NYC Happenings: First Look 2015 Offers A Thrillingly Eclectic Lineup

Featured Critic; New York City, New York

January at first glance may not seem to have that much to offer as far as moviegoing goes, other than mostly unpromising studio comedies and thrillers, and awards-season hopefuls if you're seeking better quality. Thankfully, there are alternatives available, especially here in NYC, if you're willing to look beyond the multiplex or your local arthouse theater.

One of the best alternatives to multiplex vacuousness and Oscar-buzz chatter is the Museum of the Moving Image's First Look festival (January 9-18), an annual showcase of international cinema, in its 4th edition this year. As in past editions, First Look's core is introducing its audiences to acclaimed, innovative, and inventive features that have screened at film festivals around the world, as well as a few world premieres.

This year, however, First Look has expanded its scope to offer its most ambitious slate yet, including installations, avant-garde features and short films, and other provocative and challenging moving-image work alongside its feature film screenings. The programming has expanded to two theaters in the museum, with several programs being presented to the public free of charge.

The expanded programming this year includes the U.S. premiere of Jessica Hausner's Amour Fou, First Look's opening night film this year. Other highlights include the late Alexei Guerman's Hard to be a God; maverick independent U.S. filmmaker Jon Jost's Coming to Terms, starring avant-garde filmmaker James Benning; two new works in 3-D by veteran avant-garde New York-based filmmaker Ken Jacobs; acclaimed Canadian director Denis Cote's latest film Joy of Man's Desiring; August Winds, Brazilian director Gabriel Mascaro's celebrated festival hit; as well as eye-opening documentaries from places as far flung as Syria, North Korea, Brazil, and the Bronx, the fruitful result of the festival's programming collaboration this year with FIDMarseille, the French documentary film festival.

Also - and this is a first in my experience - one of the festival selections will be shot and have its world premiere at the festival, as well as feature members of the festival audience. Jane Gillooly will screen her film Suitcase of Love and Shame on January 11, 2:30pm. Gillooly will film the audience watching this screening and use it as the basis of a new work, Audience, which screens on January 18, 3pm.

So, for the next two weekends, for little more than the price of a Metrocard, New Yorkers can experience some mind-expanding work by some of the best cinema artists working today, not to mention possibly appearing in one of the films themselves.

Click through the gallery below for my picks of must-see films at this year's festival. For more information on these and other films, and to purchase tickets, visit the Museum of the Moving Image's website.

AMOUR FOU (Jessica Hausner) *OPENING NIGHT FILM

Hausner's latest depicts the suicide pact between the 19th century German Romantic writer Heinrich von Kleist (author of the classic The Marquise of O) and Henriette Vogel, a married woman, with arresting compositons (inspired by Dutch master Vermeer), dry, understated humor, and a vivid evocation of the political and social fabric of the period. At that time, Germany was experiencing the effect of France-based ideas of political liberty, which directly threatened the status of the aristocracy. At the film's heart is Henriette's personal liberation through her death pact, in which she shakes off the shackles of high society's strictures. (Jan. 9, 7pm)

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First Look 2015

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