. But it's as if she is watching her daily life (physically fighting with Hayashi) on her phone while on treadmill - which Yamanaka includes later, as a movie within a movie. The general idea of survival and foreignness Kana feels is suggested in the film's title. The handheld camera work and long takes in tiny spaces, Yamanaka captures the intimacy and suffocation that Kana feels expertly.

Israel-Palestine on Swedish TV 1958-1989 - Olsson Göran Hugo Olsson's new, well-timed archive-based documentary once again culls materials exclusively from Swedish Public Broadcasting (SVT), seeing the Israel-Palestine conflict from an as much non-partial point of view. But even with the wealth of footage, Olsson puts in the beginning of the film that 'the archive material doesn't necessarily tell us what really happened but says a lot about how it was told.' What's not shown or omitted holds just as much importance, he seems to suggest. These snapshots of 40 years of footage, with numbers, dates, the producer's names, the original title, and the type of film stock (up until the 80s) on 'archive cards', chronicles the rise of the State of Israel and 'The Palestine Problem'.

It features many of the movers and shakers of the region over the years, all of whom contributed to the downward spiral of the circle of violence and suffering. It illustrates when the powers-that-be lose the sight of the people, even while attempting to solve the Problem. It also suggests that it is unreasonable that a state exists on religious foundation in this day and age. As we go through early reports on Israeli society through 1967 war and tumultuous 70s, Sabra and Shatila Massacre and the collapse of Soviet Union, it shows how the public opinion has shifted as Israel's aggression intensified over the years. If anything, this clear-eyed, 3 1/2-hour documentary gives the historical and political context to what is happening in Gaza right now.

100,000,000,000,000 (2024) - Vernier Taking place in glitzy Monaco near Christmas time, Virgil Vernier's new film focuses on Alfine, an escort who describes himself as having a nice ass, nice lips, nice cock but lacking initiative. Not having a permanent residence, Alfine jumps from one client's luxury home to another and wonders around the port city-state lit up with Christmas decorations and lights, luxury shops, and shorelines filled with million-dollar yachts. He and his escort friends talk about opening an agency and their shallow dreams. Then he gets to babysit Julia, a twelve-year-old Chinese girl whose super rich developer parents are away on holidays. She says that her father is building an offshore island equipped with bunkers. She ominously tells Alfine that something bad is going to happen in the near future and she wants him to be on the island. The society we are living is in many ways incomprehensible. A million, trillion, quadrillion- numbers so big they lose all meaning and don't contribute to anything to our lives.

As usual, Vernier (Mercuriales, Sophia Antipolis), examines the seedy underbelly of our shallow modern society, urban isolation, loneliness, and human connection. Virgil Vernier remains to be one of the most interesting contemporary French directors working today.

First Look 2020/21 at MoMI

After taking a Covid hiatus last year, MoMI (Museum of Moving Image)'s annual new film showcase First Look is back! Celebrating tenth year, First Look takes a peak at innovative new international cinema.

Opening Night is the NY premiere of Claire Simon’s The Grocer’s Son, the Mayor, the Village, and the World… and Closing Night is the NY premiere of Dash Shaw’s Cryptozoo.

First Look 20/21 presents 22 features and more than two dozen mid-length and short works from around the world, plus its signature “Working on It” sessions, which focus on the creative process. The festival runs from July 22nd through August 1st.

A special kick-off event for First Look 20/21 takes place at Green-Wood Cemetery in Brooklyn on July 19, with a screening of October Country featuring the world premiere of a live score by Michael Palmieri and Donal Mosher, co-presented with Rooftop Films.

The program comprises both documentary and narrative works, and live performances, with work hailing from countries including Belgium, Canada, Colombia, France, Georgia, Germany, India, Israel, Iran, Italy, Madagascar, Niger, Poland, Slovenia, South Africa, Sweden, Turkey, United Kingdom and the United States. More than half of the films are directed by women.

Please click on MoMI website for tickets and more info.

Below are what I was able to sample:

The Grocer's Son, the Mayor, the Village and the World... - Claire Simon *Opening Night Film Filmmaker Jean-Marie Barbe has a vision for his hometown, Lussas, a rural farming community in Ardeché region of southern France. He wants to build a publicly funded independent film complex and a website dedicated exclusively to documentary filmmaking. It will be called Documentary Village of Lussas. It will be the source of attraction for jobs for the younger generation and local economy. Claire Simon of a direct cinema tradition, documents the trials and tribulations of people in Lussas - including Barbe, his team, the mayor, and local farmers taking a huge leap of faith.

Simon draws the parallels between farming - as a local farmer describes it as a huge gamble every year, where everything has to go right, that those produces people take for granted are nothing but a miracle, and Barbe's endeavor which might or might not bear any fruit. That everyone passionate in what they are doing is looking at things for the long term - for future generations. The Grocer's Son, the Mayor, the Village and the World... is an intimate and absorbing documentary with a lot of heart.


Ridge - John Skoog Taking place in Swedish farmland, Ridge examines loneliness and isolation of some immigrant farmhands and rural youth, not through dialog but controlled, wide screen visuals. The story goes that a couple of strayed cows became wild after spending some time in the ridge before they were found and brought back. The film's formalist approach - camera always slowly tracking and dollying in, gives you the ominous feeling that every move is watched, either from above or eye level and its subjects looking back suggests mutual consent.

Mingling our unprecedented technology era where everyone is isolated in his own sphere of smartphones, Ridge seems to suggest to take a trip to ever shrinking nature and enjoy the wilderness while we can.


Transnistra - Anna Eborn Between Moldova and Ukraine, a long strip along the Dniester river, sits unrecognized breakaway state of Transnistria, where people seem to be carrying on the Soviet tradition and lifestyle. Anna Eborn, a Swedish born filmmaker follows a group of 16 year olds, consists of 5 horny boys and one girl, Tanya, from the hot days of summer to blistering winter in the rural setting as they swim in the lake, hang out in brick and mortar abandoned army barracks and tend to farm animals.

The 16mm shot documentary is intimate portrayal of friendship and love among the restless youth. Their fits of jealousy, envy, hate, euphoria as well as their hopes and dreams are all captured in sun-kissed imagery. It's a small pond story that is completely relatable and universal. Their fugu state of teen years where nothing is stable reflecting its status of their country is an apt one.


Some Kind of Intimacy - Toby Bull As we grow older, it is inevitable to experience the death of our loved ones more and more. There might be differences in how we grieve, but the pain, and the heartache remain the same. And it is sometimes difficult to talk about how you feel. Toby Bull achieves some kind of intimacy or the fraternity of orphanhood in less than 6 minutes with his wonderful short film Some Kind of Intimacy. Through a simple phone conversation, while observing a flock of sheep trampling his parents grave in the rain, we get to contemplate our fleeting existence within the context of nature. Humor helps to dull the pain, so does shared collective melancholy.


Il mio corpo - Michele Pannetta Sun drenched Sicily is both home for Oscar and Stanley - Oscar and his brother Roberto collects scrap metals on the side of the road under the watchful eye of their sometimes abusive father. Stanley, an African refugee, after getting a 2-year visa, stayed in Sicily and trying to eke out a living doing menial work for a local priest while helping his fellow refugee friend get his visa.

We see their daily routine simultaneously, slowly revealing what their lives are like. Il mio corpo is not unlike Gianfranco Rossi's Fire at Sea, another documentary that deals with the state of refugee crisis in the southern European country close to the African continent. But the film is much more subtle and poetic. We feel for these youngsters as they struggle in their own way, licking the bottom of the barrel in the late stages of global capitalism. Their brief, wordless encounters at the end gives hope that there's unspoken fraternity and cooperation in humanity in an ugly world.


Zinder - Aicha Macky Zinder is a city in Niger. It's known for violent youth gangs and delinquents. Director Aicha Macky is from there. And she gets an unprecedented access to the inhabitants of Kara Kara, the city's most dangerous slum. She interviews former members of palais, the youth gangs, and examine how poverty and unemployment perpetuate the unending macho culture. It starts with a jarring swastika adorned flag with 'Hitler' written on it: it's the flag of the bodybuilder's club calling themselves Hitler. They think Hitler is the name of an invincible warrior in America. Siniya Boy, the leader of the club, a former palais, is trying to build a security firm filled with fellow former gang members and friends who are currently in jail. Second chance in Kara Kara is hard to come by and the people of the slum are trying to help each other.

There is Bawo, a former gang member who is a pedicab driver. He confesses he had done some very bad things when he was young. NGO changed his outlook on things and now he is trying to help people in the city's red light district. Then there is Ramesses, a gas smuggler who overcame the stigma of being a hermaphrodite, trying to survive in Kara Kara just like everyone else.

Macky captures all these incredible stories in a seldom seen part of the world. It shows the survival and resilience of the human spirit. One of the most eye opening documentary I've seen in a while.

Preview: Panorama Europe 2019

Museum of Moving Image (MoMI) hosts the 11th edition of Panorama Europe, showcasing current crop of best European films- both narrative and documentary works. The series presents a portrait of contemporary Europe during a period of tremendous flux. Also, though some of the films are by established directors many are by first-time and emerging artists, and 9 of the 17 films presented here are directed by women.

This year's lineup includes Mademoiselle Paradis, involving blind pianist protege and Dr. Mesmer, Fugue, a new film by Agnieszka Smoczyńska (The Lure) and Several Conversations about a Very Tall Girl, an intimate Romanian lesbian romance in the age of social media.

Panorama Europe runs May 3rd through 19th.

A Festival Pass (good for all MoMI screenings) is available for $50. All films will be shown in their original languages with English subtitles.

Here are four outstanding films I had a chance to see:

Madmeoiselle Paradis - Barbara Albert **Opening Night Film

Maria Dragus (Graduation, The White Ribbon) gives a virtuosic performance as Therese Paradis, a blind pianist protege in 1777 Vienna in Barbara Albert's period piece.

Therese, a young woman who became blind at young age, is administered to the care of Dr. Franz Mesmer (Devid Striesow), a controversial figure, whose idea of animal magnetism that there is natural energy transference among all living creatures, still met with skepticism in Viennese social circle. But thanks to his unusual method, Therese slowly regains her sight, albeit fragile and weak still. All the new stimuli interferes her playing piano and her parents who are more worried about losing her disability pensions bestowed by the queen, scolds her that she is better off being blind.

Young and naive, Therese needs not only to contend with her newfound sense but also social, sexual and class dynamics. Also she is pushed to question her purpose in life for the first time. Albert expertly demonstrates the disparity in treatment and struggles of those who are disabled in the 18th century.

3 Days in Quiberon - Emily Atef

Romy Schneider, a luminous movie star of the 60s and 70s, died at age 43. In her private life, unlike her coquettish on-screen persona, she struggled with fraught relationships, family tragedies and alcoholism and hounded by tabloids. Filmmaker Emily Atef and actress Marie Bäumer tackle the brief days of her life a year before her death, when she was being treated at a spa in Brittany. Based on the interview and a photoshoot she gave to a German magazine crew in Quiberon, Atef builds an intimate, humanistic and respectful portrayal of a tortured artist.

Bäumer's uncanny resemblance to the late actress only enhances her soulful performance. Her Frau Schneider is a guilt stricken workaholic mom, fragile lover, victim of her own fame, broken soul by tragedies and who yearned to be left alone. The film also stars Charly Hübner as the photographer/former lover, Robert Gwisdek as a sharky reporter, Briggitt Minichmayr (Everything Else) as Schneider's best friend and Denis Lavant shows up as a superfan who ends up drinking and playing accordion together.

Several Conversations about a Very Tall Girl - Bogdan Theodor Olteanu

Bogdan Theodor Olteanu's simple lesbian romance in the social media age hits all the right notes. Mainly dependent on two leading actresses Silvana Mihai and Florentina Nastase, Olteanu sketches out the beginning and end of a new short relationship as intimate and real as one can be. The two nameless women - Mihai as an older, urbane film student who is more experienced of the two and Nastase as a fresh faced web content writer from the countryside, bond over Facetime with their former shared fling - a very tall girl. They meet irl and start seeing each other. In the beginning, it's tender and sweet. But soon the shier, passive younger woman, after aggressive advances from the older one, withdraws herself, telling the other to be patient. Their budding relationship seems all too real and spontaneous.

The film student's video documents of her friends - a lesbian couple seen in the above picture gives the performance aspect of human relations, as a film within a film. But unlike other meta themed movies, that aspect of the film doesn't overshadow the relationship of its characters which feels genuine and real.

Olteanu and co.'s portrayal of homosexual relationship is an astute reflection of a country still very much steeped in traditions in modern age and a tender, intimate take on a slice of life.


Extinction - Salomé Lamas

Falling somewhere between Chris Marker and Ben Russell's work, Portuguese director Salomé Lamas' 'parafiction' Extinction charts the complicated history of Transnistria which fell victim to be an unrecognized state after the dissolution of USSR. With a young man named Kolya, the unseen crew travels travels through borders, accompanied by monologues and unseen conversations at various checkpoints that give some background about ominous influences Russia holds in the region.

Shot in grainy black and white with old Russian architecture, Extinction gives that distinctive cold war era dystopian Sci-fi vibe even though it concerns the present and real life situation. Lamas examines the concept of borders in people who belongs to a country that is semi-permanently in limbo. But instead of being didactic, she raises more questions and asks audience's active participation in answering those questions.

First Look 2018 at MoMI Ushers in the New Year with Boundary Breaking New Cinematic Work

In its seventh year, MoMI's First Look film series, organized by chief curator David Schwartz and associate curator Eric Hynes, introduces bold, formaly inventive, innovative international films to start the new year. And to all the adventurous cinephiles, this is definitely a good way to start 2018.

This year's selections in First Look go beyond the traditional screen presentsuch as Daniel Cockburn's quasi-film lecture All the Mistakes I've Made (Part 2); a new program of Radio Atlas short works comprised soley of audio recordings and projected subtitles; and even a work being produced during the festival, an update of Wim Wenders's documentary Room 666 in which filmmakers talk about the state of the art form.

First Look to open with U.S. premirere of Blake Williams's 3-D film PROTOTYPE, and will include new boundary-breaking work by James Benning, Ken Jacobsm and an exciting array of emergining artists from around the world January 5-15. Please visit MoMI website for more details.

Here are 7 outstanding films I was able to sample:

The Last Days in Shibati - Hendrick Dusollier

Disappearing urban slums have been documented before - Fountainhas of Lisbon in Pedro Costa's films, Kowloon: The Walled City by a German TV channel in the 80s, and of course, 24 City by great Jia Zhangke among many others. Frenchman Hendrick Dusollier spends a year in the last old district in Chong Qing one of the mega cities situated in the southern China. He films its inhabitants as the neighborhood slowly but surely disappears.

Unlike many other documentaries or dramatizations of a specific place, Dusollier let himself exposed and known to his surroundings. Everyone he meets and treats him as a foreign man with the camera who doesn't understand the language but films everything. His insistence as mostly silent observer wins over some curious inhabitants, namely a barber and his mother whose open, dimly lit shop continues to serve the community under the threat of imminent eviction, Zhou Hong, a neighborhood kid who shows Dussollier around through the labyrinthine dark alleys and Mrs. Xue Lian, an old woman who makes living by picking up bottles and who turns out to have the biggest collections of weird junk in the corner deep in Shibati.

Dussolier comes back to the place and revisit these people, sometimes with an interpreter, sometimes not. He visits them after they were forced to relocate. They understand that he is in Shibati to film what's going to be lost forever. It's this mutual understanding that makes Shibati different from other anthropological documentaries. Dusollier keeps things personal and human.

Marlina the Murderer in Four Acts - Mouly Suriya

Sprawling, picturesque vistas of an Indonesian Island lensed in widescreen format as a back drop, Mouly Suriya's Marlina the Murderer in Four Acts, is a rape revenge western from a female perspective. Marlina (Marsha Timothy), a widow farmer is visited by Markus (Egi Fedly), who tells her that his gang is on his way to rape her and take all her livestock and reminds her that there is nothing she can do about it. When the rest of the gang get there, she poisons them and decapitates Markus while being raped. With Markus' head, she takes a journey to the police station- first by bus, where she meets Novi, a very pregnant woman and befriends her, then later on a horse. At the police station, she learns that justice won't be forthcoming and has to go back to her house for Novi who was captured hostage by the rest of the gang.

Marlina is quite significant coming from an extremely patriarchal society. Weird mixture of Bring Me the Head of Alfredo Garcia and Thelma and Louise, the film features some beautiful landscapes and local customs - keeping mummies of the loved ones in the house for example and humiliating sexist traditions - cattles for a dowry etc.

Communion - Anna Zamecka

Ola, a 14-year old school girl is the focal point of Anna Zameca's intense documentary on fractured family in Poland. We also get the glimpse of a still deeply religious society. Ola has her hands full taking care of her autistic brother, Nicodem, and drunkard father. The film takes place when Nicodem's communion is approaching. Using the communion as an excuse, Ola tries to reunite her family with their estranged mom, who lives apart and has a baby with another man.

Ola is pretty much a mom to Nicodem, she bathes, clothes, feeds and takes care of his school needs. She is also a strict disciplinarian with her alcoholic dad, calls him to make sure he comes back home from pubs, no TV while baby's sleeping, shuts him off from saying incriminating things to welfare officers. She sweeps, washes, cleans and tends to the wood burning oven, yet she likes to put on a dress and have a good time at school dance.

Zameca captures some astonishing moments of intimacy and authenticity in a tiny, cluttered home. It also puts a spotlight on autism and how many societies are not equipped to deal with it. Nicodem is treated like a normal kid both in school and in the church. He definitely severely affected in his speech, attention, and repeated hand gestures. Yet is that kid who is 'a little strange'. It's also kind of scary to hear moments of clarity when he says things out of the blue. At one point in the bathtub, he repeats "The reality becomes fiction."

It's a family where the child parent roles are reversed in all functionality. She acutely observes that Ola growing up way faster because she has to- yet she is still a child who naively hopes that their family will be together again. Komunia is a heart breaking, beautiful film.

Railway Sleepers - Sompot Chidagosornpongse

Part love letter to the Thai railway system, part documentary, part experimental, this Apichatpong Weerasethakul produced film moves along from Northern Thailand to South, recording two days and two nights of locomotive travel. First inaugurated by King Rama V in 1890s, Thai railways are revered and regarded as the nation's backbone. We see travelers of all ages and social strata, eating, talking, gazing and sleeping in a confined biosphere, a great microcosm of the world as it were- two recent previous films come to mind as a great example of this - Bong Joonho's dystopian Sci-Fi Snowpiercer and J.P. Sniadecki's artful Iron Ministry. Railway Sleepers feels more personal and intimate. Its slightly moving camera as the train moves along, captures day in the life of ordinary Thais. The film has that lulling hypnotic effect: it's as if the gently undulating train cars with that unmistakable, repetitive sound of a train rolling on the tracks invites you to sleep.

Exiled - Marcelo Novais Teles

Marcelo Novais Teles, a young Brazilian man, moves to Paris to pursue an acting career in the 80s documents his life in grainy Super-8, Hi-8 and DV. L'Exilé is at once a deeply personal film and a time capsule of a certain generation of French filmmakers/actors. Teles, with his soulful face and charming accent, was able to surround himself with like-minded young, struggling artists. The film is filled with their honest conversations on life, art, love...etc. There are some recognizable faces in French cinema popping up now and then in Teles' home video footage - most notably Mathieu Amalric. This is way before he became famous.

There are a lot of footage of Teles playing with his friends' kids (including Amalric and Balibar's later on). Forever bachelor and struggling with his loneliness being an illegal alien in a foreign country, he shows his anxiety about constantly producing something meaningful in his lifetime.

As we watch an honest depiction of someone's life floating by- hope, ambition, love, regret, even considering the specificity of Teles' circumstances, we realize how universal our 20-30s are. Beautifully edited and intimate, L'Exilé is something that every struggling artist can relate to.

Colo - Teresa Villaverde

"We are not at war and no one's ill!" shouts Marta (Alice Albergaria Borges), a teen girl in a household disintegrating under the weight of economic hardship in Portugal. She is merely responding to her hard working mom, who announces that Marta and her unemployed father needs to move to grandma's house temporarily because they can't afford the rent or electricity. There is a time in one's lives, like a war or illness in the family which force us to rely on other family members is what mom tells her. Marta's response encapsulates what Colo and its sad characters are about.

Dad (João Pedro Vaz) spends days soliciting job interviews which he never gets responses from. Completely beaten by the circumstances, he is a hull of a human who can't do anything other than sulking. Mom, doing double shift to support her family, is exhausted and irritable all the time. Marta, going through teen years, gets heartbroken by a boy and falls in with a pregnant bad girl classmate Julia (Clara Jost). Everyone in Colo wants a way out of the situation they are in and out of the family.

Teresa Villaverde takes her time to build the characters but at times it seems things are too stretched out, as if we are seeing things in real time. There are several great moments though. No electricity affords some painterly scenes and there are a lot of beautiful connections among characters. Carefully written and sensitively treated, Colo shows the effect of economic devastation on a family.

The Lives of Thérèse - Sébastien Lifshits

Sébastien Lifshits shifts his gears toward an old pioneer of LGBT movement in a solemn, unsentimental fashion in The Lives of Thérèse, from his usual beautiful young gay subjects in glitzy style. Thérèse Clerc was one of Lifshits' subjects in his documentary The Invisible Ones (2012) where he chronicled LGBT pioneers. As Clerc is dying of an old age, they mutually decided to record her final moments.

Here Lifshits doesn't reinvent the wheel of documentary or anything. But he approaches his remarkable subject directly with an utmost respect and love.

Clerc, as an activist for women's rights movement and fought for LGBT rights, was a subservient wife with 4 kids who had an awakening in 1968 revolution, divorced her husband, and became a lesbian at 40. The film consists of Clerc's daily routine of conversing with doctors at the hospital, with her grown up children and other friends. Her children talk frankly about their upbringing, their mother's sexuality and her approaching inevitable death. Clerc admits her body failing even though her mind is still the same. She talks with a young feminist about her sexuality- back then, homosexuality was a political act, the act of defiance. The young woman disagrees with her, that in her generation, homosexuality is out in the open, that she can be a feminist and a heterosexual.

The Lives of Thérèse is not as serene as Haneke's Amour. Often Lifshits captures Clerc in closeups as she falls asleep from exhaustion but the camera movement and color are all love. The film much more than a feminist manifesto. It's a celebration of an extraordinary woman who lived her life fully and loving tribute by those who loved and admired her.

Get Your New Year's Cinephilia on with MoMI's First Look 2016

Starting this Friday and running for three consecutive weekends (1/8-1/24), in their beautiful state of the art theater in Queens, Astoria, the Museum of Moving Image's First Look Film Festival is fast becoming a new New York institution for many film aficionados. Selecting its roster from cinema's most cutting edge filmmakers, the 5th edition of First Look opens with the US premiere of Alexandr Sokurov's new film Francofonia.

Switching gears a bit this year with guest programmers such as Jean-Pierre Rehm of FIDMarseille, and Aliza Ma of Metrograph and Mónica Savirón, along with chief curator David Schwartz, this year's eclectic roster is heavy on the experimental/avant-garde/documentary.

It includes renowned experimental filmmaker Ken Jacobs' new films in 3D, Canadian video artist Dominic Gagnon's youtube culled Inuit epic Of the North, artist Margaret Honda's 70mm silent film Spectrum Reverse Spectrum, short films of Austrian visual artist Björn Kämmerer and Philippe Grandrieux's new film, Meurtrière (his continued exploration of bodies which started with White Epilepsy).

Then there are behind-the-scenes documentaries from Léa Rinaldi (This is What It Is- about Los Aldeanos, the most popular hip-hop group in Cuba, Traveling at Night with Jim Jarmusch and Behind Jim Jarmusch), a documentary on João Bérnard da Costa, a director of the Portuguese Film Museum in conjunction with Nicholas Ray's Johnny Guitar.

Here is how chief curator David Schwartz describes this year's edition in the press release:

This year's edition is a true cinephile's feast, filled with works that reflect on the medium itself, that urge us to reconsider our intimate connection to the ways that we experience cinema. as always, the films in First Look cannot be easily defined. They are artisan works, expressing distinct personal visions, with a strong emphasis this year on avant-garde cinema. To engage in the new possibilties of an art form is also to engage with the past, and this edition of First Look contains an ongoing dialogue with film history, with a selection of older works in dialogue withthe many premieres.

Twitch's own Christopher Bourne will be reporting on some of these selections in a short while, so keep a look out.

First Run Film Festival 2016 runs 1/8 to 1/24 at Museum of Moving Image. Please visit MoMI website for further information and showtimes.

Panorama Europe 2014 at MoMI and Bohemian National Hall

Making films is an all consuming affair: the time and energy and money and talent that put into one film production is staggering. Yet, year after year, tens and thousands films go unnoticed, unseen, not just in this country, but everywhere. Disappearing Act, a New York tradition for the last half a decade, has devoted itself to seek out some of the most daring, noteworthy films from continental Europe, which would've undoubtedly gone undistributed and unseen in the States. I had covered Disappearing Acts in the Past. This year, I got to see 3 films in advance. The series runs April 4 - 13. For a complete list of the films and tickets, go to MoMI website.

Programmed by David Schwartz, Chief Curator, Museum of the Moving Image

Co-presented by Museum of the Moving Image and the European Union National Institutes for Culture, Panorama Europe is a unique showcase of seventeen contemporary European features and a program of short films. Formerly known as Disappearing Act, the newly re-named festival continues the mission of showcasing vital European filmmaking as distribution remains challenging for foreign-language films in the United States. Panorama Europe gives New York audiences what may be their only chance to see these acclaimed films from the festival circuit on the big screen. This year’s festival will take place at Museum of the Moving Image in Queens and at Bohemian National Hall in Manhattan.  

SEDUCE ME (dir. Janko Mandic, Slovenia)

With cheers and a cake, Luka (Janko Mandic) moves out of a youth home where he spent the last 9 years of his life. He finds a lodging and a job at a slaughterhouse with the help of a social worker. His emotionless mother is still alive but he's not in a hurry to see her. At the job, he befriends Ajda (Nina Rakovec), a foreman's daughter who is working there because she has to pay her abusive dad back for the new car she just bought. And the foreman is none too happy about their relationship. Ajda is a thrill seeker and only wants pleasure in life which suits young Luka fine at first, but her willful disinterests in his life and background rubs him the wrong way. While she undresses him, he protests that they don't know anything about each other.

Luka has a good head on his shoulders and a good heart, and is tasting adulthood for the first time. I'm pretty sure Mandic's natural boyish presence will bring out strong paternal/maternal instincts out in the audience. Just like Antoine Doinel and many others before him, Luka makes you root for him as he struggles through life's many incongruities.
The setting of Seduce Me is not a glamorous one. Drab scenery in Ljubljana, Slovenia is seen through the windows of the bus which Luka takes to his even more depressing job. It contrasts with the beautiful forest seen from the train as Luka visits his mother. I interpret the title as Luka crying out for the life ahead of him, the lure of his future. However drab his circumstances are, we know that he is too good and earnest for it and deserves something better. It reminded me strongly of Atmen (Breathing) by Karl Markovics, from a couple of years back. They both are about a good youth trying to survive something called adulthood. Seduce Me is a beautifully written and directed feature film debut by Marko Santic. I'd love to see more from him.


HONEYMOON (dir. Jan Hřebejk, Czech Republic/Slovakia)

In veteran Czech director Jan Hřebejk's new film, the honeymoon period is astonishingly short.
It's the wedding day of a well-to-do, handsome couple, Tereza (Anna Geislerová) and Radim (Stanislav Majer). It's an ideal setting for the happy couple - friends and family, a big lakeside house, nature, booze, dancing and lots of shrieking children. Everyone is having a great time... except for one: a nebbish optician who calls himself Jan. This uninvited guest shows up at the reception, claiming to be Radim's old schoolmate. As the day winds down, Jan's sour talk on the marriage takes a toll on Tereza's mood. He refuses to leave until she opens his wedding present which turns out to be an urn filled with someone's remains. She has to confront Radim about his past and needs to decide if she wants to marry someone she hardly knows.
Honeymoon is a tense drama in the same vein as Thomas Vinterberg's Celebration. The taboo subject here is severe bullying. Hřebejk skillfully drops hints from the beginning that this idyllic setup has a dirty secret. The film asks us just how much of one's past sins others can forgive and live with. It also puts so-called 'masculinity' under the microscope. Jan and his dead friend's experience is a blood curdlingly horrendous one. The savage bullying sequences involving a effeminate boy being forced to dress up as Nastassja Kinski in the flashbacks are heart wrenching. The heartbreaking third act examines that people might never change who they really are. Hřebejk leaves the film open ended, suggesting that the couple's future is uncertain. And thanks to this film, I can't look at Nastassja Kinski the same way ever again.


FISH N' CHIPS (dir. Elias Demetriou, Cyprus)

Elias Demetriou, a citizen of Cyprus, Britain and Greece, tries to navigate through a complicated modern European geo-socio-political landscape. The film's protagonist is Andy (Marios Iannou, giving a down-to-earth, affecting performance here), a Fish n' Chips shop manager in a working class London neighborhood. Andy decides to take a trip back to Cyprus with his aging mom and his East-German girlfriend Karin and her grown-up daughter Emma. Once in Cyprus while crashing at his seemingly well-to-do brother's house, Andy decides to set up a chip shop, only to find out that Cypriots, who are comfortable basking in Mediterranean sun and eating kebabs, have no appetite for thick battered fried fish. After the drug fueled beach party to jumpstart the shop goes wrong and his senile mom goes missing, Andy has to make a choice: does he stay in his native country where he is seen as a foreigner or does he go back to London, where most of his adult life has been spent, where locals still harass him and call him Paki?

Fish n' Chips tells an all-too-familiar, down and out story of an immigrant whose loyalty and cultural identity become at odds. Despite strong, earnest performances by everyone involved, with on-the-nose dialog and a tiresome plot, the film ends up soaked in melodrama.

First Look 2014 at The Museum of Moving Image

MoMI (Museum of Moving Image) presents First Look, a bona fide film series showcasing new works by established filmmakers and first timers alike from all corners of the globe, carefully selected by the esteemed curatorial staff (first by Critic Denis Lim now David Schwartz and Aliza Ma). Quietly nestled in post-New Year hangover days with crazy award season just around the corner.First Look is fast becoming one of the most sought after film series in New York City. The series runs from January 9 - 19.

This is where I first saw Chantal Akerman's gorgeous new film Almayer's Folly and Philippe Grandrieux's loving documentary, It May Be That Beauty Has Strengthened Our Resolve: Masao Adachi, on the Japanese New Wave great Masao Adachi in its inaugural edition two years ago. Last year, the series graced me with Bruno Dumont's seldom seen 2011 masterpiece, Hors Satan (one of my very favorites of last year) and a beautiful three-hour documentary on the remote island of Corvo and its inhabitants off of Azores, It's The Earth, Not The Moon.

This year, they are presenting 13 features and 6 shorts on two consecutive weekends, including Godfrey Reggio's new film The Visitors with Philip Glass's score, Glass will be presenting the screening along with Steven Soderberg. The opening night's film, Little Feet is a new work by American Indie staple, Alexander Rockwell (In the Soup, Somebody to Love). I am particularly interested in seeing the Chilean offerings, The Quispe Girls and The Summer of Flying Fish, as well as Ape (pictured above) by Joel Potrycus. For any cinephiles, First Look offers a great start to a new year.

Please go to the MoMI website for more info, schedule and tickets.

"I Don't Need to be Put on a Pedestal": Claire Denis Interview

Claire Denis goes all-out noir in Bastards, a brooding, nocturnal thriller where innocents get punished and good men die. With a star studded cast, Denis creates a film experience so seductive and mesmerizing, it reminded me of the exhilaration that I haven't felt in theaters since, gosh, maybe Mulholland Dr.?

The film's strong sexual contents are stirring controversy since it debuted at Cannes (in Un Certain Regard section). It will be a divisive film for sure. But there is no question that the film demonstrates Denis as a filmmaker in her prime. I had a pleasure of chatting with her for the second time since her last outing to NYFF with White Material in 2010.

BASTARDS plays out like a hardboiled film noir in the vein of James M. Cain and reminiscent of CHINATOWN. I know it's co-written by your long time collaborator Jean-Pol Fargeau. Is the story based on anything?

Yes, it was based on something. I wanted to work once more with Vincent Lindon (they collaborated in Friday Night, 2003) and have him to play someone like James Caan or Toshiro Mifune -- someone solid, someone we can depend on. But I like seeing bad things happening to those hero types. So I started with some Kurosawa revenge movies from the [60s] -- Bad Sleep Well and High and Low. Then with Jean-Pol, we decided that if we wanted to do a noir that we will write it straight forward, scene by scene, brick by brick. Otherwise it wouldn't work because I have a tendency to revise again and again and again.

There is a plot but like many of your other films, it's all about the mood and atmosphere you create. I'm wondering how much of the script is translated on the screen?

In Bastards, the script was exactly the blueprint of the film. Nothing was invented on the set. One scene was cut and I wanted the killing of Marco to take place on the seaside. They were going to carry the little boy off by the boat and she (Chiara Mastroianni's character) shoots him and he falls into the sea. But that' about it. The weather was bad and it was going to cost too much. Other than that, there was really no big change made. Everything was planned well and it was different than shooting in other countries where I have no control over all those sudden changes. I love the locations and it was very easy shooting in Paris.

The mesmerizing soundtrack, once again, is composed by Stuart Staples (of Tindersticks). How does this collaboration work?

We are always in the process together. We go through the script and we discuss, then he sees the dailies. In this film, I told him about Tangerine Dream. I wanted something electronic, something inhuman.

It's really gorgeous.

The way Stuart helps me with the project, he is not only a working companion or musician. He's much more than that. He is someone who I trust so much. In White Material, he was the only one who made me cut out a scene. I wouldn't do it for anyone but he said, "I don't understand that scene," and I said, "Alright, if YOU don't understand it, I'll cut it out."

Wow.

No it's because...he is such a great poet, such a great musician. His feelings are so intense.

And his sensibility matches with what you are trying to do?

It's more like I try to match with him.

You are so modest.

I'm not modest, you know. When you are making films, you are clumsy because you have to take care of a lot of stuff. I'm not exaggerating about Stuart. A collaboration with him is like me flying and he is my co-pilot.

So the great Agnes Godard again shot your film. And for the first time you shot on digital video. I'd like to know what you think about the whole digital revolution that's been happening and if you liked the result shooting on video.

Of course, I like the result. We chose to shoot the film that way, so it had to work. I was happy to do it. I was thinking about shooting White Material on video already. But I thought the look of digital was too cold for the project. So we chose to shoot with low speed Kodak film with almost pinkish tone to express the heat on Isabelle [Huppert]'s face. This heat you can't get it on digital, unless you add it in [color] timing in post. But it's not the same. It still seemed too cold to me. The heat comes from the depth of field and the reaction to the film itself. For instance, when it's very hot, the RED EPIC camera won't work. You have to put an icepack around the camera. Because digital can't stand that kind of heat.

Right. The camera itself gets very hot.

Yeah and it needs to get ventilated all the time. And it's very noisy on the set. It only gets quiet when it's recording. It's like having a computer on set. It took me a week to recreate the relationship I had with Agnes because I don't like to watch film on monitors and I like to be close to the camera. So in the beginning, I felt I was outside the film for a while and I had to fight my way back!

Would you shoot on digital again?

Sure. The thing about shooting digital is trying not to make it look like film. If it looks like digital, it's fine with me.

BASTARDS is stunning though. I love how it looks. And I'm a film guy. But I teach college students how to use digital equipment now. And a lot of kids are not shooting film anymore and it makes me feel sad.

I've seen The Master by PT Anderson last year, shot on 70mm. I mean, wow--

Not many people are doing that though.

I know it's expensive and everything, but it's such a different experience. We should fight to keep them both.

We should.

Because it expresses something else.

I totally agree.

Let me move on to the actors. Whew, such a star studded cast in this one, including your regulars -- Vincent Lindon, Alex Descas, Michel Subor and Gregoire Collin and some actors you haven't worked with before -- Chiara Mastroianni and Lola Créton. I'm wondering if you had those actors in mind when you were planning this film.

I had Chiara in mind for such a long time. But we were shy about approaching each other. And she is an impressive actress, you know? Then we became very close. And Lola, I saw her in two films and I immediately wanted to work with her.

Was the process of working with those two any different than working with your regulars?

No. But I spent a lot of time together with Lola before shooting. I wanted her not to be afraid and trust me and to be the master of the ceremony. I didn't want her to be the victim. So I spent a lot of time with her for that. And Chiara, I know her well, so the trust was already there. But she is someone who doesn't need a lot of psychological explanation. She does it without being told. And it's good for me because I don't like explaining things. So it just the question of being together with those two.

But Vincent is different. He needs a lot of explanation. He always needs more and more. It's because he is such a generous actor. He's always afraid he is not giving you enough.

I saw Lola Créton last year at the festival here.

For Olivier Assayas'?

For Mia Hansen-Løve's GOODBYE FIRST LOVE.

Ah yes.

She was doing a Q&A session and she was so amazingly shy. But in GOODBYE FIRST LOVE, she just gives it all. I am wondering if it was the same for you.

She is shy but you can be shy at the same time as strong. She is both.

There was controversy this year at the Cannes Film Festival where people were protesting the lack of women filmmakers represented. Do you think those objections have merits?

I don't care if I don't win competition. I just don't have time to think about that. If I did, I would become furious. So I'd drop the thing completely and just accept everything I'm given. I remember once watching a Godard movie and afterward I was in a bar next to the theater with Agnes Varda, eating and drinking wine because Agnes was starving. Godard walked by us without giving us any attention and Agnes called him out, "Hey, Jean-Luc Godard doesn't even say hello to me?" So he turned around and said in a slightly sarcastic, slightly comical way "You expect to be decorated (like Legion d'honneur) eh?" as if wanting any acknowledgment was a sin. She said, "Look Jean-Luc, I'd accept everything I'm given." And from then on, I think, 'yes this is true: it's better to accept everything you are given and try not to contest'. It's a waste of time. The controversy about Bastards...I accept it too. I don't feel like a victim just because I'm a woman. I might be victim of myself but not of others.

The thing is, I really want you to be recognized at some point though. You are one of the great directors of our time and I feel sad you don't get that recognition.

Then, what the fuck?! You know what I mean? What can I do about that? Some people like my work and some people don't. Maybe my films are too weird. For some people I am important, but a pedestal I don't need.

Museum of Moving Image is doing mini retro of Claire Denis which culminates to the preview screening of Bastards on Oct. 22, a day before its release in New York. It has a limited release in theaters, VOD and Digital on Oct. 25. Please visit MOMI website and IFC Entertainment website for tickets.

Here is my short review for Bastards

My Claire Denis Interview Nov, 2010

Reviews:

Chocolat
Beau Travail
White Material
Vendredi Soir/Friday Night
35 Rhums

Down with the Old

Palacíos de Pena/Palaces of Pity (2011) - Abrantes/Schmidt

The film opens with the same Vangelis score for Blade Runner in a giant football stadium where our two teen girl protags stretch their legs before a football match. The blonde one is 14 and the dark haired one is 13 and they are cousins. Their ancient grandmother is old and trying to decide just who will inherit her fortune. The grandma sets up a test for them to see which would be a better choice in her gigantic estate near an ominous dam.

The film is a constant battle of opposing images and texture- enormous concrete structures, baby goat, huge glass windows, teenage girls' faces, looming trees and mountains and ipad... After a night of hard drinking and dancing, the girls come home and crash on grandma's lap. The grandma tells her dream where she is a grand inquisitor condemning two young Arab boys to the stake for fondling each other. In the morning, the girls find their grandma dead, and the cousins become rivals for the inheritance.

Weird, dreamlike and beautiful, Palaces of Pity is a playful take on rejecting the old ways of Portugal. It shares thematic similarity with current Greek cinema where generation gap takes an ugly turn. But Abrantes and Schmidt distinguish themselves with sensual imagery. To start a new, the clueless and carefree young'uns will even burn the palace down without knowing the country's history!

Beauty + Art

It Maybe That Beauty Has Strengthened Our Resolve: Masao Adachi (2011) - Grandrieux

Grandrieux is not in a hurry to introduce Masao Adachi, a radical Japanese Red Army member/filmmaker who preached armed struggle in the 60s. Beauty starts with Adachi, an affable white haired old man narrating free association style while pushing his granddaughter in a swing. With his usual hand held camera, Grandrieux walks among the Japanese crowd in Shinjuku, takes a taxi ride and retraces the steps of Tarkovsky's Solaris (driving scene). Adachi tells an anecdote about reading Jean Genet's Thief's Journal out loud with Oshima while writing The Diary of Shinjuku Thief. Adachi to Grandrieux is a hero, because he's always been trying to find a new ways to looking at the world socially and aesthetically. "Cinema moves from one film to another through time, above and beyond those who make it." Grandrieux muses. Less a biography than an examination of difficulties integrating art in politics/life in a meaningful way, Beauty is a beautiful and contemplative documentary I won't soon forget.

Freedom Song

La Follie Almayer/Almayer's Folly (2011) - Akerman

Akerman stepping into Claire Denis territory? Loosely based on Joseph Conrad's first novel of the same title, the film finds a disillusioned French colonialist (Stanislas Merhar) deep in Malaysian jungle living with his loveless native wife and a half-breed daughter, Nina (Aurora Marion). Still dreaming of making it big in the mines with his shady business partner/former captain Linguard (Marc Barbé), while boozing and being nostalgic about great Europe, Almayer obliges Linguard's insistence to take his beloved daughter and put her in a boarding school in the city to be 'a proper woman' and join the European society in the future.

In the film's stunning beginning, Nina is seen dancing along with other girls in the background while her lover Dain croons (lip synching) an Elvis song at an outdoor club. As Dain gets stabbed to death, Nina takes the stage and sings. In Akerman's eyes, Nina emerges as the main character, not her pathetic, broken father. With its non linear structure, lush surroundings and long takes, Akerman creates some really blissful cinematic moments. At other times, it becomes a little tedious, especially with Merhar. I wish she chose Barbé (who resembles sedated Kinski and just as charismatic) for the title role and vice versa.

Almayer's Folly is a film of considerable hypnotic power. It hadn't left my head since seeing it on Friday.