Love at First Sight
Directorial Debuts from the Collection (Part 1)

February 26 to May 4, 2026

"Perhaps it sounds ridiculous, but the best thing that young filmmakers should do is to get hold of a camera and some film and make a movie of any kind at all." Stanley Kubrick

A directorial debut can be a daunting prospect. It can appear as an announcement of a major new cinematic talent, or as a curious enigma that can only be properly deciphered, understood, and appreciated in the future, in the context of a filmmaker’s later works. It can represent a promise that was never fulfilled, a promise broken or suppressed, an outburst of creative energy that was impossible to follow, or a start of a steady stream of cinematic invention.

Our thoughtfully composed film collection is filled with dozens of film debuts, several of them monuments to the foresight of our predecessors who believed, as we still do, that film history continues to be generated in front of our eyes.

But with this particularly massive (over 60 titles, continuing in May/June) spring program we look into the past and bring you some of the most famous debuts of the 20^th century (Stroheim, Sternberg, Buñuel, Vigo, Welles, Kurosawa, Chabrol, Godard, Wiseman, Cassavetes, Akerman, Lynch, Jarmusch, Kitano, von Trier, Panahi), combined with a number of less obvious works, perhaps even discoveries or surprises, and a 2001 coda (Grisebach, Kunuk, Alonso) that serves as a perfect announcement of the 21^st century. With two notable and necessary exceptions, all on glorious 35mm! (Jurij Meden)

Introductions by Christoph Huber, Elisabeth Streit, and Tom Waibel at selected screenings. 

Live piano accompaniment by Elaine Brennan on March 1, 15, and 29, 2026