Jan. 3, 2018 By Tara Law
A film festival known for showing innovative films from around the world will return this Friday to The Museum of the Moving Image for its seventh year.
This year’s First Look festival will host more than two dozen films from Jan. 5 to Jan. 15. The festival will feature films from Brazil, Canada, Croatia, France, Palestine, Syria, Georgia, the U.S. and elsewhere.
Tickets for each event are $15, or $20 for the opening night event. A festival pass is $45.
The festival will kick off on Jan. 5 at 7:30 p.m. with the U.S. premiere of PROTOTYPE, a 3-D sci-fi film made in Canada. The film immerses viewers in the aftermath of the Great Galveston Hurricane of 1900, the deadliest natural disaster in U.S. history where thousands died.
The premiere will be attended by the film’s director, Blake Williams, and there will be a reception afterward.
Three of the films that will be screened were nominated for the Cinema Eye Honors awards, which recognizes innovative nonfiction films.
These films are “Communion,” “Taste of Cement,” and “You Have No Idea How Much I Love You.”
In the Polish film “Communion,” a young girl cares for her autistic brother and her dysfunctional father in the absence of her mother, all the while preparing for her First Holy Communion. The film will be shown on Jan. 6 at 5 p.m. Director Anna Zamecka will be in attendance. The film is in Polish with English subtitles.
“Taste of Cement,” a documentary filmed in Lebanon and Syria, explores the lives of Syrian refugees who work as construction workers in Lebanon. The film will be screened on Jan 7 at 2 p.m., and will be followed by a video chat with cinematographer Talal Khoury. The film is in Arabic with English subtitles.
“You Have No Idea How Much I Love You,” a documentary filmed in Poland, depicts a session between a mother, daughter and a therapist. The film will be shown on Jan. 13 at 4:30 p.m. The film is in Polish with English subtitles.
The festival has been organized by David Schwartz, chief curator of the Museum of the Moving Image and Associate Film Curator Eric Hynes.
For a complete list of films, visit movingimage.us/firstlook2018.
Scene from Prototype (Museum of the Moving Image)
One Comment
Wow. 25 different movies in about 10 days.
Some seem a little artsy for me but there also seem to be some winners (for me) I’ll definitely go over and see a couple.
Support your neighborhood folks!