Instead of writing off her abandoned first feature as a failure, US filmmaker Zia Anger (My Last Film, MIFF 2016) devised this wildly imaginative, self-reflexive piece of autofiction.

Anger’s first longform work Always All Ways, Anne Marie – which was shot between 2010 and 2012 on a micro budget and used friends as cast members – was never shown. In 2019, she made a live cinematic performance about the experience that toured for four years (also titled My First Film). Now, more than a decade later, she’s made a film based on the whole journey. Colliding a range of styles, tones and forms, the playfully meta result follows a young woman, Vita (Odessa Young, Shirley, MIFF 2020; Celeste, MIFF 2018), as she recounts the process of making a semi-autobiographical film about a young pregnant woman who decides to leave home.

Premiering at CPH:DOX, My First Film inventively combines scenes from the original feature with cinematography by Ashley Connor (Madeline’s Madeline, MIFF 2018), Apple’s TextEdit word processor as a means of narration, archival footage and Instagram stories into a disarmingly sincere, and sometimes surprising, personal meditation blending truth and fiction, life and art. Each rendition is a reflection on the significance and burden of deciding whether to bring something – a story, a film, a child – into the world.

“A fascinating exploration of cinematic language and the myriad of ways the camera can literally inhabit a narrative.” – Little White Lies