From March 12 through March 16, the Museum of the Moving Image presents a slate of 38 films from 21 countries at the 14th edition of its First Look program. Even in this small sampling of features and documentaries, there is a rich array of experiences, perspectives, and styles, with films exploring past and present traumas. In various ways, the three films below specifically examine the pressures placed on quiet, inwardly tormented young people grappling with situations beyond their control—whether socioeconomic, political, or generational shifts.

100,000,000,000,000

Despite its grandiose title, Virgil Vernier’s 100,000,000,000,000 is a spare, quietly meditative portrayal of an 18-year-old male sex worker, Afine (Zakaria Bouti), drifting through the Christmas holiday in the moneyed, overdeveloped world of Monaco. With his studded ears and ponytailed hair, Afine takes on a variety of clients, from a middle-aged, married adrenaline-seeker to an older woman who brings him along as she tries on ostentatious, glittery dresses in high-end boutiques.

Afine is invited to stay with Vesna (Mina Gajovic), a Serbian friend watching over 12-year-old Julia (Victoire Song) in the child’s posh family home while her wealthy real estate developer parents are away on vacation. Vesna reveals that Julia has a troubled past—she allegedly tried to set fire to her boarding school and has apocalyptic visions. An unlikely, muted bond emerges between Afine and Julia. As two quiet outsiders, Afine listens to Julia’s curious, almost mythic ideas and prophecies as they wander Monaco’s sea and cityscape, including an underground industrial area that leads to a mysterious door in the middle of the beach. (This riveting sequence reminded me of the hidden tombs beneath the sand in Alice Rohrwacher’s La Chimera.)

Vernier’s film revels in Monaco’s garishness—its shoreline so thin and overcrowded with development that there’s barely any beach left at all. Jordane Chouzenoux’s cinematography highlights the rosy glow of daytime and dusk, contrasted with the glitzy decorative lights at night. Interiors are bathed in twinkling Christmas lights.

The title may reflect both the meaningless price tag placed on sex work and the unfathomable wealth surrounding Afine. In some ways, its detached portrayal of blank, emotionless escorts and their peculiar clients in a lavish yet ostentatious setting recalls Paul Schrader’s American Gigolo—minus the pulpy crime subplot. But Vernier’s film is far more delicate, ethereal, and contemplative.

When the Phone Rang

“It happened in a country that no longer exists.” These are the first words spoken in Serbian-born, Greece-based director Iva Radivojevic’s ghostly, vivid reimagining of an 11-year-old’s experience in 1992, on the precipice of Yugoslavia’s dissolution. With its obsessive use of repetition, the film illustrates how trauma and memory can become all-consuming.

A morning phone call brings news that young Lana’s (Natalija Ilincic) grandfather has died—a marker of the last time she remembers her family’s life before exile. A ticking clock and this call are repeated 11 times throughout, fragmenting the story into a prism of experience. Other phone calls follow—some from family, some from friends, and one even from a mafia boss.

Many of these memory slices depict the lackadaisical, languid activities of preteens: Lana watches VHS tapes alone in her parents’ room, browses pens in a small shop, and peers through binoculars at the windows and patios of neighboring flats. In one amusing sequence, she and a young neighbor innocently follow strangers, trailing them into their buildings and up the elevator.

The film’s repetition of memory and semi-autobiographical re-creation of youth is reminiscent of Charlotte Wells’s Aftersun. However, Radivojevic’s use of an adult voice-over (by Slavica Bajceta) adds weight, context, and a sense of hindsight—suggesting that Lana may not have fully grasped the ominous atmosphere at the time. Did she sense the feeling of impending doom, or is that a projection placed upon her in retrospect? The voice-over also foreshadows what she couldn’t have known: The piano piece she plays over the phone for a friend turns out to be their last conversation.

Ilincic’s restrained performance, with her searching, piercing eyes, conveys both naïveté and uncertainty. A simple, melancholic piano score (composed by Radivojevic) reinforces the film’s themes of repetition and loss. At just 72 minutes, it is a brief yet haunting watch.

Windless

After his father’s death, late-twentysomething Kaloyan (Ognyan Pavlov, also known as the Bulgarian rapper Fyre) travels from Spain to Bulgaria to sell his father’s apartment. Director Pavel G. Vesnakov introduces him through his striking, gruff-looking appearance: a red track hoodie covering his heavily tattooed, shaved head. As he moves through his old village, he listens to elders reminisce about his father—a man remembered for helping others in need. Yet Kaloyan remains largely silent, and his avoidance of the funeral suggests deep-seated division and unresolved strife.

Kaloyan also witnesses the rapid transformation of his hometown, where development plans are reshaping the landscape. Many of his generation have left for Western Europe, much to the disdain of the older villagers. In a particularly unsettling scene, he arranges for the reburial of his father and other deceased relatives—his grandfather and grandmother—because the cemetery is being demolished to make way for a golf course. Later, he takes on a job clearing out the apartments of elderly residents being forced from their homes to make room for new developments. As Kaloyan burns his father’s Communist-era belongings and photographs, it feels like an attempt to purge not only his father’s past but his own traumas as well.

Orlin Ruevski’s cinematography is evocative. Filmed in a 1:1 aspect ratio, the film has a claustrophobic feel, visually mirroring Kaloyan’s bottled-up emotions and lingering anger. The static shots, dark interiors, and exterior scenes at dusk, night, or under heavy overcast skies reinforce an atmosphere of entrapment. It’s a stark, well-crafted, and somber meditation on mortality, displacement, and the painful ambiguity of moving on.