Tribeca Film Festival 2016
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Tribeca 2016: Five Questions for The Ticket Director Ido Fluk
The Ticket, premiering today at the Tribeca Film Festival, is Israeli filmmaker Ido Fluk’s first American film, dubbed a “morality fable” exploring all the various behaviors that manifest in a blind man who mysteriously, one day, gains his vision. Dan Stevens plays the suddenly social-climbing, newly-sighted man, and Malin Akerman is the old-model wife who may no longer be enough for him. Writer/director Oren Moverman is one of the film’s producers, and, below, Fluk talks about how that collaboration came to be and how he visualized a movie about a man new to vision. Filmmaker: What inspired this story of a blind […]
by Scott Macaulay on Apr 17, 2016 -
Tribeca 2016: Five Questions for Kicks Director Justin Tipping
The Tribeca Film Festival kicked off on April 14 with the opening night premiere of Justin Tipping’s Kicks, an ambitious coming-of-age film set in an inner city enclave in Northern California. Though it’s Tipping’s feature debut, he’s far from a novice filmmaker, having already won a Student Academy Award and the Lexus Short Film competition. The semi-autobiographical Kicks focuses on 15-year-old Brandon (newcomer Jahking Guillory in a breakout performance), who buys himself a sweet new pair of “kicks.” But when the local hood snatches them, Brandon goes on a mission to retrieve his new stolen sneakers with his best buddies’ help. Along the […]
by Paula Bernstein on Apr 15, 2016 -
Five Questions with AWOL Director Deb Shoval
The below article was originally published during last year’s Tribeca and is being reposted today timed to AWOL‘s release on digital platforms (iTunes, Amazon, Google Play, etc.) and preceding its week-long run at the IFP Made in New York Media Center. Tickets are available here. The love story of Deb Shoval’s AWOL plays out against the backdrop of a depressed coal town in Pennsylvania. The protagonist is Joey (Lola Kirke), a plucky 19-year-old who sees the Army as the only way out of town until she falls for Rayna (Breeda Wool), a married mother of two who can’t afford to leave her trucker husband. […]
by Paula Bernstein on Apr 15, 2016 -
15 Films to Anticipate at the 15th Tribeca Film Festival
“How to make sense of the Tribeca Film Festival” was the altogether appropriate headline of the New York Times preview of the Tribeca Film Festival. Even as the festival is only a third of the size of most larger festivals — statistic courtesy of Festival Director Genna Terranova at yesterday’s Robert DeNiro and Jane Rosenthal-hosted press lunch — it still unveils itself with a dizzying shock and awe. There are films, but also talks with people you don’t want to miss, from Patti Smith to Emmanuel Lubezki, as well as master classes by filmmakers like Catherine Hardwick. As with most […]
by Scott Macaulay on Apr 14, 2016 -
“Here’s the Sporting Event Down by the Gym”: Bill and Turner Ross on Contemporary Color at Tribeca
Last year, David Byrne — capable of developing a deep enthusiasm for and knowledge of seemingly anything — held four concerts at Brooklyn’s Barclays Center. Ten color guard troops from across the country performed routines to songs written just for them by ten artists; performance highlights include Byrne himself, St. Vincent and Tuneyards. The Ross brothers’ Contemporary Color is a documentary of this unusual performance that refuses to just be a concert movie. The film regularly skips away from the arena altogether, lurking backstage with waiting performers or cutting back to individual performers seen, in dreamy almost-flashbacks, in their hometowns. Performances themselves are […]
by Vadim Rizov on Apr 14, 2016 -
Trailer Watch: LoveTrue, by Alma Har’el
Very high on my list of anticipated works at this year’s Tribeca Film Festival is LoveTrue, Alma Har’el’s follow-up to her stunning documentary, Bombay Beach. For her new hybrid doc, Har’el — a Filmmaker 25 New Face — has followed three very different couples whose behaviors challenge our expectations of what constitutes a love story. She’s also employed actors, who play her real-life subjects past and future selves. Har’el’s work is always provocative, soulful, and rich with stunning images and gorgeous music. Last year, I watched a short work-in-progress cut of this project, and interviewed Har’el. Here she is answering […]
by Scott Macaulay on Apr 11, 2016 -
Guy Maddin on The Saddest Music in The World and His Interactive Seances
It only seemed fitting that Portland-based folk musician Michael Hurley would perform a short set of sad songs before the screening of Guy Maddin’s 2003 experimental melodrama The Saddest Music in the World on Friday, March 25 at the Hollywood Theatre in Portland. Maddin himself was in attendance for the sold-out screening, which was presented as part of the Hollywood’s Mississippi Records Music & Film Series. In introducing the film, Maddin said it was a treat to “show this movie I barely remember making. I think what I recall is the movie is about a sad song contest, so Michael [Hurley], I […]
by Paula Bernstein on Mar 29, 2016 -
Robert De Niro Pulls Controversial Autism Doc Vaxxed from the Tribeca Film Festival
Just a day after issuing a statement supporting what he dubbed a personal decision to screen a controversial documentary, Vaxxed, by discredited researcher and former doctor Andrew Wakefield, Tribeca Film Festival co-founder Robert De Niro has pulled the film from this year’s festival. Last night, De Niro issued the following statement: My intent in screening this film was to provide an opportunity for conversation around an issue that is deeply personal to me and my family. But after reviewing it over the past few days with the Tribeca Film Festival team and others from the scientific community, we do not […]
by Scott Macaulay on Mar 27, 2016 -
Robert De Niro Issues a Statement about the Tribeca Film Festival’s Screening of Vaxxed
The following statement by Tribeca Film Festival co-founder Robert De Niro was provided to Filmmaker by the festival in response to the controversy that has arisen around the screening of Andrew Wakefield’s documentary, Vaxxed, discussed here in Penny Lane’s open letter. From Robert De Niro: Grace and I have a child with autism and we believe it is critical that all of the issues surrounding the causes of autism be openly discussed and examined. In the 15 years since the Tribeca Film Festival was founded, I have never asked for a film to be screened or gotten involved in the […]
by Scott Macaulay on Mar 25, 2016 -
An Open Letter to the Tribeca Film Festival about Vaxxed
Tribeca Film Festival, I love you but you made a very serious mistake. On Monday, the widely discredited and dangerous anti-vaccination quack Andrew Wakefield tweeted: “Haven’t posted forever. Huge news tomorrow.” Perhaps he hadn’t “posted forever” because the media finally stopped giving him a megaphone. Perhaps once people in America and England began dying of measles, journalists finally realized that the “two sides to every story” approach granted Wakefield was literally killing people. Last I heard, Wakefield was headlining Conspira-Sea, a seven-day cruise where passengers learn about crop circles, chemtrails, yogic flying, ESP and astrology. Good, I thought, that’s where […]
by Penny Lane on Mar 24, 2016
