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Festival Returns to Lower Manhattan and Beyond
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The Tribeca Film Festival is five years old and returns to the city this month more ambitious than ever. For the first time, the neighborhoods below Canal Street can’t contain it all. With more screenings than available screens, some movies will be shown at theaters uptown. Just how that above-Canal-Street expansion will change the character of the festival remains to be seen. But what’s certain is that the event’s prestige and visibility is growing with its size.
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The Tribeca Film Festival is five years old and returns to the city this month more ambitious than ever. For the first time, the neighborhoods below Canal Street can’t contain it all. With more screenings than available screens, some movies will be shown at theaters uptown. Just how that above-Canal-Street expansion will change the character of the festival remains to be seen. But what’s certain is that the event’s prestige and visibility is growing with its size.
“More films came knocking on the door this year,” said Peter Scarlet, the festival’s four-time executive director who screened them all.
The festival selected close to 300 films from more than 40 countries—from documentaries and big-star, big-studio productions to restored classics and even student projects. Most of the films but for the classics will be world premieres.
Some of the most innovative and interesting work will never find their way into the commercial market or get the attention they deserve. But, luckily for us, many of those movies are coming Downtown. Says Scarlet, “There’s a cookie cutter mentality [in the industry] and the job of the festival is in part to give films like that a chance to be seen by a broader audience.”
Even if that does mean finding a theater or two north of Canal Street.
“In a way we’re serving other neighborhoods now,” said Scarlet. “But this is still where we’re rooted and where I hope we’re always going to be.”
foreign narratives
From Iraq to Poland, from Sri Lanka to Brazil, literally a world of cinematic offerings—from more than 40 countries in all—are converging at your doorstep.
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There is usually little hope of big box office return in the U.S. for foreign films, but there are treasures to be found in this category during the festival’s run.
Among the more promising is MEN AT WORK from Iran. It is the tale of four old friends, middle-class and middle-aged, who during a ski weekend happen across a huge, and precariously perched, stone that seems a cinch to tip. The men’s comic attempt to topple the rock down the mountainside eventually becomes a tale of betrayal, defeat, and perhaps, finally, hope.
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A darker tale from Iran is DAYBREAK. Here, the story begins with the imminent execution of a man convicted of murder. In Islamic law, the victim’s family has ownership over the offenders life. But day after day the execution is delayed as the family fails to show up to sanction the execution at the appointed time. The story is now one of a man caught between life and death, and fearing the next sunrise.
From Japan comes HANGING GARDEN, the story of an upwardly mobile family struggling through what in this country might be characterized as suburban angst—the daughter is skipping school to head to the shopping mall; the son is hanging out on the corner with his friends; and dad is having an affair. Mom insists that everything is fine, until one by one, each of the family members confront the lies they have been telling themselves, and one another.
Chilean director Sebastian Campos encouraged improvisation from his actors, in the telling of THE SACRED FAMILY, the story of a young student who brings his flirtatious girlfriend home for the weekend to meet the family. Her manipulative ways soon wreak havoc in the bourgeois home.
But for the accents, DRIVING LESSONS could be mistaken for an American film. This coming-of-age tale—loosely based on a true story, but also reminiscent of The Graduate and Harold and Maude—follows a shy London teen whose life changes for the better when he meets a retired actress.
A liaison of a different sort is formed between Smadar and Mirit, two teenage girls in the Israeli army. They could be no more different—one disciplined, the other rebellious and resentful of being pressed into service. In CLOSE TO HOME, the pair finally form an alliance following a bombing.
TAKING FATHER HOME, winner of the Special Jury Prize at the Tokyo Filmex, presents a harsh look at present day China through the eyes of a teenager. Despite his mother’s pleading, Xu Yun, 17, leaves his poor rural village in search of his father, who abandoned him at the age of 11. He eventually finds him in the big city, where he has built a better life. Xu also finds that he is now confronted with a difficult choice.
shorts
The festival is long on shorts—narrative and documentary.
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Short is not always sweet—sometimes it is bitter. Among the short films you’ll find at the festival this year are tales of loss and uncertainty. Other shorts, mercifully, are leavened with humor. THE TRIBE, a documentary that combines traditional narration with new-school visual style, improbably weaves together the histories of the the Barbie doll and the Jewish people in an attempt to shed light on what it means to be an American Jew in the 21st century.
A narrative short, TORTE BLUMA, mines darker territory in the Jewish experience, exploring the relationship between the commandant of the Treblinka extermination camp and the Jewish prisoner who cooked his meals.
Another poignant film, the documentary DEAR TALULA, follows a New York City woman who is diagnosed with breast cancer at 38 and sets out to create a video letter for her 14-month-old daughter. The resulting film is a study in courage, self-acceptance, and even humor in the face of unexpected change. CARLA COPE also tells a story of unexpected change, this one fictional, about a woman who was dating both a firefighter and a cop at the time of the 9/11 attacks, with heartbreaking results. The silent documentary NATIVE NEW YORKER takes a much longer view of a changed Manhattan landscape. Filmed with a 1924 hand-cranked, spring-wound camera, it features a Native American trail scout on a present-day journey from Inwood Park to Lower Manhattan. At stops along the way, connections to Native-American history and culture are revealed.
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The silent documentary NATIVE NEW YORKER takes a much longer view of a changed Manhattan landscape. Filmed with a 1924 hand-cranked, spring-wound camera, it features a Native American trail scout on a present-day journey from Inwood Park to Lower Manhattan. At stops along the way, connections to Native-American history and culture are revealed.
In the suspenseful LURE, a foreboding look at teenage flirtation, a high-school girl hits on a 13-year-old boy at a park. When she asks him to come to her house, is she innocently inviting him for a good time, or luring him into something more sinister? A bit less disturbing is LONGTIME LISTENER, the story of a middle-aged electronics store clerk who resides in the basement of his mother’s house, but lives vicariously through the world of talk radio.
Finally, from the funny-because-it’s-true department comes the documentary I’M CHARLIE CHAPLIN, which chronicles how a small girl develops a will of her own. One year, little Ella is happy to dress up as Chaplin for Halloween, and when her mother asks why she likes him she sweetly answers, “Because he’s funny.” The next year, wearing the same costume, and asked the same question, Ella replies, “Stop talking.”
family fare
Here are the movies for young and old alike.
And this year, that means teens too.
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Movie-going experiences that family members of all ages can enjoy are few and far between. But not during the festival. Among those premiering is ELEPHANT TALES, a live-action feature about a pair of elephant brothers who set off across the African plain in search of their mother. Along the way, they meet up with wild creatures—some friendly, some not.
A familiar character makes a similar journey in LASSIE. In this retelling of the classic, a financially-strapped Yorkshire family is forced to sell its beloved collie, who winds up in the castle of a duke 500 miles away. Can the faithful Lassie overcome the dangers of her long trek back home? Surely, there will be a happy ending.
Not officially one of the family offerings—but worthy of it—is AKEELAH AND THE BEE . This inspiring film tells the story of an 11-year-old girl from south Los Angeles whose aptitude for spelling wins her a spot in the Scripps National Spelling Bee and unites the people of her proud neighborhood behind her.
This year the festival has added films for teens. Among them is PUNCHING AT THE SUN , a coming-of-age tale set in Elmhurst, Queens, that centers on a South Asian teen struggling with feelings of rage and a need for redemption in the aftermath of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.
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A little less intense, but inspiring, is GOAL! THE DREAM BEGINS. Here our protagonist is a gifted, young Mexican-American soccer player who must prove himself on the pitch in England, where the sport is a religion and players are gods.
If there is one must-see film for the entire family, it is SPEEDY. The 1927 silent film tells the tale of a baseball fanatic, a former soda-jerk turned New York City cabbie, who one day meets Babe Ruth. Lower Manhattan’s streets are still recognizable—and the film is still a crowd pleaser—after all these years.
the documentaries
Many of the non-fiction films in the festival go
behind the headlines of war and politics,
while others provide great diversions from them.
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Not all the documentaries in this year’s competition were conceived and created over the past 12 months, but a good number reflect what has been on our minds since the last credits rolled at the 2005 festival. Several films come from the front lines, including THE WAR TAPES, which follows the daily lives of a New Hampshire National Guard unit stationed in Iraq. The footage, shot on hand-held digital cameras, was provided by the soldiers themselves. A different perspective can be found in THE BLOOD OF MY BROTHER: THE STORY OF DEATH IN IRAQ, which shows an Iraqi family grieving and plotting revenge after the loss of their son, who was killed by American soldiers while guarding a mosque. Then there is JOURNALIST AND THE JIHADI, which tracks the parallel lives of Daniel Pearl, the Wall Street Journal reporter who was murdered in Pakistan, and Omar Sheikh, the Islamic militant who aided in his kidnapping and killing.
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Also from the past year’s headlines comes A FLOCK OF DODOS, a look at the debate over the teaching of “intelligent design” in public schools that picks up where the media left off. The film includes interviews with scientists and creationists, and neither side is spared ridicule. AL FRANKEN: GOD SPOKE follows the left-leaning political satirist as he tilts his lance against the right.
The documentary category also reflects the diversions we seek from military and political conflict. WORDPLAY explores our fascination with crossword puzzles, with an informative look at the workday of Will Shortz, who for the past 12 years has been puzzle editor for the New York Times. The film also includes interviews with celebrity crossword enthusiasts and covers the competition at the annual American Crossword Puzzle Tournament, founded by Shortz. AMERICAN CANNIBAL: THE ROADE TO REALITY explores a more guilty pleasure—our voyeuristic fascination with reality television. A film crew follows along as a pair of novice TV writers team up with a producer in an attempt to launch a reality show.
LOUDQUIETLOUD follows the iconic punk-rock band The Pixies during their recent reunion tour. The set up sounds like the familiar “rock-u-mentary,” but the performers come across as too human—even dull—backstage to be considered cliches.
Then there is the much quieter BLACK SUN, which follows French artist Hugues de Montalembert, who was blinded in a savage attack by a mugger in Greenwich Village in 1978. He spent the ensuing years learning how to walk, read and listen in the dark. In the film, Montalembert narrates as we are offered artful images of the city and the places he has since traveled, in what amounts to a meditation on identity and rediscovery.
the big ones
The stars come out in these
movies, now having their debuts.
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Few films that debut at the festival are destined to find a wide audience. Some are expected to gain national recognition, though, if only because of the reputations of their directors and the celebrity wattage of their stars. Not many actors have more juice these days than James Gandolfini, for example, and the “Sopranos” star is teamed with John Travolta in LONELY HEARTS, as the pair play 1940s-era detectives on the trail of the Lonely Heart Killers.
THE TV SET, starring Sigourney Weaver and David Duchovny, is the comical story of a TV writer (Duchovny) who sells the script for a pilot to a network. His joy ends there, though; he can only watch in dismay as the script passes from one TV exec to another, each one contributing more artless ideas. Weaver plays a network nitwit. She offers a much more dramatic performance in SNOW CAKE, as an autistic woman who cannot communicate her grief following the death of her daughter.
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Lighter is THE GROOMSMEN, with Ed Burns and John Leguizamo, which uses the comic formula of an imminent wedding to frame the tale of four men, each in his 30s, who are still struggling to be grown-ups. COMEBACK SEASON, written by Bruce McCulloch of “Kids in the Hall” fame, is an unlikely buddy picture that pairs a cheating husband (Ray Liotta) recently thrown out by his wife with a high school athlete recently sidelined by an injury.
new voices
You might not know the filmmakers' names,
but you may never forget their work
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The festival is at its most vital when it makes time for discovery—the first-time filmmaker finding an audience or the longtime film buff finding a new cinematic voice. Such moments should be in frequent supply this year. Here are some of the films by first-time filmmakers that are having their debuts at the festival.
EAST BROADWAY, filmed in New York City, presents a Cinderella tale with a twist. The Asian heroine with a modest Chinatown upbringing hopes to win the love of a WASPy and wealthy uptown Prince Charming. But is it his love, or entry into his social class, that she most desires?
FAT GIRLS is set a world away in a dusty Texas town, where young Rodney dreams of finding a boyfriend and stardom on Broadway. The title refers to Rodney’s overweight best friend, and how Rodney says many high school kids are made to feel. Another small-town tale is told in I'M REED FISH, whose title character runs a local radio station and seems content with his rural life until he falls for a beauty queen and faces competition from a convenience-store clerk.
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Oliver Torr and Matthew Zeremes produced five plays in their native Australia before saving enough money to make BURKE AND WILLS, a dark drama about an uncommon friendship between a free spirit and a quiet loner, whose lives seem headed in opposite directions.
classics
For its “Restored/Rediscovered” section, the festival brings
to the screen masterpieces from archives around the world.
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Since its inception, the Tribeca Film Festival has looked forward, championing the next generation of filmmakers by presenting new works by as-yet unheralded directors and writers. Just as refreshing, though, is to see treasures from the past, and the festival (specifically, Martin Scorsese and Peter Scarlet, curators of the Restored/Rediscovered section) has again gone to the vaults to find prints of films deserving of a second run.
This year’s selections include the visually-stunning classic film noir THE BIG COMBO, from 1955. It is a gritty tale of a detective obsessed with tracking down a notorious crime boss, as well as his beautiful-but-doomed wife. The film features standout performances all around, but it is the stark noir lighting by John Alton that makes it memorable.
Similarly haunting is ON THE BOWERY, a 1957 documentary by director Lionel Rogosin that draws its power from the strength of its images and from its subject matter. The film explores the harsh lives of men on New York City’s infamous “skid row,” and in the 1950s its appearance in theaters was shocking. The restored version may pack equal punch with an audience familiar only with the wealthy condo-dwellers and hip bar-hoppers that populate the Bowery of today.
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A respite from the gloom and doom can be found in the South Seas adventure FAIR WIND TO JAVA, which has been faithfully restored to its original TruColor. A classic of the good-enough-for-the-matinee- crowd, “B-movie” genre, the film stars Fred MacMurray as a sea captain who goes hunting for pearls on a Javanese Island. Naturally, he falls in love with an island girl (played by the none-too-native-looking Vera Ralston, who never manages to fully shed her Eastern European accent.) Island elders intervene in the relationship, so the captain must find a way to spirit his love, and the pearls, off the island. Oh, and there is a volcano.
A more heartbreaking adventure is undertaken in BARRREN LIVES, a 1963 film by Pereira dos Santos (whose BRASILIA 18% debuts at the festival this year). It follows a ranch hand and his family who are forced off their land by drought and injustice and struggle to find a better life. Apart from the story, adapted from a novel by Graciliano Ramos, the film is notable for its revolutionary use of unfiltered light and a naked camera lens to capture the harsh faces and landscape.
From deep in the archives comes PRIX DE BEAUTE, a French silent film from 1930 featuring Louise Brooks in her final role, as a typist who wins a beauty contest. The screening will be preceded by the Italian short THE FALL OF TROY, from 1911. Both films will include live translation and live piano accompaniment.
Billed as a must-see is a recently-restored version of THE RIVER, from the great French director Jean Renoir, who delivers a film rich in color and imagery. The story centers around an English colonial family living on the banks of the Ganges River in India. Critics contend that the most compelling part of the film are the images that seem to float past with the same depth and slow purpose as the river.
sideshows
From panel discussions to the annual street fair,
the festival brings more than films to the neighborhood.
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FAMILY STREET FEST
For at least one day every year during the festival, the action is outside the theater and the popcorn is free. For parents with children too young to bring into a hushed theater, the annual street fair is the premiere attraction. It returns May 6 to Greenwich Street (between Hubert and Duane), with its gang of puppeteers, balloon men, jugglers, stilt walkers, musicians, storytellers and more. Last year, there was even a giraffe. Local restaurants and businesses get in the act, too. You can expect to see dancing and singing from local school kids on the festival’s stages, as well.
PANELS
More than just a chance to catch a new film, the festival is the place to hear filmmakers talk about their work. Most are available after their screenings. Others can be found during the festival’s panel discussions. This year the Tribeca Talks panel series includes discussions ($20) with Steven Soderburgh, Michael McKean, Lewis Lapham, Jeff Goldblum, Harold Ramis, Rosie Perez, Joe Letteri, and more.
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THE ‘DRIVE-IN’
These family-friendly outdoor screenings return to the World Financial Center’s North Cove in Battery Park City on April 27-29. Showtimes are at sundown. Movies will be announced on the festival’s web site, www.tribecafilmfestival.org.
TICKETS
General screenings are $12. Discounted $8 tickets for Downtown residents go on sale April 14 at the box office, 13-17B Laight St.
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