The Initial Trailer for Kogonada's Zi Evokes a Poetic Symphony of the City

      Following his charming debut Columbus and the intriguing sci-fi narrative After Yang, Kogonada ventured into high-budget filmmaking with A Big Bold Beautiful Journey, a romantic fantasy that, despite its good intentions, struggled to resonate. To create something more spontaneous and less encumbered by complex studio logistics, he traveled to Hong Kong with a few close collaborators to film a new project on the fly and in secrecy. The outcome is zi, which debuted at the Sundance Film Festival earlier this year. Next week, it will have its New York premiere at the Museum of the Moving Image’s First Look 2026, and the first trailer for the film, featuring Michelle Mao, Haley Lu Richardson, and Jin Ha, has now been released.

      Here’s the synopsis from Sundance: In Hong Kong, a young woman tormented by visions of her future self encounters a stranger who alters the trajectory of her night — and perhaps her life. Kogonada skillfully returns to form with this tender cinematic poem. Set against a stylish backdrop of Hong Kong's streets, zi is a film infused with soul and a wave-like confidence that embraces recursivity as both a mode and a central theme. Kogonada’s frequent collaborators — Michelle Mao, Haley Lu Richardson, and Jin Ha — adeptly portray transient misfits, wrestling with a keen blend of existential dread, romantic uncertainty, and personal recollection. Treading the line between sci-fi and the supernatural, a warm, inviting atmosphere develops. Following Columbus (2017 Sundance Film Festival), After Yang (2020 Sundance Film Festival), and A Big Bold Beautiful Journey, Kogonada delivers a notably intimate film, delving into a pervasive sense of dislocation while fostering an unwavering sense of tranquility. Through the flickering embers of forming and lost relationships, zi invites viewers to immerse themselves in Kogonada’s truly independent world of temporal fragmentation.

      In my Sundance review, I remarked, “Not so much a return to form as a detour into instinct-driven experimentation, the resulting zi feels distinct from his previous works, providing a fluid source of passions and fears that reflect on the fading past and an uncertain future, while also functioning as a poetic city symphony. Although it may not fully engage on a narrative level, the film showcases that Kogonada has not lost his filmmaking touch, creating a movie that likely feels more personal to him than to many viewers.”

      Check out the trailer below.