Museum of the Moving Image has unveiled its lineup for the 15th edition of First Look, the Museum’s festival of new and innovative international cinema, taking place April 23–May 3, 2026. Opening with James N. Kienitz Wilkins’s The Misconceived and closing with Isabel Sandoval’s Moonglow, the festival also includes Rachel Lambert’s Carousel, starring Chris Pine and Jenny Slate; Ildikó Enyedi’s Silent Friend, starring Tony Leung Chiu-wai; and Ramzi Bashour’s Hot Water.
“In this, First Look’s fifteenth edition, we are excited to bring some fresh perspectives and ideas to the festival, and the idiosyncratic and utterly independent artists behind our opening and closing night films, James N. Kienitz Wilkins and Isabel Sandoval, are the perfect representations of the adventurous ethos of First Look,” said Michael Koresky, MoMI’s Senior Curator of Film and head programmer of First Look. “It’s also been such a pleasure to work with an expanded number of programmers, whose perspectives and voices shine through these films and have created a wonderful, democratic selection process. This year, we are pleased to offer titles from an array of genres, from horror to documentary to romance to films from a crop of ‘new cult’ filmmakers.”
Check out the lineup below and learn more here.
Features:
100 Sunset (Dir. Kunsang Kyirong)
The Bend in the River (Dir. Robb Moss)
Carousel (Dir. Rachel Lambert)
Feels Like Home (Dir. Gabór Holtai)
Hot Water (Dir. Ramzi Bashour)
Humboldt USA (Dir. G. Anthony Svatek)
I Fell in Love with a Z-Grade Director in Brooklyn (Dir. Kenichi Ugana)
Ideas of Order (Dir. Erin Espelie)
It Goes That Quick (Dirs. Ashley Connor and Joe Stankus)
Joybubbles (Dir. Rachael J. Morrison)
Krakatoa (Dir. Carlos Casas)
The Misconceived (Dir. James N. Kienitz Wilkins)
Moonglow (Dir. Isabel Sandoval)
Morte Cucina (Dir. Pen-Ek Ratanaruang)
One in a Million (Dir. Itab Azzam, Jack Macinnes)
Roqia (Dir. Yanis Koussim)
Silent Friend (Dir. Ildikó Enyedi)
To the Victory! (Dir. Valentyn Vasyanovych)
Tropical Park (Dir. Hansel Porras Garcia)
We Put the World to Sleep (Dir. Adrian Țofei)
The Whole World Is a Lie (Dir. Charlie Birns)
Shorts:
Afternoon Hearsay (Dir. Peng Zuqiang)
A Date with Shirley (Dir. Ken Jacobs)
Dissonance (Dir. Jordan Strafer)
E-Minor (Dir. Callum Hill)
El Sistema (Dir. Marco Godoy)
(for once I dreamed of you) (Dir. Kate Solar)
Late September (Dir. Lewis Klahr)
Make Heaven Crowded (Dir. Steve Reinke)
The More I Zoom in on the Image of These Dogs, The Clearer It Becomes That Old Masters (Dir. Basma Al-Sharif)
Orpheus (Dir. Lewis Klahr)
Slideshow (Dir. Janie Geiser)
Super, Natural (Dir. Kyath Battie)
They Are Related to the Stars (Dir. Alexandre Koberidze)
The Tree (A árvore) (Dir. Ana Vaz)
Veronique (Dir. Friedl vom Gröller)