The Tribeca Film Festival(TFF) has come of age. Birthed literally in the wreckage of 9/11, it rose like a phoenix spirit to say that NYC was alive and well if shattered and bruised mere months after the attack. Like any festival in the spotlight, it had to grow up in public. Robert De Niro,like Robert Redford at Sundance was how most people thought of TFF. However, a team effort was at work from the beginning. At first, its programing seemed like the template of an urban supermarket trying to please every palate and pocketbook by concentrating on the diversity of storytelling in programming and making community life; as in revitalization, a distinct signifier of TFF identity.
The New York Film Festivalhad established itself as a plucking of the world’s best films after all the major international festival had shown their discoveries. New Yorkers had a best of the best festival with engaged and rigorous intellectual debate surrounding the programing.
The Tribeca Film Festival was downtown and it knew that it matteredin terms of energy, programming, and community involvement.
When Geoff Gilmore, the head of Sundance, was brought in to revamp and tighten up the now becoming adolescent Festival child, it took a couple of years to see the changes being put in place. This year, the evidence of his and the entire programming staff work is excitingly present.
The many things that are about film, creativity, and community are vividly on display and the attempt to seduce couch potatoes into interactive and physical participation is clearly evident. The free events include: the Tribeca Drive-In on the waterfront plaza at Brookfield Place, (April 17-19), Family Festival Street Fair (April 26),Tribeca/ESPN Sports Day (April 26),Tribeca Family Screenings (April 26 and 27). + FILM FOR ALL FRIDAY –individual tickets to 35 film screenings on Friday, April 25 will be FREE (funded by ATT) All of these events are FREE!
The big surprise this year is the expansion of Interactive week April 21-26, which will include Future of Film Live Series (April 21 – 24), Aaron Sorkin, 11th Annual Games for Change Festival (April 22 – 24 & 26) gaming and social practice, Tribeca Disruptive Innovation Awards (April 25), TFI Interactive (April 26). The TED-like day of intellectual exchange will include innovators of merit to exploring storytelling in the digital age.
For me, the most significant move forward is the core of any festival; the films programed. This year, Tribeca’s slate is almost as strong as Sundance. The Guide is live at their website. http://tribecafilm.com/filmguide
Here are my first look choices that I suggest you buy a ticket as soon as they go on sale onApril 8th/13th. They are not the only ones of merit, but I think they will be gone in a flash.
In,1971, 40 years before WikiLeaks and the NSA scandal, there was Media, Pennsylvania. Eight Catholic activists plotted an intricate break-in to the local FBI offices to leak stolen documents and expose the illegal surveillance of ordinary Americans in an era of anti-war activism; role models for Manning and Snowden.
All About Ann: Governor Richards of the Lone Star State: An unmissable documentary for any political junkie and with Wendy Davis in the run for Governor a timely insight.
Bad Hair (PeloMalo): 9-year-old boy wants to straighten his hair and all hell breaks loose because of heightened suspicions about sexual orientation and gender expression. A needed parable about youth and parents.
Dior and I (Dior etmoi): One enters the storied world that is the House of Christian Dior and meets the hands of who actually does the work. As beautiful to watch as to wear Dior couture.
Black Coal, Thin Ice: From China comes a thriller mystery with a detective only Chinese imagination could dream up.
Compared To What: The Improbable Journey Of Barney Frank: He was smart and aggressive enough to have been President but he was gay.
Keep On Keepin’ On:89-year-old trumpeting legend Clark Terry has mentored jazz wonders like Miles Davis and Quincy Jones, but Terry’s most unlikely friendship is with Justin Kauflin, a 23-year-old blind piano player with uncanny talent, but debilitating nerves.
The Newburgh Sting: Just 60 miles north of New York City sits the poverty-stricken town of Newburgh, where, in 2009, four men were arrested for a plan to bomb two Jewish centers in the Bronx. The real story will shock and hopefully anger you.
The Overnighters: After hydraulic fracturing uncovers a rich oil field in North Dakota, a small conservative town is tested as hordes of unemployed men chasing the “American Dream” pour into its borders.
Night Moves: Directed and written by Kelly Reichardt, Jesse Eisenberg, Dakota Fanning, and Peter Sarsgaard star as radical activists surreptitiously plotting to blow up Oregon’s Green Peter Dam in an act of environmental sabotage.
Silenced: Only 11 Americans have ever been charged under the Espionage Act of 1917; eight of them since President Obama took office. The film shows the lengths to which the government has gone to keep its most damning secrets quiet. Executive produced by Susan Sarandon.
Regarding Susan Sontag: Hungry for life and gracefully outspoken throughout her career, Susan Sontag became one of the most important literary, political, and feminist icons of her generation. A nuanced investigation into the life of a towering cultural critic and writer whose works on photography, war, and terrorism still give insight and cause controversy.
Third Person: Screenwriter and director Paul Haggis (Crash/ In the Valley of Elah) brings to the screen a calculated vision of the drama of love. Three stories set in cities known for romance—New York, Rome, and Paris.
Traitors: Malika is the lead singer of an all-female punk band and sees music as a means to escape a dull and conservative life in Tangier. Breaking with tradition means she has to take a huge amount of risks.
Venus in Fur: Roman Polanski’s masterful take on Broadways’s steamiest tango of sexual tensions in an erotic dance between a man and a woman .
X/Y: A character-driven drama centered around four restless New Yorkers and their shifting sexual and romantic relationships as they search for a sense of intimacy and self-identity.
Go to http://tribecafilm.com/filmguide for information about the films, community events and how to purchase tickets
