My First Film is a 2024 American drama film directed by Zia Anger, who co-wrote the screenplay with Billy Feldman. A semi-autobiographical film based on Anger's experiences, it stars Odessa Young as a young filmmaker who recounts the struggle to make her first feature film.
The film had its world premiere at CPH:DOX in Copenhagen on March 19, 2024, then had a limited release on August 30 before streaming on Mubi on September 6. It received critical acclaim.
Contents
Cast
Odessa Young as Vita
Devon Ross as Dina
Cole Doman as JJ
Jane Wickline as Alexis
Philip Ettinger as Dustin
Eamon Farren as Joe
Eleanore Hendricks as Sylvia
Sage Ftacek as Bobby
Jackson Anthony as Sound Guy
Seth Steinberg as Sam
Sarah Michelson as Doctor
Abram Kurtz as Cash
Ruby Max Fury as Dad
Production
Between 2010 and 2012, Zia Anger shot her first feature film Always All Ways, Anne Marie with her family and friends as cast and crew, but the project was rejected by multiple film festivals and left as "abandoned" on IMDb. Anger then created an interactive live performance due to her frustration with filmmaking and festivals, using a TextEdit documentary and QuickTime files of the feature film, involving viewers through iMessage and AirDrop.
Anger and Billy Feldman began writing the film's screenplay during the COVID-19 pandemic. Odessa Young, Devon Ross, Cole Doman, Jane Wickline, Philip Ettinger, Eamon Farren, Eleanore Hendricks, Sage Ftacek, Jackson Anthony, Seth Steinberg, Hailey Gates, Sarah Michelson, Abram Kurtz, and Ruby Max Fury joined the cast of the film in November 2022, with Anger set to direct and Mubi set to produce and distribute.
Release
It had its world premiere at CPH:DOX on March 19, 2024. It received a limited release on August 30, 2024, and began streaming on Mubi on September 6, 2024.
Reception
On the review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, 91% of 11 critics' reviews are positive, with an average rating of 7.80/10. Metacritic, which uses a weighted average, assigned the film a score of 81 out of 100, based on 6 critics, indicating "universal acclaim".
Natalie Winkelman of IndieWire gave the film an A− and wrote, "My First Film is, at its core, a movie not about upheaval but about yearning, and about how, sometimes, giving that yearning up can be a beautiful, generous act of creation all its own." Richard Brody of The New Yorker praised the film and called it "a masterwork of an artistic coming-of-age and a virtuosic reconception of the art of cinema itself".