First Features
The first time’s a charm for certain filmmakers, a fact attested to by the films gathered together in this collection of distinctive feature film debuts, the works of audacious young talents who came onto their sets with a lifetime of ideas about cinema stored up and ready to be put to the test. A selection of auspicious beginnings that not only show the promise of mature masterpieces to come, but are great films in their own right.
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Our Nixon
Directed by Penny Lane | 85 mins | 2013
Using an array of archival materials including television interviews, Nixon’s secretly recorded White House tapes, and more than 500 reels of long-out-of-circulation Super 8 home movies by presidential aides Dwight Chapin, John Ehrlichman, and H.R. Haldeman... -
The Stolen Man
Leaving March 1
Directed by Matías Piñeiro | 92 mins | 2007
Piñeiro’s delightful debut feature skips along with a coterie of Buenos Aires friends, galvanized by one devilishly playful woman with a penchant for games of love and chance. With New Wave brio, the film kicks off Piñeiro’s cycle of co... -
Go Down Death
Leaving March 1
Directed by Aaron Schimberg | 88 mins | 2013
Schimberg’s uncanny debut feature is a handcrafted American Gothic pastiche that’s like sitting in on hidden scenes from the 19th century. Lost soldiers, ghosts and lovers, schoolhouse lessons and cabaret songs—these dispatches from th... -
It Felt Like Love
Leaving March 1
Directed by Eliza Hittman | 82 mins | 2013
There’s not a single false moment in It Felt Like Love, Never Rarely Sometimes Always director Hittman’s feature debut about a sexually inexperienced south Brooklyn teenager (Gina Piersanti) who’s embarrassed to fess up to everything she... -
Variety
Directed by Bette Gordon | 100 mins | 1983
A young woman lands a job as a cashier at a downtown porno theater, and soon finds herself inexorably drawn towards what’s happening onscreen—as well as other troubling fantasies. One of the great independent films of the ’80s, featuring a who’s who of t...
