Speaker 1: Oh jeez, folks, it's showtime.
Speaker 2: People say good money to see this movie.
Speaker 3: When they go out to a theater, they want clothed sodas, pop, popcorn,
Speaker 3: and no monsters in the projection booths. Everyone for tend
Speaker 3: podcasting isn't boring?
Speaker 4: Got it off?
Speaker 5: Hey, folks, welcome to a special episode of the Projection Booth.
Speaker 5: This is your host, Mike White. I am joined once
Speaker 5: again by Edo Choi and Eric Hines, two of the
Speaker 5: programmers at the MOMI First Look Festival. The festival is
Speaker 5: happening this year March twelfth through March sixteenth over at
Speaker 5: the Museum of the Moving Image. Had a great time
Speaker 5: talking with Ato and Eric yet another great batch of
Speaker 5: films that they have curated for us to see this year.
Speaker 5: Check out everything over at movingimage dot org and just
Speaker 5: search for First Look twenty twenty five. You'll find the
Speaker 5: whole program, as well as where you can get passes
Speaker 5: and how much those are. Thank you so much for listening,
Speaker 5: and I hope you enjoyed this interview. Eric and Edo,
Speaker 5: thank you so much for joining me again today. I'm
Speaker 5: super excited to talk about this latest First Look festival. Gosh,
Speaker 5: remind me how many years have you been doing this now?
Speaker 3: This is the fourteenth year of Wower of Worse Look,
Speaker 3: and it's the tenth year that I've been a part of,
Speaker 3: so it had to be strong four years before I
Speaker 3: even got there, and now we're looking at fourteen, So
Speaker 3: very on the cusp of the fifteenth en verse.
Speaker 2: I kind of use you guys as my canary and
Speaker 2: Nicole mine. As far as the state of new films festivals,
Speaker 2: the work all year going out looking at new things,
Speaker 2: bringing in the best of the best to have this festival.
Speaker 2: What was your experience like this year? Feels like everything's
Speaker 2: back now. Are we open across the board? Are you
Speaker 2: still virtual festing?
Speaker 3: Very much back, very much traveling, And honestly, all but
Speaker 3: Sundance has abandoned online in any significant way. There are
Speaker 3: a few festivals that still will do once the festival
Speaker 3: proper is done in first and they'll do a little
Speaker 3: online version, but really Sundance is the only one that's
Speaker 3: continuing to do online availability during the course of the festival.
Speaker 3: So no fully in person Ato and I made our
Speaker 3: way around quite a bit, I can say for myself.
Speaker 3: I went to can and Docufest in Kosovo, Millennium, Doxkan's
Speaker 3: Gravity in Warsaw, if An Amsterdam, doc Leipzig in Germany,
Speaker 3: and on at over the spots that I'm missing that
Speaker 3: you went to.
Speaker 1: I only went to one festival I think this year
Speaker 1: I went to, but it was a big It was Venice.
Speaker 1: I quite enjoyed myself and saw one movie that we
Speaker 1: brought to the festival, which is Israel Palestine on Swedish TV,
Speaker 1: which hopefully we'll get to talk about more today.
Speaker 3: Yeah. The way that Ed and I do it is
Speaker 3: that we certainly do a fair amount of watching links
Speaker 3: and getting sent things, but we also really like to
Speaker 3: not rely on that and find things on our own
Speaker 3: that we're interested in that we think would be a
Speaker 3: good fit first look. I think the good thing is
Speaker 3: that as first look goes along, we get sent things
Speaker 3: people walk to play with us. But also not good
Speaker 3: at rest and think that everybody's coming our way. There
Speaker 3: are still films and filmmakers and festivals that were not
Speaker 3: as familiar with us, so we can make our presence known.
Speaker 2: I'd also ask about the themes that you might have
Speaker 2: seen throughout the year, some of these new films. Obviously,
Speaker 2: when we talked a few years ago, we were talking
Speaker 2: a lot about Ukraine and just the situation there. We've
Speaker 2: been undergoing the Israeli Palestine conflict for over a year now.
Speaker 2: But I'm curious, apart from just more torn stuff, but
Speaker 2: what kind of trends are you guys seeing as far
Speaker 2: as the films that are out there, if any.
Speaker 3: One thing, I'll say before we get to some discernible trends,
Speaker 3: one thing that we're also conscious of is to not
Speaker 3: follow those trends to slavishly or because you know, put
Speaker 3: it this way, a couple of years ago, the Ukraine
Speaker 3: films were multiple and important. We're also made a point
Speaker 3: to pick up a film this year that's an extraordinary
Speaker 3: film about the war in Ukraine that I think that
Speaker 3: has been overlooked because other festivals are a little done
Speaker 3: with it. But I feel like that trend was a
Speaker 3: couple of years ago. But war doesn't really work that way.
Speaker 3: I think programming should work that way either. So we're
Speaker 3: showing this film that ETO saw in Venice called Sums
Speaker 3: of Slow Burning Earth, which is extraordinary and so glad
Speaker 3: that we have an opportunity to show it. It is
Speaker 3: both a harrowing picture of war but also at the
Speaker 3: same time almost just be basically exquisitely made and has
Speaker 3: a sequence in there that's probably the most powerful as
Speaker 3: scene of any film coming out of that conflict. So
Speaker 3: just noting that there are new trends, but there's also
Speaker 3: things that maybe others think are no longer in trend,
Speaker 3: but we make sure that if the films are strong,
Speaker 3: that we make space for them.
Speaker 1: I think that there are trends in programming as much
Speaker 1: as there are trends in movies, and we definitely try,
Speaker 1: in our kind of modest facitating to push the envelope
Speaker 1: a little bit in terms of trying to, you know,
Speaker 1: veer away from some of the trends that we see
Speaker 1: in these larger festivals that we visit around the world.
Speaker 1: And I would say, when it comes to Slow Burning Earth,
Speaker 1: the Ukrainian film that we're so proud to be representing
Speaker 1: that Eric just described so beautifully, it's a film that
Speaker 1: I think was taken for granted, even in the sense
Speaker 1: that people just saw it in a lineup and then
Speaker 1: didn't actually go to see it. That I attended the
Speaker 1: world premiere screening of that film at Venice, and frankly
Speaker 1: it was a little under attended relative capacity in that room,
Speaker 1: and actually the other film I mentioned from Venice, Israel
Speaker 1: Palestine on Swedish TV, also a little undertended for a
Speaker 1: world premiere. These are big rooms, so it's all relative.
Speaker 1: But I do think it kind of points to a
Speaker 1: certain fatigue that people have with some of the storylines
Speaker 1: that they see in the news. But these are really
Speaker 1: important stories, obviously, and the films more even more importantly,
Speaker 1: are very good treatments of these subjects and they're very illuminating.
Speaker 2: Ones mentioned the Israel Palestine on Swedish TV. Can you
Speaker 2: talk a little bit more about that, because I mentioned
Speaker 2: the conflict that's going on, But this comes at things
Speaker 2: a little bit differently.
Speaker 1: The filmmaker Goren Hugo Olsen has been making arkibal films
Speaker 1: for several years now and has developed quite a reputation
Speaker 1: as a master of arkibol, a foot in filmmaking and research,
Speaker 1: and he's best known for a film that he made
Speaker 1: I think over a decade ago now called The Black
Speaker 1: Power Mixtape. And I was, you know, quite honestly surprised
Speaker 1: that this latest film from him, especially considering that it's
Speaker 1: on such an important subject, hasn't been out of Venice.
Speaker 3: It hasn't traveled as much.
Speaker 1: We're going to be giving it its us premier and
Speaker 1: so I'm very proud of that for us.
Speaker 3: And it's just power.
Speaker 1: What Lauren does is that he allows this very rich
Speaker 1: trove of archival material to speak for itself and to
Speaker 1: tell a story that can't be reduced to one narrative
Speaker 1: or another interests narrative or another. And I think, you know,
Speaker 1: it's kind of immense achievement what he's done.
Speaker 3: With That would add to that too, is that what's
Speaker 3: interesting about it is he's good at this in terms
Speaker 3: of his other prior films that he takes what it
Speaker 3: could is a limitation of an archive or the parameters
Speaker 3: of an archive, and lets that define what it is.
Speaker 3: In this sense, it is exactly what's in the title right.
Speaker 3: This is basically how Swedish team it covered this conflict
Speaker 3: over the course of forty years, and so what you
Speaker 3: get is how that coverage evolves over times. You get
Speaker 3: the history of the concept b you also get this
Speaker 3: kind of third element, which is the sort of Swedish
Speaker 3: coverage of it. And so it allows you, as a viewer,
Speaker 3: I think, to approach this topic in a way they
Speaker 3: couldn't otherwise, which is sort of look over people's shoulders
Speaker 3: as they make their way through time. Like that really
Speaker 3: unique experience to watch this them.
Speaker 2: Another film that plays with limitations that is going to
Speaker 2: be playing at the festival is Zodiac Keller Project. Can
Speaker 2: you talk a little bit about that, because trying to
Speaker 2: describe this film it's a little bit of a challenge,
Speaker 2: but it's so interesting and so much fun to watch.
Speaker 3: So this is Charlie Shackleton, who I think in my
Speaker 3: ten years at the festival, maybe this is the sixth
Speaker 3: time had him. I think that's the record. I can't
Speaker 3: imagine there being a different record. Maybe I don't knows
Speaker 3: of somebody else who maybe in the experimental circles who
Speaker 3: even beats that. But Charlie's, again, the as far as
Speaker 3: I'm concerned, like the ideal first look filmmaker in this
Speaker 3: sense that he's changing every single year. It seems project
Speaker 3: to project what he does and how he does it.
Speaker 3: He thinks about the form, he thinks about the implications
Speaker 3: of form, and he is also in conversation with what
Speaker 3: popular culture is doing. He made a film with Fear Itself,
Speaker 3: which is about it kind of dissecting horror films and
Speaker 3: making an archival film that is an essay in horror films,
Speaker 3: and the so called beyond Clueless, examining the legacy of clueless.
Speaker 3: He's played in VR, he's done live live performance work,
Speaker 3: and last year he did a three D film that
Speaker 3: kind of takes on the sort of mechanics of three D.
Speaker 3: This is in some ways, I totally say what you're saying, Mike,
Speaker 3: but it's someways it's hard to describe. In other ways,
Speaker 3: it's almost like too simple, in the sense that he
Speaker 3: was trying to make a true crime film with his
Speaker 3: own take on it, and was looking to license the
Speaker 3: rights of a book written by a police officer who
Speaker 3: was or a detective who was involved in the Zodiac
Speaker 3: killer chase at some point, and got funding, got it
Speaker 3: all set up as even found locations, and then the
Speaker 3: rights just didn't come through, And so, rather than abandoning
Speaker 3: the project as most people would in that situation, being Charlie,
Speaker 3: he decides to dance a tightrope around telling you the
Speaker 3: film that she would have made and sometimes showing you
Speaker 3: the things he would have done, while constantly telling you
Speaker 3: where he may be going too far. In terms of
Speaker 3: violating the right right. So it's about there is information
Speaker 3: there about the Zodiac Killer who the book at its core,
Speaker 3: but it's also about the challenges of adaptation, and also
Speaker 3: about true crime as a culture right now and what
Speaker 3: it does to documentary film and how dominant it is
Speaker 3: in questioning that along the way. So it does what
Speaker 3: you're saying, all these things at the same time, and
Speaker 3: yet on its core it's basically I'm going to tell
Speaker 3: you a story about a film I can't make.
Speaker 2: I love that experimental nature of things and just having
Speaker 2: the movie opening with that parking lot and saying what
Speaker 2: would have happened? And I just love that. So many
Speaker 2: of these films are just pushing that envelope and really
Speaker 2: giving you something that you wouldn't see obviously at like
Speaker 2: an your mainstream multipleax. Another one that I really enjoyed
Speaker 2: was A Frown Gone Mad. The approach to that topic
Speaker 2: was very interesting as well.
Speaker 3: I'm so glad you mentioned that Edo and I are
Speaker 3: both really excited about that one. I'd seen it at
Speaker 3: IFA in Amsterdam and I was pretty much convinced that
Speaker 3: we have to do this. This is so good, this
Speaker 3: is so perfect for us. But also being aware that
Speaker 3: it's the sort of film maybe not as surprising as say,
Speaker 3: Israel Pal Scienceweos TV. Not that's surprising that it hasn't
Speaker 3: had more play at festivals, but this maybe less surprising,
Speaker 3: just simply because of the content. It's not easy to watch,
Speaker 3: but I'm so glad when Eto saw it as well
Speaker 3: and was immediately responded to it. It's another one that's
Speaker 3: very simple and minimalists in its approach. It's a single frame,
Speaker 3: basically looking at the chair in a beauty shop in Beirut,
Speaker 3: and what you're watching is people getting fillers and botox
Speaker 3: injections while having conversations with the beautician and chit chat
Speaker 3: that you would have in any kind of stylist shop
Speaker 3: about what's going on in the world outside. And it
Speaker 3: really becomes apparent that contrast between the micro control that
Speaker 3: is going on in terms of people's appearances versus what's
Speaker 3: out of control in Beroot and outside the walls is
Speaker 3: what it's playing with.
Speaker 1: Olmar, the filmmaker, deals with allowing the space of the
Speaker 1: film to open out onto other things. It's a very
Speaker 1: restricted space that he presents to you. It's just the
Speaker 1: space of this particular corner of this botox parlor beautician parlor,
Speaker 1: but through the dialogues between the customers and woman who's
Speaker 1: giving them their botox injections, the space of the film
Speaker 1: opens out onto a much larger and geopolitically spraught reality
Speaker 1: that everyone's day to day lives are embroiled in. And
Speaker 1: that's a really exciting aspect of the film is that
Speaker 1: through something so small, it can address very large issues.
Speaker 3: To be a little slip about this, if there's a
Speaker 3: body horror documentary out there, there's a good chance that
Speaker 3: I do, and I have the stomach to program it.
Speaker 3: So it challenged to filmmakers out there.
Speaker 2: It reminded me at times of that movie. I think
Speaker 2: you guys showed it a few years of the apartment
Speaker 2: move where it was all taking place from the guy's balcony.
Speaker 2: I think it actually was called Balcony.
Speaker 3: Oh, the Balcony movie.
Speaker 2: Yeah, just that whole idea of slice of.
Speaker 3: The world, slice of the world through a particularly restricted angle,
Speaker 3: and yet so much has shown over the course of time. Yeah,
Speaker 3: I love factly, what are.
Speaker 2: Some of the other films that you guys are excited
Speaker 2: to show? I know, obviously these are all your babies,
Speaker 2: so you can't just say, oh, all of them, but
Speaker 2: tell me some of the other ones that you're just like, Wow.
Speaker 3: I can't wait for more people to check this out.
Speaker 1: I'm particularly excited about Yoko Yamanaka's Desert of Namibia. Yamanaka
Speaker 1: is a fairly young I would go so far as
Speaker 1: say a prodigiously young filmmaker. She's under thirty and this
Speaker 1: is already her second feature. She made her first feature
Speaker 1: when she was twenty. She dropped out of film school
Speaker 1: to make it, and this follow up, this sophomore after it,
Speaker 1: I think has taken her a while to make because
Speaker 1: she's now twenty eight years old. But it features a young,
Speaker 1: very popular star in Japan, and the film deals with
Speaker 1: you could say it deals with mental illness or someone
Speaker 1: who probably has either borderline personality or by disorder. However,
Speaker 1: that would be to limit the emotional, psychological, and expressive
Speaker 1: suppleness of the movie and what it's doing. The character,
Speaker 1: the young woman twenty one years old who's navigating the
Speaker 1: stresses of intimate relationships and personal and professional life in
Speaker 1: Tokyo in the present day, doesn't actually seek any kind
Speaker 1: of professional help until near the end, and when that
Speaker 1: diagnosis arrives, it doesn't derive as sort of something to
Speaker 1: put a label on what she's going through. It arrives
Speaker 1: as at further question about who she is, And so
Speaker 1: the film isn't so much about suffering from some sort
Speaker 1: of deviant condition. It's about actually the respect the way
Speaker 1: in which all of us are dealing with trying to
Speaker 1: discover who we are amid a very constantly kind of
Speaker 1: rupturing modern existence. It very much deals with in a
Speaker 1: way that I've never seen a film yet, because Generation
Speaker 1: Z filmmakers are all still very young. It deals with
Speaker 1: the experience of the rhythm I hyped up but also
Speaker 1: slightly disassociated rhythm of young people's wives today, and it
Speaker 1: finds formal correlatives for that. It's a kind of shape
Speaker 1: shifting movie. A lot of it is shot hand held,
Speaker 1: but then gradually she starts introducing locked off, more distance
Speaker 1: shots on a tripod, and then sometimes there are these
Speaker 1: there's bounds that feel like they're almost out of nowhere
Speaker 1: that kind of interrupt the composition that you're watching. And
Speaker 1: then slowly there are superb positions between scenes that are
Speaker 1: hard to explain, and then eventually it even goes into
Speaker 1: kind of a surreal territory in the last kind of
Speaker 1: act of the film, and it's just really thrilling filmmaking,
Speaker 1: and it's really amazing to see this from someone that
Speaker 1: young and something so confident and so brash and also
Speaker 1: seemingly thematically daring. There's no limit to where she'll go.
Speaker 3: You could even say it's like a gen Z Cassavetti's
Speaker 3: approach to a portrait of a woman in the sense
Speaker 3: that you can't really tell at any moment if it's
Speaker 3: a comedy or if it's something more serious, and not
Speaker 3: knowing how to approach her as a character is similar
Speaker 3: to challenging you as a viewer to not visionhole or either,
Speaker 3: which I think is also part of what Cassavetti's project
Speaker 3: was really fantastic film. We saw that out of Doctor's
Speaker 3: Fortnite and Ken. Another film that I would put out
Speaker 3: there another portrait of a woman which is a want
Speaker 3: in her as a documentary that we saw out of
Speaker 3: Ifa by the Irish filmmaker Myrat Carton, who works more
Speaker 3: in some more experimental terrain, but this is something more
Speaker 3: of a straightforward documentary, and it's a portrait of her
Speaker 3: mother who is suffering from alcoholism and mental illness, and
Speaker 3: at various points goes missing. And so Mari's the daughter
Speaker 3: who's had to parent her own mother for a lot
Speaker 3: of her life, taking a break from her own life
Speaker 3: and her own concerns to care for her mother and
Speaker 3: all the complicated things that come up from that. For
Speaker 3: anybody who's experienced anything like that with a parent, a relative,
Speaker 3: there's something here that's never I've never really seen in
Speaker 3: terms of finding a language or trying to find a
Speaker 3: language to articulate all these complexities in terms of love
Speaker 3: and affection, adoration and also just disgust and impatience. And
Speaker 3: even though it's closer to a observation where we've been
Speaker 3: talking head documentary at times, part of that searching for
Speaker 3: a language winds up being she does these experiments inside
Speaker 3: the apartment where she's just making this banal space something
Speaker 3: stranger and threatening even and trying to find angles within
Speaker 3: this space. It almost comes off as just doodling, but
Speaker 3: doodling that is a comes from like a real psychic
Speaker 3: we damaged and challenged place really unique and was excited
Speaker 3: because I was just at the True False film Fest
Speaker 3: last weekend, and that's the film. It also played there,
Speaker 3: and that's the film that people seem to be most
Speaker 3: excited about and blown away by. So I'm excited that
Speaker 3: we're showing.
Speaker 2: It in New York and that folks that we catch
Speaker 2: up to it. I love how so many of these
Speaker 2: films are just going past what we feel like films are,
Speaker 2: and like you said, pushing that envelope being very avant garde.
Speaker 2: But then also one of the films that you are
Speaker 2: showing looks back at a older avant garde film and
Speaker 2: in a new way. The fifth Shot of Laete, that
Speaker 2: was one of the very first experimental films I remember
Speaker 2: seeing in college, and so to have that explored from
Speaker 2: a different angle, I've found that to be fascinating as well.
Speaker 3: This is Dolnique Cabrera, French hillmaker who's well renowned and
Speaker 3: made a lot of films over time, both sort of
Speaker 3: an observential mode, but then it also makes films that
Speaker 3: are more personal. This is more on the personal side
Speaker 3: of her filmmaking. But as you say, in taking on
Speaker 3: pretty widely known other film Lagite Chris Markers, and its
Speaker 3: approach on it is so unique and it almost like
Speaker 3: playfully takes on the mode of a detective film. It
Speaker 3: takes place mostly in an editing suite, and in a
Speaker 3: that editing suite, there's basically the discovery of a relative,
Speaker 3: a cousin of hers, that he's actually in Lageta. The
Speaker 3: fifth shot of Lagtay and if you've seen the film,
Speaker 3: like there are only so many shots, so they're all
Speaker 3: pretty iconic, and it's a shot of a young man
Speaker 3: and parents looking at the airport watching planes come in,
Speaker 3: and takes that playing and expands on that to look
Speaker 3: into the making of the film, look into the conditions
Speaker 3: around the making of the film, what was happening in
Speaker 3: France and Algeria at that time, and really honing in
Speaker 3: on to this moment when so many Francophone folk who
Speaker 3: were either working or born in Algeria were coming back
Speaker 3: to France because of the revolution, and that site in
Speaker 3: the airport, Charles de Gaul airport, I actually don't know
Speaker 3: if it was called Charles Degaul at that time, but whatever,
Speaker 3: that airport and and anyway, that moment in time, and
Speaker 3: it winds up getting deep into her own family history,
Speaker 3: deep into the sort of racial and colonial elements of
Speaker 3: her family and of France at that time, and also
Speaker 3: plays like I said it was like a detective movie
Speaker 3: should try to discern if this is actually members of
Speaker 3: her family and if they're threaded together with Chris Marker
Speaker 3: in that way. So I mean so thrilling. If you've
Speaker 3: seen Laja detay to see this film. I also I
Speaker 3: saw at doc Leipzig and saw it with an intern
Speaker 3: who had never seen Lagete before, and she was also
Speaker 3: totally gripped by So I think it can also play
Speaker 3: that way. If anything, maybe some folks will discover Loge
Speaker 3: Day through this film too, that would be nice. Tell
Speaker 3: me about some of the filmmakers that are coming out
Speaker 3: to the event as ever, it's really important to us
Speaker 3: to have filmmakers present. We're a scrappy, a little festival,
Speaker 3: but really whatever resources we can raise for it goes
Speaker 3: towards bringing filmmakers because I feel like there's no better effect,
Speaker 3: there's no better cause for celebration than to have filmmakers
Speaker 3: together showing their film, talking to the audiences, but they're
Speaker 3: also talking to each other. We have three of the
Speaker 3: daytimes of the five day festival dedicated to the works
Speaker 3: in progress, and we bring in filmmakers to show their
Speaker 3: new films. We also have filmmakers who are coming to
Speaker 3: show these completed films to participate in those sessions. So
Speaker 3: a density of filmmakers is really important to us. For
Speaker 3: Opening Night, We've got bon George Fristees film a premiere
Speaker 3: to Toronto and it's imminently going to come out through
Speaker 3: US distribution. But director Durgatchubos is going to be there
Speaker 3: as well as the star of that film, Lily McInerney.
Speaker 3: She's extraordinary in that film and is one future star,
Speaker 3: so excited to have her. The filmmakers, so filmmakers that
Speaker 3: we've mentioned already are going to be in town. So
Speaker 3: Yoko yamanaka Desert Namibia is going to be there. Iva Radovosovic,
Speaker 3: Serbian filmmaker who made a film called When the Phone
Speaker 3: Rang based on her own experience of the sort of
Speaker 3: fracturing of Yugoslavia and memory piece, a fiction piece, but
Speaker 3: basically a memory piece of her own experiences. She'll be
Speaker 3: joining us. We have filmmakers from Bulgaria for the filmmaker
Speaker 3: of Windless joining us from Moldova, Romania in Rado Chiornichuk
Speaker 3: film Tata, the documentary, the film that you mentioned. Filmmakers
Speaker 3: joining us from Lebanon. I would say most of the
Speaker 3: films in our lineup, if you go through it, we
Speaker 3: will have a filmmaker present, including on the last day
Speaker 3: when we'll have Sophia Bodonovitch's in town with measures for
Speaker 3: a funeral, and our closing night film, The Chenov the
Speaker 3: young Italian filmmaker Giovanni proto Ricci. That film premiered I believe,
Speaker 3: also in Venice last year and is also has an
Speaker 3: imminent release in the US, but where I'm able to
Speaker 3: sling it for closing night and have the filmmaker present. Yes,
Speaker 3: So having folks around is just crucial to what we do.
Speaker 3: That's part of what we want to offer the audiences
Speaker 3: and we want to offer the filmmakers themselves. There are
Speaker 3: some film festivals, if you've been to them, or if
Speaker 3: you're curious about them, that are much more about the industry.
Speaker 3: You're there to walk the red carpet, release your movie,
Speaker 3: do a lot of interviews, but you don't necessarily in
Speaker 3: that environment get to see other movies. You constantly run
Speaker 3: into filmmakers who are talking to me and others and saying,
Speaker 3: tell me what you saw. I don't get a chance
Speaker 3: to see these How is that other film I heard
Speaker 3: so much. First of tends to be a festival where
Speaker 3: the filmmakers catch up on those things because you're encouraged
Speaker 3: to spend those days with us watching movies. So you know,
Speaker 3: you can discover films. You can also discover filmmakers because
Speaker 3: filmmakers are engaging in the same activity.
Speaker 2: That's wonderful. So tell me some of the brass tacks.
Speaker 2: As far as I know, it's March twelfth through the sixteenth,
Speaker 2: taking place.
Speaker 3: At the Easy Movie Image. All of that happens there. Yeah,
Speaker 3: we have two cinemas there. It all happens within that space.
Speaker 3: There's never more than two things going on at the
Speaker 3: same time. But things are staggered such that you can
Speaker 3: take in as much as you would like to over
Speaker 3: the course of the day. Yeah, everything plays once, so
Speaker 3: you do have to make some choices. We try to
Speaker 3: put very different types of films against each other so
Speaker 3: that you're not making too tough a choice. But like
Speaker 3: I said, the first three days of those five days,
Speaker 3: the twelve, thirteen, fourteenth, we have these works in progress
Speaker 3: sessions and then in the evening of those nights turn
Speaker 3: it over to regular screens, and then the full days
Speaker 3: of Saturday and Sunday we've got so there's twenty features total,
Speaker 3: and there's one program extended program of experimental short films
Speaker 3: that Edo and our friend and colleague David Schwartz put together,
Speaker 3: as well as one program of student shorts from Jonathan B.
Speaker 3: Murray Center for Documentary Journalism at the University of Missouri.
Speaker 3: We always work with them on bringing their award winning
Speaker 3: shorts filmmakers, So just twenty two programs on the coast
Speaker 3: for five days. We also try to make it for
Speaker 3: some For folks who live in Astoria, Long Island City, Queens,
Speaker 3: you know, this is a gift that you can walk
Speaker 3: there and spend every day there. For those who are
Speaker 3: traveling from some farther distance, either in the city or beyond,
Speaker 3: we do design it so that when you come, you'll
Speaker 3: have an opportunity to see multiple films rather than just
Speaker 3: a single film to make it worth your while. And
Speaker 3: ideally also there'll be a little mini story within the
Speaker 3: festival on each of those afternoons or evenings if you come,
Speaker 3: So there's a design to that as well.
Speaker 2: And I imagine that passes are your best bargain.
Speaker 3: That's definitely a rest bargain. Absolutely. There's a full festival pass.
Speaker 3: There's also day passes for Saturday Sunday, which are the
Speaker 3: fuller days. If you want to come just for one
Speaker 3: of those days, you can get a really reasonable pass.
Speaker 3: I think basically for the price of two films, you
Speaker 3: could see upwards of five or six.
Speaker 2: So it looks like it always having some technical difficulties.
Speaker 2: We won't hear him on this wrap up, but Eric,
Speaker 2: tell me a little bit more about what's going on
Speaker 2: with you, what do you have looking forward to?
Speaker 3: So, yeah, this is for all I know, the west
Speaker 3: First Look I'll be doing for a while because I
Speaker 3: have just taken out a position as a director of
Speaker 3: Film Creation and Programming at the Jacob Burns Film Center
Speaker 3: in Clavetonville, New York, which is about forty five minutes
Speaker 3: from Willmey and in Westchester, very well renowned art house
Speaker 3: cinema that does both first run as well as repertory programming.
Speaker 3: So excited about doing that. We'll be kind of full
Speaker 3: steam ahead there come April. Feeling moved, heavy, conflicted, bittersweet
Speaker 3: about First Look, a festival that have been very passionate
Speaker 3: about for the ten years I've been at the museum
Speaker 3: and feeling like we were leaving in good shape and
Speaker 3: hoping that there's a great next chapter, both for the
Speaker 3: programming at MOMI as well as First Look. I should note,
Speaker 3: since i'll speak on behalf of Itto, that he's he
Speaker 3: also moved on. He went to the Metrograph in downtown
Speaker 3: New York to be one of their full time programmers,
Speaker 3: which is a great opportunity for him as well. But
Speaker 3: we're both fully on for First Look. We did the
Speaker 3: entire program with our colleagues at the museum, Sarah Luciano
Speaker 3: and our Paneda Sonya Epstein all participated in putting together
Speaker 3: this version of First Look, and we'll all be back
Speaker 3: together for one big bonanza for next week. But yes,
Speaker 3: stay tuned for plans for next year and beyond. I
Speaker 3: can't wait to come back and be a part of it.
Speaker 2: From a different perspective, well, I'll tell you, I get
Speaker 2: those Metrograph emails all the time of what's playing there
Speaker 2: and out here in Detroit. I am super jealous. I'm
Speaker 2: also super jealous of all the people that get to
Speaker 2: go to the First Look festival because it looks amazing
Speaker 2: as well. And yeah, the films that I've seen from
Speaker 2: it have been terrific, and I really am very jealous
Speaker 2: of people that get to go and experience that, Like
Speaker 2: you were saying live theaters back, we are in person
Speaker 2: and to experience all of this with an audience is
Speaker 2: just I was such a treat.
Speaker 3: Agreed, and Mike, I'm so grateful and glad of your
Speaker 3: interest in first look in your interest in these films.
Speaker 3: To me, it's not about our being territorial and being
Speaker 3: the ones to find these films and show these films.
Speaker 3: Nothing would make me happier than if these films have
Speaker 3: more of a life because folks notice what's happening in
Speaker 3: New York and are interested in the coverage that comes
Speaker 3: out of it, that they ask their own venues to
Speaker 3: show these films, or of other programmers attention and show
Speaker 3: them elsewhere. They're all absolutely worth more engagements in the future.
Speaker 2: Hopefully it will come to you and beyond. Fingers crossed, Eric,
Speaker 2: thank you so much for your time. Please give Ada
Speaker 2: my best. It's always great talking with you guys, and
Speaker 2: I hope we can talk again in the future. Maybe
Speaker 2: there's going to be some opportunity if you're in your
Speaker 2: new role, so all this exciting stuff.
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Speaker 6: I don't get it.
Speaker 7: That's so mids a weak way, sound the waist, look
Speaker 7: at the booth.
Speaker 8: A woman than at first witness that's hotter. Then go thanking,
Speaker 8: No money got the fund.
Speaker 6: The way they go, the way they sing something like
Speaker 6: the way they don.
Speaker 4: S.
Speaker 8: But what was letting down.
Speaker 6: Bills so quick? Look at the first.
Speaker 8: And she's gotta be swears he But I won't me
Speaker 8: some money, so they're gonna be covered.
Speaker 6: With the rest, as long as she got some catching.
Speaker 6: And I want to big my coin. One wants to
Speaker 6: her