Tribeca Film Festival

Tribeca: Interview with Jane Weinstock - Co-Writer/Director of The Moment

Melissa Silverstein — Tue, 21 May 2013 14:15:00 GMT

I was traveling a lot during this year's Tribeca Film Festival, but thanks to technology I was able to catch some of the movies that I really wanted to see. One of those was the Jennifer Jason Leigh starrer, The Moment, co-written and directed by Jane Weinstock. It was a prototype Jennifer Jason Leigh film. Broody, moody, fucked up and confused. She plays a war photographer suffering PTSD not knowing what is real and what is imagined.

Women and Hollywood: Talk about why you wanted to tell this type of non-linear story. Did you find it to be more of a challenge is telling this type of story?

Jane Weinstock: I wanted the story structure to reflect Lee, the main character’s, unconscious. The unconscious works associatively, and I thought that this nonlinear approach would be an effective way to get inside of Lee's head. It was more challenging to construct, as a script and as a movie, but I think it was worth the effort.

WaH: Explain how you got the title- The Moment.

JW: I thought of the title before Gloria Norris (the co-writer) and I came up with the story. We considered other titles as we went along, but THE MOMENT always seemed to win out. I like it because it refers to photography (the photo captures a moment). It also makes people think about the key moments in the movie after which everything changes. For example, once Lee kisses John, there’s no turning back. Disaster is inevitable.

WaH: How were you able to get Jennifer Jason Leigh to join your film and did the other talent come on once you secured her?

JW: We sent Jennifer's manager the script, and he passed it on to her. She really responded to the script and came in to meet with the producers and me. We had a great meeting, and she joined the project soon after. The other actors came on after Jennifer. Martin (Henderson) and Alia (Shawkat) were both fans of Jennifer's work and they also responded strongly to the script.

WaH: Talk about the biggest challenge in making the film.

JW: The biggest challenge in making the film was the editing. Because the story isn't linear, there were lots of possibilities when it came time to edit. At one point, we totally changed the structure of the movie. But in the end, we mostly followed the script.

WaH: What were your expectations coming out of Tribeca? What are the next steps for the film?

JW: Several distribution companies are looking at the film now. We're also going to more festivals -- Seattle is next.

WaH: Do you enjoy writing or directing more?

JW: I prefer directing to writing. I especially like the editing process.

WaH: Do you have any advice for female filmmakers?

JW: It's so hard to get a film made, and it’s harder if you’re a woman. It's even harder if your main character is a woman. That said, I hope that women filmmakers will make this difficult choice. I know I want to see more films that are female driven, and I'm not the only one.

Review: Found Footage ‘Frankenstein’s Army’ An Uninspired Disappointment

Diana Drumm — Sun, 05 May 2013 13:09:35 GMT

What can be written about “Frankenstein’s Army”? Don’t see it. You may say, "But it looks so interesting with its WWII-era steam-punk and maybe it’s so bad that it’s good." Just don’t. It may scream, “Come see me!” to horror and genre fans, but please don’t or if you must, at least make sure you have a clear path to the exit and/or ear plugs.

The premise is that this film is made from found-footage documenting a Soviet battalion uncovering Frankenstein’s army. See, doesn’t that sound like it could be great? Like Roger-Corman-cheese-meets-“The-Blair-Witch-Project”-with-a-touch-of-Nazis kind of great? Don’t you want to go to a midnight screening (as many did at this year’s Tribeca Film Festival) or wait to see it on VOD (while stuffing your face with popcorn in the privacy of your home)? Don’t. There are so many things wrong with this movie. Some may think those things pieced together could become an intriguing creature a la Frankenstein’s monster himself, unfortunately “Frankenstein’s Army” lacks the depth of Wollstonecraft, the 1930s iconography of Whale and Karloff, the humor of “Young Frankenstein” and nostalgia of “Frankenweenie,” leaving a limp and lifeless picture that should be left at peace.

For a found-footage film, the quality of said footage (meant to be 1940s 16 mm, I assume) is startlingly crisp and modern. They could have gone “The Good German” route and at least made it look fitting, but no, that would ruin the “special effects.” This may read like an issue for only the finicky, but using the “documentary” angle also somehow gives the filmmakers supposed credence to waste some of said footage by showing the “subjects” shouting at the cameraman a few too many times – this is where the ear plugs come in handy. We get it! They’re being filmed and we’re looking in from the cameraman’s POV. We get that Soviet soldiers don’t want to be filmed and would not like the man filming them. Unfortunately, we are paying attention and that’s what makes the whole experience even worse. The constant reminders and blatant expository dialogue (aka “telling not showing” syndrome – rather than the age-old “showing not telling” rule of narrative) makes “Frankenstein’s Army” feel like a really lame video game rather than a film.

Even the characters’ motives seem tired and explained too much in words rather than actions or emotions. For the cameraman to bring everyone to Frankenstein’s lair, it can’t be just because he’s following orders or is a real SOB, instead his motivation is the now-cliché threat “We’ll kill your relatives” from the Soviet higher-ups and is treated as though it is some revelation that Communist Russia would go to such extremes – this has been referenced a countless number of times for decades (check out “Comrade X” starring Clark Gable and Hedy Lamarr). Even the squabble between the Polish and Russian squadron members over seniority within the ranks feels like the actors are merely reading lines as the screenwriters were thinking, “See, look, Polish and Russian soldiers didn’t get along. We’re commenting on national identity issues in WWII army life.” If you want great Communist satire and/or commentary (though you wouldn’t particularly if you wanted to see this film, which shows exactly how convoluted the “plot” is), rent “Children of the Revolution” and “Goodbye Lenin!”

Now on to the monsters… Yes, there are monsters and a Dr. Frankenstein -- the discovery of both much less interesting than you can imagine. (SPOILER ALERT) So the soldiers finally get to an abandoned building where they stumble upon creatures/monsters that look like a Broadway production of "The Lion King" by way of “The Crow” and includes a female creation that resembled what Madonna would have looked like in “The Matrix” or “The Fifth Element,” leaving this viewer yearning for Madeleine Kahn or Elsa Lanchester to step in and yank her and the rest off of the screen. The monsters attack very slowly and the whole ordeal feels like a theme park ride video, with the cameraman running into these monsters an unbelievable amount of times without losing his head or at least one limb, to the chagrin of many. The camera and cameraman survive too much and with too little damage for there to be any true terror.

The whole thing is made all the more farcical when we are finally properly introduced to the film’s Dr. Frankenstein, again by the soldiers stumbling in. His workspace includes a painting of his illustrious grandfather and a woman’s head sewed to a teddy bear’s body that the credits reveal to be that of Frankenstein’s mother. Frankenstein goes on to regale us with his perverse experiments, sounding like a mash-up of Wikipedia entries on various early 20th-century European serial killers – experimenting on animals and some pedestrian Freudian psychology. Although, it is never fully explained why his monsters look mostly like demented Tin Man/Jason Voorhees hybrids, but that’s where the “found footage” comes in handy as an excuse. This combined with the vague anti-Stalinist sentiments makes the whole film feel like a 12 year-old boy falling asleep during history and psychology class and later trying to make up for it in filmmaking and “arts and crafts.” The gore was laughable and the script was blood curdling, shouldn’t it be the other way around?

Without going into too much more detail, suffice it to say that the film was a disappointment to a horror geek who stumbled in for what looked like it could have been a nice, bloody midnight treat. [D]

"Frankenstein's Army" screened at the Tribeca Film Festival.

Docs – Life After Tribeca? These Titles Deserve It

David D'Arcy — Sun, 05 May 2013 10:18:01 GMT

A few good docs always emerge from Tribeca. Yet emerging from any film festival with strong reviews and a distribution deal doesn’t mean that anyone will see the film.

Tribeca, with its ear to the ground, recognized that other festivals didn't take the sports documentary – or jockumentary--seriously. With support from ESPN and others Tribeca has seized the opportunity. The sports docs are now at the core of the Tribeca program.

“Lenny Cooke” is one of them. This much-awaited doc by the Safdie brothers (nephews of the Israeli-born architect Moshe Safdie) takes us to a familiar story. But this specific sad journey from potential to present will get under your skin.

Cooke, a prodigiously promising kid from New York who came up with skills comparable to those of LeBron James or Carmelo Anthony (two of the top NBA players today) is now overweight and way over the hill. He looks like an athlete might be expected to look when he’s fat, rich and 50. But Cooke just turned 31 on April 29.

It wasn’t drugs or women that did Lenny in, although he did have his first child when he was in high school. No, Lenny just thought he was smarter than everyone else. When he decided to go “hardship” – which meant going pro and cashing in, and he didn’t get picked in that year’s draft, he believed the pitch (and $300,000) that an agent gave him, and the bet didn’t pay off. No team in the US wanted him, and he began a common journey which involves playing with foreign teams and finally returning to the US with a minor league basketball job, and on to anonymity. Meanwhile, Anthony and James are the top names in basketball.

If Cooke didn’t see it coming, many coaches did, and they speak of college and pro sports in the doc as if these practices are slavery. It’s not just the fault of greedy exploiters. Kids with talent don’t believe that getting an education will get them any farther than getting a new Cadillac with a signing bonus. Of course, as we learn in “Lenny Cooke” (more than twenty years after “Hoop Dreams”), you’re more likely to win the lottery than to get a signing bonus. The movie supplies an update on the story of sports exploitation.

Cooke showed up for the premiere of the doc, smiling mournfully as he looks back at the career that never was.

Muhammad Ali saw what was happening to him when the US government tried to draft him and then prosecuted him for resisting. In the “The Trials of Muhammad Ali” doc that premiered at Tribeca, lots of archival footage takes us back to a time when an athlete spoke to truth in a way that few athletes would dare today. (Maybe gay athletes are beginning to do that now. I’m sure that we’ll have some docs on that subject soon.)

In “The Trials of Muhammad Ali,” directed by Bill Siegel (a colleague of the “Hoop Dreams” team) we watch as Ali turns to the Black Muslims, going so far as to condemn Malcolm X (whom the Muslims murdered), and we follow him into a dispute over the draft and religious opposition to a particular war that deprived him of his title and almost landed him in jail.

Despite that rich archival dimension, the film is a martyrology of the sort that we have come to expect in films about Ali. Why don’t more athletes choose to be political? Because they have seen how athletes who speak out have been punished.

In the other field in which some African-Americans were allowed to be successful, show business, Richard Pryor was known to speak his mind. As it did in the case of Muhammad Ali, the archival footage in “Richard Pryor: Omit the Logic” gives you a case history that you don’t see today. See the doc by Marina Zenovich for that rich historical texture and for the volcanic wildness of Pryor live.

It’s a happy coincidence that William Friedkin, now touring with his book (“The Friedkin Connection”) and with the restored resurrection of “Sorcerers,” produced the Academy Awards of 1977. The first person to speak in that telecast was Richard Pryor, who declared: “No black person ever won no award for nuthin.” Pryor had originally planned to begin his statement with the N-word. “Go ahead, Richard, you’re known for that,” Friedkin recalls telling him. At the last minute, Friedkin says, Pryor decided against it. He had a career to protect. See the film when it comes to HBO for Pryor’s scorching honesty, and for a television interview with the plain-spoken grandmother who raised him in the St. Louis pool hall that she operated. The scene has the same kind of poignancy that you found in an interview with Stokely Carmichael and his mother in “The Black Power Mixtape.” Whatever you think of Carmichael or Pryor’s politics, you can’t deny their humanity.
Humanity sure looks to be in short supply in the Horn of Africa, where criminals and militant Islam have forged an alliance. “The Project” by Shawn Efran and Adam Ciralsky takes us to Somalia, where contractors (i.e. mercenaries) are training local troops to fight pirates and Al Qaeda militants, who have turned that country into the most failed state in the world. There is always competition for that status. Not that the mercs are much less unsavory. They are South Africans from apartheid days, US veterans (assembled by Eric Bright of Blackwater), and ragtag soldiers from the bloody last African coup. The filmmakers get close to the action, after an Indian ship is high-jacked, and its crew is held for more than a year.

It takes more than guns to clean up a country. The mercs end up learning who is behind the highjacking, but the joke ends up being on them. Their local unit has been infiltrated by the terrorists, and one of their men is killed. Eventually they do save the highjacked ship and free the hostages. This has fictional remake written all over it.

In this doc that is structured around a single maneuver, the strategy to target terrorists in Somalia is initially bankrolled by the United Arab Emirates, who are forced to pull out when the United Nations objects to the freelance vigilantism. Somalia isn’t much safer today. Now you know one reason why.

One export from Somalia is people – some of the tall lean elegant Somalis have become famous models (see: Iman, wife of David Bowie).

“The Director,” a profile of Frida Giannini, Creative Director of Gucci since 2006, begins with something less elegant, the selection of male models for an upcoming runaway show. She sets her eye on a young man who looks great, but walks as if he’s imitating a bizarre London trance victim. After gently drilling him on how to walk naturally, she asks,” What kind of shoes do you usually wear?”

“Sneakers,” he says.

“We’re going to try to show something more than sneakers in this show,” she tells him. Clueless, Part Deux.

Directed by Christina Voros (who shot the ‘making of’’ feature for "127 Hours"), and produced by James Franco, "The Director" looks like an elegant commercial. Will it sell movie tickets? Probably, since the audience for fashion films seems to be expanding. It will sell bags and loafers. Gucci had couture, shoes, handbags and fragrances. Now it has a movie.

Don’t expect anything in this film to break the mold. Remember that Gucci, which began as a Florentine leather shop, sells predictability, not invention. But one section in which Giannini gets attention has her sitting with her staff, looking at new designs. Not catty, not nasty, but clever and lethal.

I haven’t seen the evidence of whether Bernard Madoff was a Gucci customer, but he was enough of an aspirant to the lifestyles of the rich and famous to qualify as one.

“In God We Trust” tells the Madoff story from the point of view of his secretary, Eleanor Squillari, an abused daughter of a Staten Island cop who made the journey on the ferry to New York (and to the Lipstick Building where Madoff’s inner circle strategized the ripoff of its investors on the 17th floor) much as did Melanie Griffith in “Working Girl.” Both eventually learned how business works. In Squillari’s case, as documented extensively in Vanity Fair, her enlightenment came way too late.

Besides its first person Noo Yawk narrative that brings a poignancy and fierce doggedness to a much-told story, "In God We Trust" is a reality check on news that has been published but still needs examination. Madoff’s biggest customers were not the investors who lost everything. They were the large individuals and institutions who laundered money with him. Some of them committed suicide, like Jeffry Picower, who was found dead in his Palm Beach swimming pool. (His wife settled with the US government for more than $7 billion.) Some have been pursued by regulators and law enforcement. Most are still out there.

It’s oddly humanizing to Madoff – still a monster – that people more ruthless or just smarter and richer than he were using him. It’s enraging that they are still free. This doc makes you wonder why he took a plea so quickly.

People who think they know the whole Madoff story will disparage “In God We Trust” – starting with the cliché of the Statue of Liberty seen from the State Island ferry. Don’t believe them. It’s the defeatist “that’s old news” idea that everything’s been said and reported that enables the villains in this story to conduct business as usual.

Tribeca Review: Experimental Shorts Series 'Let There Be Light' Turns the Simple Into the Intense

Maggie Lange — Sat, 04 May 2013 20:21:37 GMT

Thirteen experimental short films screened in the "Let There Be Light: The Cycles of Life" series at the Tribeca Film Festival. Each of the films was loosely connected by the "profound artistic influence of light" in film. Some of the films highlighted the power of sunlight, flickering through trees or dousing harvests. Others took inspiration from artificial light sources or the moon's glow. Each of them relied on relatively simple imagery and narration in order to tap into something mythic and intense.

The most fascinating short was "Lunatic"--which looks as if a moon phase calendar was designed as a light show for a discotheque. The Swedish filmmaker Aasa Ersmark directed the short film, which had its International Premiere at Tribeca. At just over two minutes, this black-and-white film is a simple riff on the waxing and waning moon. It's completely pared down but its hectic presentation evokes a multitude of comparison that float in and out as film pulses. Moon shadows become shadows on glasses of water, blinking eyes, and orange slices. Ersmark's ear for rhythm and eye for pace come across brilliantly.

Another notable black-and-white short, artsy road trip "Parallele Nord," was directed by Canadian filmmaker brothers Felix and Gabriel Dufour-Laperriere. The camera is angled up towards thick foliage on a country road, and as the angle of the trees changes, disorientation sets in. The sounds change from a car driving through gravel to music to empty silence. The Dufour-Laperrieres have assembled an amazing evocation of suspense that builds throughout the seven minutes.

The third highlight comes from another Canadian director, Thirza Jean Cuthand, called "Sight." Cuthand layered Super-8 footage and slashed some with a Sharpie marker. The narration provides a type of personal essay, in which she discusses her temporary blindness associated with migraines as well as one of her relative's self-induced blindness. It focuses on the intimidating idea that our natural skills and abilities, like sight, could be gone at any moment. "Sight" is heavy stuff, but its brevity helps keep it accessible.

The other films included "Star Light No.5 Bis," by Cecile Fontaine (France), "Depart" by Blake Williams (Canada), "Hermeneutics" by Alexei Dmitriev (Russia), "Light Plate" by Josh Gibson (Italy), "The Moon Has Its Reasons" by Lewis Klahr (U.K.), "Corn Mother" by Taylor Dunne (USA), "The Last Time" by Candy Kugel (USA), "Two Islands" by Jan Ijäs (Finland), "Dead World Order" by Dana Levy (France), and "Look Inside The Ghost Machine" by Peter Lichter (Hungary).

More on the "Let There Be Light" program here.

"The Big Studio Model Is Fucked": Watch A 1-Hour Talk With David Denby & A.O. Scott About The Future Of Film

Kevin Jagernauth — Fri, 03 May 2013 20:33:49 GMT

The bell sounding the death of cinema has been ringing for years and years, with all sorts of folks declaring at various times, that the artform is over. But there's no doubt that "cinema" (we're not talking about "entertainment") is in peril, at least at the studio level. Steven Soderbergh's recent address at the San Francisco International Film Festival decrying the current studio system is now the stuff of legend, but he's not the lone voice with that opinion.

Kicking off with the assessment that "The big studio model is fucked," critic David Denby (The New Yorker) kicked off a conversation with colleague A.O. Scott (The New York Times) at the Tribeca Film Festival about the future of film as well as the current state of things. It's an hour-long chat, and it's rare to get two guys like this in the same room for something that isn't a screening, so give it a watch and sound off below. (And in case you missed it, you can watch the Tribeca Talk between Darren Aronofsky and Clint Eastwood right here).

Criticism From The Indiewire Community: Closing Out Tribeca, Opening 'Iron Man 3'

Forrest Cardamenis — Fri, 03 May 2013 19:01:48 GMT

Our collection of criticism from around Indiewire and its blog network begins with the end of this year's Tribeca Film Festival, and then moves through big new releases like "Iron Man 3" and indie fare like "Something in the Air" and "Post Tenebras Lux." Meawhile, Shadow and Act takes a look at a couple of slightly older films and Leonard Maltin says love is all you need:

The Best of This Week's Indiewire Film Criticism

Indiewire:

"Iron Man 3:" "These movies really explain how this comic book movie adaptation thing can and should work in a way that gratifies people who are slavishly devoted to the comic books, people who just like expensive summer movies, and people who just want competently-made movies with a story and a screenplay and performances."
"I still think a light-hearted comic book movie is what it's all about. I've had it with the "Hamlet"-type brooding of the superhero...as if we have to bring darkness, gloom and introspection into every superhero. And Robert Downey Jr. really tows that line beautifully because he creates Tony Stark, along with Shane Black's dialogue in this version, as someone who has superiority but is also thoroughly funny." -- Eric Kohn, Wesley Morris, and Dana Stevens, in conversation.
"Post Tenebras Lux" and Carlos Reygadas: "Inspired by the epic scope of Andrei Tarkovsky, Reygadas also pulls liberally from countless other art film tropes while conveying a poetic stillness that has, over the last decade, developed into his own imprint. Reygadas' films tend to surprise and frustrate viewers in equal measures, but the boldness of his vision tends to win out." -- Eric Kohn

Shadow and Act:

"Sidewalk Stories:" "While 'Sidewalk Stories' may not have the glossy veneer of other modern day films that have tackled this genre, this new version of the film stands as a worthy and even important part of the black film landscape." -- Zeba Blay

"Black Butterfly:" "It's not common to see a rape depiction and treatment in film, especially of a young woman of color, that didn't seem exploitative or unnecessary. Yet this small-scale production packs a punch to the gut with such depiction, thanks greatly to the performance by Monae." -- Vanessa Martinez
"Magic Mike:" "I just think it's more interesting to diversify a cast when such a decision seems to be inherently plausible within the material. I was curious why the representation of the dancers was so narrow, and I honestly thought approaching more options would be more realistic. It seems like a potential missed opportunity to make a good movie even more fascinating, while also broadening your audience." -- Dan Simolke

Thompson On Hollywood:

"Iron Man 3:" "The latest installment, directed by ace writer-actioner Shane Black ("Kiss Kiss Bang Bang") is so pixel-heavy that it's certainly heading for several tech Oscar nominations, including VFX. Wisely, the well-constructed script gives iron-clad billionaire Tony Stark some human-scale time to rely on his wits and abilities..." -- Anne Thompson

Leonard Maltin's Movie Crazy:

"Iron Man 3:" "Downey and his collaborators have made a significant course-correction for Iron Man 3, a much more satisfying and enjoyable picture [than "Iron Man 2"]. Stark is appealingly vulnerable this time around, in more ways than one." -- Leonard Maltin
"Love Is All You Need:" "It's lighter in tone than her previous work, but Bier and her longtime writing partner Anders Thomas Jensen have woven serious undertones into the fabric of this bittersweet romance." -- Leonard Maltin

The Playlist:

"Manhunt: The Inside Story of the Hunt For Bin Laden:" "'Manhunt' should certainly be applauded for tackling the moral and ethical sides of the operation in addition to the procedural, as it gives the entire saga the richness and nuance that it needs to be told properly. But that said, Barker tries to be both comprehensive and lean but comes up short. -- Kevin Jagernauth

"Greetings From Tim Buckley:" "There is no doubt that 'Greetings From Tim Buckley' is respectable, and thanks to Badgley and Rosenfield, does justice to both singers. But the film never quite connects father and son as each sharing the common bond of extraordinary talent or even similar personal woes." -- Kevin Jagernauth

"Taboor:" "Writer-director Vahid Vakilifar seems like a strange duck indeed, and portions of 'Taboor' seem to suggest a marriage of the every-day otherworldliness of Alejandro Jodorowsky and the dream-like serenity of David Lynch." -- Gabe Toro

"Cutie and the Boxer:" "One of the most lively and emotionally resonant documentaries to debut this year, 'Cutie and the Boxer' is a work of art in its own right." -- Drew Taylor

"The Rocket:" "Mordaunt's eye indicates a thoughtful filmmaker able to listen to the winds of what a movie needs. Effortlessly natural, his workmanlike craft carries the capacity to keep an ear open to happenstance." -- Rodrigo Perez

"Kiss of the Damned:" "If 'Kiss of the Damned' has one thing, it's an identifiable groove, one that is sustained and very, very infectious. It's this reason that some will find the movie a letdown, since these vampires are more concerned with the existential dread and immortality than the visceral thrill of ripping someone's throat out. But for those adventurous enough to go along with it, the movie weaves an intoxicating spell." -- Drew Taylor

"Oxyana:" "Dunne wisely sidesteps any drama or melodrama in the movie...It's a pained and uncompromising look at horrors that have decimated a community." -- Rodrigo Perez

"The Iceman:" "We're sure that someone will come along and give the form new life one of these days, but that reinvention of the wheel doesn't come from Ariel Vromen's 'The Iceman' which is decent enough, but fails to cover ground that hasn't already been covered many times before." -- Oliver Lyttelton

"What Maisie Knew:" "James' novel may be an indictment of polite English society, but it's difficult not to notice how well it translates to 2013 America, with Maisie caught between an aging rock star and a dogged, selfish financial manager." -- Gabe Toro

"Dead Man's Burden:" "'Dead Man's Burden' is worth the watch for its sheer beauty, but it's also a slow burner of Western tragedy that hails many new talents to keep an eye on." -- Katie Walsh

"Something In The Air:" "Content aside, the film's something of a triumph for Assayas as director, which won't come as a huge surprise to fans of his work...Virtually every frame of the film is gorgeous in a sun-dappled kinda way, a seemingly light-as-a-feather handheld camera telling the story with immense clarity, without ever becoming showy." -- Oliver Lyttelton

"Gore Vidal: The United States of Amnesia:" "He led an incredible and prolific life -- one that could encompass multiple documentaries. This ultimately becomes the pitfall of 'Gore Vidal: The United States of Amnesia' as it tries to make a singular documentary of such a multi-faceted figure." -- Dianna Drumm

Review: 'Michael H. Profession: Director' Is An Interesting But Never Essential Portrait Of Michael Haneke

Rodrigo Perez — Fri, 03 May 2013 17:50:04 GMT

Described memorably as the Minister of Fear by the New York Times some years ago, Austrian filmmaker Michael Haneke has been terrorizing audiences and holding them emotionally and psychologically hostage ever since his career began. Fond of rigorous, excruciatingly brutal portraits of human suffering, misery and seemingly sadomasochistic torture, Haneke's vision of such painful aims is always unflinching, coldly dispassionate and cruelly voyeuristic. With the absence of joy, hope and relief in his movies, and a stringent, rap-on-the-knuckles approach that sometimes verges on being scolding, many have assumed Haneke to be a soulless misanthrope, humorlessly putting audiences through the paces because he can. But over the years in many interviews it’s been shown that the 71-year-old, two-time Palme d’Or-winning filmmaker is polite, genial, and has even displayed flashes of uncharacteristic humor. But the question remains: what is the psychology that drives a provocateur to ceaselessly punish and provoke his audience?

If that's the central question to be asked, the portrait documentary, “Michael H. Profession: Director” never quite answers it. Directed by Yves Montmayeur — a filmmaker who has shot several making-of features for Haneke’s films — perhaps this is because the documentarian and friend knows that finding the answer isn’t tenable. Perhaps Montmayeur knows his subject too well. Whatever the case, ‘Profession: Director,’ while interesting, is never essential nor as absorbing as the subject Haneke himself. Looking at Haneke's films in reverse chronological order (up to and including "Amour"), it's not that the Foreign Language Oscar-winning filmmaker is obscure or that the documentary doesn't penetrate; a portrait does form. It's just not one that elucidates too deeply. Part of it may be Haneke's refusal to be psychoanalyzed, and part of it might be a slightly inept interviewer leading an already-cagey subject (early interviews fall flat, though the filmmaker likely chose them to represent that the direct path will never work here). With a fierce intellect and bullshit detector on amber alert at all times, Haneke guardedly swats down some questions that go in for the kill too soon. And while Montmayeur had unprecedented access to Haneke and his productions (behind-the-scenes footage goes as far back as "Cache"), that early, first-depicted interview seems to set the tone against any kind of traditional documentary.

But it would be false and unfair to say that Haneke is completely closed off. While not necessarily gregarious, the gray-bearded director, who often resembles a deathly-looking owl in photos, is chatty, but sometimes unwilling to answer the obvious. The closest the filmmaker gets to unveiling the layers of Haneke's psyche is when he intimates that he is driven by fears and he does not need therapy because he works out and explores his anxieties in his films. Haneke says it’s the “privilege of artists... to explore [their own] unhappiness and neuroses” through their work. “I am very much afraid of suffering,” he says when asked why he is so preoccupied with depicting abject suffering in human beings.

“Trust is good, control is better,” Haneke says, and it’s a maxim that his team and collaborators know all too well. The self-confessed control freak is seen much more animated than you’d expect in behind-the-scenes footage, acting out sequences they way he envisions them, falling to the floor the way he would ask his actor to and generally fussing about. Many talking heads admit working with Haneke isn’t easy. Actress Emmanuelle Riva is shown on camera so emotionally traumatized by an “Amour” scene that she says she wants to quit, and Haneke, realizing he may have pushed her too far, has to try and assuage her. Depicted as impatient and severe, and even losing his temper completely a few times, the filmmaker does seem to realize he’s not the easiest person in the world to work with, but he’s clearly not a tyrant either. Isabelle Huppert (“The Piano Teacher," “Amour”) clearly has deep admiration and respect for him, describing Haneke as an unflappable iconoclast, even suggesting cinema would be lesser without him (hard to argue). “Amour” star Jean-Louis Trintignant describes him as a “genius,” and while “No Code” and “Cache” star Juliette Binoche admits his films are hard to stomach at times, she also calls them absolutely essential.

A craftsman and a consummate professional, Haneke clearly takes the job of filmmaking very seriously, and his philosophical outlook is often as austere and painstakingly exact as his movies. "In all my films I have made an attempt to approach the truth," he says. "Whether I have succeeded is another matter. And I have always tried to take my viewers seriously. If you take someone seriously, you can tell them unpleasant things that upset all of us."

“True beauty is accuracy,” he continues, suggesting the brutality in his films stems from the desire to be honest, no matter how difficult the subject may be. “Whenever you take an ideal and apply it absolutely, you make it inhuman. That is the root of all terrorism. I want my films to be obscene. Obscene is that which transgresses that which is permitted."

“In cinema the viewer is always the director’s victim,” Haneke says with a slight smile. And while these are all somewhat telling statements, they’re actually just a part of Haneke’s intellectual view of the art of filmmaking which he holds so dear, clearly in the utmost sacred regard. One anecdote about Hollywood offers -- “they were all so idiotic” -- is admittedly amusing. He describes being absolutely dumbfounded by an offer to direct an action-adventure film in the jungle starring a father and son. While the anecdote is, again, interesting, its inclusion feels like it’s there in the presence of something more enlightening.

We do glean some aspects of how Haneke approaches filmmaking. He calls “Funny Games” a “parody of a thriller” and says he told the young tormenters to act as though they were in a comedy and the agonized adults to perform as though they were in a serious home invasion thriller (curiously enough, the shot-by-shot American remake of “Funny Games” is absent from this collection, as are Haneke’s previously suggested comments that Americans as “consumers of violence” deserved this film).

We learn about Haneke in 'Profession: Director,' through action caught on camera, periphery elements and conversations as described above, but we never truly feel like we get to know him, and Montmayeur’s documentary never quite captures the elusive filmmaker. Michael Haneke remains one of the most inscrutable, fascinating and most revered filmmakers on the planet, and perhaps one of the few remaining filmmakers capable of achieving 3 Palme d'Or prizes (which would make a record). But 'Profession: Director' remains content with a process-centered and outside-the-window glimpse of the filmmaker (despite being on the inside), and thus Haneke continues to be far more fascinating than the documentary could ever hope to be. That isn’t to say “Michael H. Profession: Director” isn’t interesting. It’s just not deeply engaging or essential. [C+]

"Profession: Director" screened at the Tribeca Film Festival.

Hurt People Hurt People: Neil LaBute & Alice Eve On The Intricate Roleplaying Of ‘Some Velvet Morning’

Kristin McCracken — Fri, 03 May 2013 16:03:35 GMT

Since his award-winning debut feature “In the Company of Men” in 1997, Neil LaBute has developed a diverse career that spans writing and directing for both the stage and screen. Depicting unsettling and often cruel relationships between men and women, his work can be difficult to stomach, but there is no denying his unique voice. Over the years, LaBute has experimented with directing other people’s work, venturing into the horror (“The Wicker Man”), thriller (“Lakeview Terrace”) and comedy (“Nurse Betty,” “Death at a Funeral”) genres, to varying degrees of critical success. At the same time, he is a prolific playwright, with “The Mercy Seat,” “Fat Pig,” “reasons to be pretty,” and “The Shape of Things,” among others, making theatrical waves.

LaBute’s latest film, “Some Velvet Morning,” had its world premiere at the 2013 Tribeca Film Festival. Starring (only) Stanley Tucci (“The Hunger Games,” “The Devil Wears Prada”) and Alice Eve (“She's Out Of Your League,” “Star Trek Into Darkness”) as a couple reluctantly reunited, the film’s real-time, one-location setup is certainly reminiscent of a play, yet the close-ups afforded by the camera add an emotional layer of immediacy that can be lost in the theater.

We recently caught up with LaBute and Eve in New York City, where we discussed his artistic journey, power dynamics between men and women, and the “epic juggernaut” of "Star Trek: Into Darkness."

Where did the idea for this movie came from? I suspect your mind is a dark and twisted place.
Alice Eve: Oh my goodness! I don’t think his mind is a dark and twisted place at all! I think it’s just a really good mind, and I think a good mind can find dark and twisted things. Neil is actually quite liked.

Neil LaBute: But I know what you mean. I don’t feel like Poe; I don’t feel like I’m going around in some kind of haze. Part of it is just work to me, especially if you work in this world of contemporary relationships. Here we are with a story, where a woman has been paid for her service. How many times have I seen or heard or read stories about that? So the compulsion for me is to find some other take on it. The thing I had not seen people do before was actually kind of live out—in real time—what that experience is: the before, the during, the after.

Alice Eve: And the sort of intricate role plays therein. Everybody’s capable of imagining the john and the prostitute doing the act—but the preamble to that is quite complex, and probably quite hard to imagine.

Neil LaBute: And then for us it was: how complex is that experience? Why today? Along the way, Alice’s character starts to pick up that things are not as they seem, or as they usually are… So it’s a weird day for them. And beyond that, we see not just reversals in who they are as people, but that there are strange longings there, and connections—that obviously this has been built layer upon layer over time. So, while love can be a currency, this is not just a transaction. There is peripheral damage in this relationship, and connections that are just going to continue to build if they keep having this relationship.

Alice Eve: She always moves with trepidation around him, but I suspect that the way that the climax plays out is a more extreme version [than usual]. She is anticipating something from him because he’s volatile and unhinged, and she doesn’t love him in the way that he wants her to.

Did you work on a back story for Alice’s character, Velvet? She makes some comments about her past, and then she kind of laughs them off, but you can see there’s real damage and pain. Did you talk about that?
Alice Eve: We definitely did, at length. I think there are some people who are beyond help, beyond repair, and she is definitely one of those people. I think she spiraled into something, and into a language and communication with people that she’s going to find it very hard to buck. She’s either going to have to be saved, or find a strength inside herself that I don’t think she has. That’s why people say, “Stay away from bad people,” and she didn’t do that, and now she’s kind of sinking and sinking. So the only language of love that she has is a very destructive, abusive, violent one.

Neil LaBute: I heard a great term the other day that I thought was so simple and so true: “Hurt people hurt people.” So many people who have been abused become abusers, because it’s a safer place to be. And abuse doesn’t have to be the standard I-knocked-your-mom-into-a-door; it can be a kind of slow, psychological abuse.

[Alice gives] a really amazing performance; Velvet is a really surprising character, even more surprising than I thought when it was on the page. There’s a story she tells when she turns around and says, “…I was raped when I was 9.” And then you laugh about it. But then, sort of under your breath, you say, “Just because it didn’t happen to me, at least not that way....” You kind of throw it away. That’s a line that someone else would have latched on to and made this big moment out of, but with you, I knew that was true. This thing was in her past. Alice just kind of let it go and walked away. I was like, YES, that’s the way you want to put the character together.

Alice Eve: [Also,] I thought it was important from my perspective to have visual transitions, because we were in one location. I wanted [changes in] lipstick and hair—just those kind of simple, visual feasts that we go to the cinema for. So they were important to me.

Neil, the buzz around the festival is that this is a return to form for you, to the more theatrical dramas that we first knew you for. What was the detour all about? Or do you see it as a detour?
Neil LaBute: It’s my journey. I started making these films that had almost no money to start, and they were original stories. And then I got an offer to do something bigger—somebody else’s movie—and to direct. I had always done that in the theater, directed other people’s material, so I thought, “Great, I’ll do that.”

I think ultimately, I stretched myself very thin. I tried to do films, and theater, in L.A. and New York and London, and keep all those plates spinning. It was often much easier to have someone come to you and say, “What about this?” And you think, “Oh, I haven’t done a comedy; I’ll try that.” And all of these stories that were my own found a home much easier on stage—cheaper, faster—it’s just so hard to raise money these days. This was a bit of a fluke, the way things came together, and I hope it flukes out a number of times in the future...

Alice Eve: [This movie was] built on a different type of economics, so we made it like a little family. There was no pressure. We shot in sequence...

Neil LaBute: It happily worked for this piece, because [the characters] haven’t seen each other for so long. At first, there’s a little bit of a reticence, and an emotional distance between them, that thaws as the movie goes along. And that’s happening in sequence with the time you guys have spent together. Suddenly you are pitched into this thing where these two actors are constantly on screen. They were a little shell-shocked.

Alice Eve: We were, weren’t we?

Neil LaBute: It kind of worked in an emotionally draining way. It exhausted you in the right way… Everyone’s been in that place where it’s like, “I can’t live with this person. I can’t live without them.” It’s just crazy love.

Stanley is instinctive… [There’s a scene where] you can see how sweet he is, and as soon as she says, “I don’t love you the same,” this cloud comes over his face.

Alice Eve: But in that moment, she’s not necessarily telling the truth; she just smells that she has the power, and she has the chance to wield her own axe, after he’s been wielding his. She’s like, I don’t even fucking care if I do love you. Right now I’m going to get you down and I’m going to put you on your knees.

The title of the movie is the name of a song, and a band…
Neil LaBute: There is a band that took the title of Nancy Sinatra and Lee Hazlewood’s song. I knew I wanted to use that title, and then it just kind of transitioned into using it as her name.

Alice Eve: But don’t use the song!

Neil LaBute: Well, then, perversely we didn’t use the song. [laughs] No, there’s just 2 pieces of music in it—I love the silence and the sounds of the environment, and them. And when it gets quiet, it’s great, I think. I just didn’t see a score for it. The first piece is from a Truffaut movie called “The Soft Skin,” which is also about a man having an affair, and an affair that ends quite violently as well.

And then I’d always heard that Turtles song [“Happy Together”] in my head at the end. I didn’t know if it would ultimately work, but seeing her as she was after he left, and what the cost of what she’s doing is… The juxtaposition of that with the weird little vibe running through that song is kind of haunting. I thought the repetition of “me and you, and you and me”—it all sounded like the right thing to do.

Isn’t that song in the trailer for The Great Gatsby” trailer now, too?
Neil LaBute: Yeah! A really weird version of it, like a Trent Reznor, crazy version of it.

Alice, switching gears, what can you tell us about “Star Wars Into Darkness,” which opens in a couple of weeks?
Alice Eve: I play Dr. Carole Marcus, who is in the canon. She’s a weapons specialist, and she has a Ph.D. She’s incredibly capable and pretty much as smart as all the boys. It was a great experience—very different from this experience!—and it was nice to come onto this, right off of that, because this was so intimate. I’ve seen the film, and it’s an epic juggernaut of a movie. It’s great!

Is this the first sort of blockbuster you’ve been in? Aside from “Men in Black”?
Alice Eve: Yes, I was in “Men in Black,” but not in the same way I’m in “Star Trek.”

“Some Velvet Morning” will come out later this year.

Tribeca Review: ‘Gore Vidal: The United States Of Amnesia’ Is A Forgettable Film About An Unforgettable Figure

Diana Drumm — Fri, 03 May 2013 00:29:00 GMT

Gore Vidal is fascinating. Whether you agree with his politics or you enjoy is witty brand of snark or neither, he led an incredible and prolific life – one that could encompass multiple documentaries. This ultimately becomes the pitfall of “Gore Vidal: The United States of Amnesia” as it tries to make a singular documentary of such a multi-faceted figure.

Director Nicholas Wranthall has a resume ranging from music videos to PBS documentaries and therefore should be able to convey both the serious and pop aspects of Vidal’s career, but unfortunately, the film appears to be a jumbling together of some really great footage – from interviews with the man himself throughout his final years to a near-heartbreaking discussion with the late Christopher Hitchens (the real or self-acclaimed Vidal heir, depends on who you believe) to vintage footage of famous Vidal moments, including the infamous Buckley vs. Vidal debates and the Norman Mailer incident (apparently, the film’s production team is still seeking funding for the rights to a bunch of the footage and photos, or at least they were at the time of the screening). Wranthall admitted at the screening that we attended that the version we would be watching had been sent in to Tribeca about a week before and that would explain why it felt like a rushed editing job, lacking the necessary narrative structure to go from being a general overview to a compelling documentary.

Following a chronological order with a few too many thematic quotes thrown in (the effect being like that of a PowerPoint presentation), Wranthall was able to touch on most aspects of Vidal’s vast life, but did not succeed in giving an in-depth portrait of the man, although the film was full of compelling interviews. As someone who stumbled upon Vidal’s “Myra Breckinridge” in college due to the Mae West-starring cult classic and has gone on to appreciate his historical fiction, television, film and theater scripts, and large collection essays, I wanted to learn more from this documentary, things that wouldn’t be at my fingertips via the magic of Wikipedia and Google. Certain moments were awe-inspiring, like Gore Vidal contemplating life and death at his gravesite, and others were puzzling like Vidal’s adamant protestation that he and his partner Howard Austen did not have a sexual relationship. Rather than trying to touch on every aspect of Vidal’s life, 'Amnesia' should have focused on one strain or broken it up into more focused chapters – politics, sexuality, public persona, literary achievements, etc.

This film is a decent round-up of Vidal’s life and would be fine as a biography tool in a school course on Vidal, but doesn’t suffice for a feature-length documentary on someone described in his NYT obit as “the elegant, acerbic all-around man of letters who presided with a certain relish over what he declared to be the end of American civilization.” Lacking the style necessary to tell the story of one of the greater personas of the 20^th century, “Gore Vidal: The United States of Amnesia” will be forgotten unless improvements are made. [B-, until further notice]

LatinoBuzz: WTF is Latino at the 2013 LA Film Festival?

Christine Davila — Wed, 01 May 2013 17:30:00 GMT

The summertime, downtown set, glitzy yet ‘cashz’ LA Film Festival, presented by Film Independent has announced their film lineup today. The verdict on the Latino rep? Compared to the last three festivals I’ve examined this year, Sundance, SXSW and Tribeca, LA Film Festival comes through with arguably the most valuable representation; there are three films representing American Latino in the narrative competition and one in documentary competition.

The lineup consists of a handful of new American indies mixed in with many favorited international films from last year’s Toronto, Venice, London and Berlin film festivals, and seven Sundance films screening out of competition including Ryan Coogler’s Fruitvale Station, which won both the Audience and Jury Awards in Park City. Starring Boricua Melonie Diaz as Oakland police murder victim Oscar Grant’s girlfriend, Fruitvale will be given the gala treatment (like last year’s Sundance awarded, Black film, Middle of Nowhere), alongside the direct-from-Cannes, Only God Forgives, the reteaming of director Nicolas Winding Refyn and GQ sensitive alpha hero Ryan Gosling (Drive).

But I’m not here to comb and recycle through the ‘high profile’ films that come armed with buzz. As always I’m spotlighting U.S. films in which the writer/director/cast are native born whose ethnic/cultural roots originates from Mexico, Central or South America. In addition, films by filmmakers who may not be Latino, but whose narratives explore and relate to the relevant bi-cultural experience/subjects. And finally I also like to mention the Latin films (international).

While I’m happy to acknowledge and give it up for LA, it’s still painful for this blogger/programmer to know there are so many more fresh American Latino films out there ready to be discovered. Game-changing films offering such fresh and original perspectives, which have by and large been dismissed by most of the major US Film Festivals. With the futures of the two highest profile Latino niche festivals in limbo, The Los Angeles Latino International Film Festival and HBO’s NY International Latino Film Festival, it’s especially crushing to know that these films might also be robbed of their only community platform. It’s cause for alarm and high time to address this void. But wait, lets save that for another post. For now, lets get back to the Latino stories coming at you at this year’s LA Film Festival. For official synopsis and pics check the Film Guide here.

NARRATIVE COMPETITION – Notably 9 of the 12 are US, hopefully giving the scrappy indies a better chance to compete and win the cash prize against the healthy subsidized production value of foreign movies. Five are first features and only one female narrative director.

40 YEARS FROM YESTERDAY written and directed by Rodrigo Ojeda-Beck and Robert Machoian

This is the first feature from the writing/directing team who got a lot of attention with their 2010 short Charlie and The Rabbit. Ojeda-Beck (whose parents are from Peru) and Machoian who is from the heavily Mexican populated King City, met at Cal State, Monterey Bay where they forged a tight artistic collaboration. Forty Years from Yesterday is described as Machoian’s imagination of how his mother’s death would unfold for his own family, capturing the loss his siblings would feel in losing a parent and his father’s pain in facing the death of his partner.

The duo have their way with documentary, fiction and experimental form, instilling an aura of temporality in an anchored realism. This unique evocative alchemy is found in Machoian’s doc short, Movies Made from Home #16, a 4 minute existential moment which screened at Sundance this year. The cosmic life themes they tend to broach are treated in such a down to earth and sensitive way, which is further made relatable by the natural non-pro performances they employ. Robert’s father, Bill Graham has starred in a few of his films and in Forty Years from Yesterday, both Robert’s parents and siblings play themselves. See this endearing behind the scenes clip of the making of the film:

THE HOUSE THAT JACK BUILT written by Joseph B. Vasquez and directed by Henry Barrial

Written by the late Joseph B. Vasquez (d 1995) whose 1991 movie, Hanging with the Homeboys, was a groundbreaking urban comedy when it came out, now very much a classic albeit sadly forgotten gem. The only one of Vasquez’s five movies that was distributed (by New Line), Hanging with the Homeboys was shot in the South Bronx where he was born and raised. About four homeys, two Puerto Rican (one of them played by a baby-faced Johnny Leguizamo) and two Black, the movie, available on dvd from Amazon (or, I found it in 6 parts on Youtube) screened at the Sundance Film Festival at its indie darling peak. Its good-natured humor is derived from neighborhood beefs, trying to rap to ladies, and the racial tensions of the day delivered with unapologetic commentary. An overall glimpse into a day in the barrio slice life, the film is clearly an early influence for the Ice Cube Friday series.

The House that Jack Built similarly has that raw and authentic Nuyorican energy but pushed into a rollercoaster of a dysfunctional family drama with warmth, affection and intensity. The director, born from Cuban parents and raised in Washington Heights, Henry Barrial, is also an alumni of Sundance (Somebody 2001). The film stars E.J. Bonilla as the hot-blooded self-imposed king of his family who buys an apartment building to keep his family close, only to start dictating everybody’s life since he’s letting them live rent free. Bonilla is a fiercely charismatic up and coming actor who was last at the festival with the film Mamitas in 2011 and was also in Don’t Let Me Drown (Sundance 2010). An uproarious and high-edged Harlem set chamber piece, the heavy conflict of gravity that besets Jack is from being pulled in opposite directions by his street values on one side and deeply rooted family values on the other. See the trailer on their Kickstarter page.

MY SISTER’S QUINCEANERA written and directed by Aaron Douglas Johnston

This was reportedly one of the most talked about American films in the experimental leaning Rotterdam Film Festival this year. The filmmaker who was born and raised in Iowa, Aaron Douglas Johnston, has an impressive academic pedigree having attended world prestigious universities, Oxford and Yale. His first feature, the small town, gay life set, Bumblefuck, USA screened at Outfest 2011. In My Sister’s Quinceanera, he uses the local Mexican-American Iowa residents as his non-pro actors with whom he collaborated with on the story. It’s a gentle and earnest portrayal of a young man named Silas who is convinced he has to leave town to become independent and start his life but must first see his sister’s Quinceanera take place.

WORKERS written and directed by Jose Luis Valle (Mexico/Germany) - A quietly simmering artful drama about a retiring factory worker and housemaid in Tijuana circumstantially reunited and trying to compensate for their spent lives. An accomplished and arresting feature debut, the film premiered at the Berlin Film Festival’s Panorama section and won Best Mexican Film at the Guadalajara film Festival. A full investment into the contemplative tone and rhythm yields an appreciation for the film’s visceral and dry humor undertones. Born in El Salvador, Jose Luis Valle previously made a documentary short called Milagro del Papa.

DOCUMENTARY COMPETITION: 7 out 10 are US, 4 first features, six female directors (incl. 2 co-directors)

TAPIA directed by Eddie Alcazar

The 5 time world boxing champion and emotionally damaged blue-eyed Chicano from the 505, Johnny Lee Tapia, survived a series of near deaths before his turbulent life ended at the young age of 45 last year. The sheer volume of tragedy and coping afflictions Johnny endured in his Vida Loca, as he openly shares in his autobiography, includes the scarring experience of seeing his mother’s kidnapping and violent murder at the tender age of eight. Tapia funneled his heartbreaking life to fuel a successful professional boxing career. Tapia’s confrontation to such tumult is so impressive, it’s no wonder that former EA video game designer Eddie Alcazar decided to both dramatize and document his harrowing real life story. Originally announced as a biopic, subsequently the documentary was born of it, in which Eddie captures final interviews and archival footage with the haunted boxer. Remarkably, watching the clip below, a slight zeal and spirit, however low key and worn, emanates from the towering rumble of his battered lifetime – unquestionably his refusal to be knocked out. This is actually the first feature out of the gate for filmmaker Eddie Alcazar whose radical sci-fi film 0000 has been curiously tracked as in production for a couple years now. The ambitious looking trailer only piqued mad interest when it was released last year.

PURGATORIO directed by Rodrigo Reyes (Mexico) - An elegiac and cinematically shot poem filled with emotional narration and iconography, this border film is told by way of a tapestry of stories that culminates into a strong cry for human compassion. Imagining the border as if purgatory, where migrants must suffer in order to get through to the other side, the dangerous plight in crossing the US/Mexico border is viewed outside political context but rather a metaphysical prism. This is the fourth film from Reyes, a talented young documentarian from Mexico.

INTERNATIONAL SHOWCASE

EUROPA REPORT directed by Sebastian Cordero and written by Philip Gelatt - From award winning Ecuador born filmmaker Sebastian Cordero (Rabia, Cronicas, Pescador) Europa Report marks his first film in English. Somewhat shrouded in mystery, the story is written by Philip Gelatt, an adult comic book author, and is set aboard the first manned mission to Jupiter’s moon Europa. The genre bending sounding sci-fi thriller was recently picked up by Magnolia’s Magnet division and will go straight to VOD on June 27 after its LA Film Festival premiere. Cordero, who is a UCLA grad, has a well-controlled gritty realism to his aesthetic, which might inhabit and distinguish this deep space thriller among the genre’s canon.

CRYSTAL FAIRY written and directed by Sebastian Silva (Chile) - From the crafty young Chilean filmmaker whose first first film, The Maid put him on the international map, this is one of two films he screened at Sundance this year. A road trip of self-discovery featuring the charming free spirited Gaby Hoffman pitted against a smarmy American tourist Michael Cera in the long and vast Chilean coast side, the film explores their unusual and fluid character dynamic and opposing auras.

THE WOMEN AND THE PASSENGER directed by Valentina Mac-Pherson, Patricia Correra (Chile) - A 45 minute version of this screened at the prestigious documentary film festival in Amsterdam IDFA. An unobtrusive camera follows four maids as they clean the rooms of one of those clandestine by-the-hour motels. Amid the moans behind doors and bed aftermaths of torrid love affairs, the women reveal their own perspectives about life, love and sex in some kind of visual love letter to the special place. I don’t believe the title is translated to interpret its full meaning, its more like, “The Transients’ women”.

SHORTS

I WAS BORN IN MEXICO BUT…. written and directed by Corey OHama - 12min (US) - Per the IMDB description, “using found footage to tell the story of an undocumented young woman who grew up thinking she was American, only to find out as a teenager that she didn’t have papers because she was brought to the U.S. as a young child. “ Sounds like the thousands of Dreamers plights whose stories are being suppressed.

MISTERIO written and directed by Chema Garcia Ibarra (Spain) 12min - So even though this is from Spain (not the Americas), I mention it if because I’m a huge fan of Chema’s shorts, Protoparticles and The Attack of the Robots from Nebula-5. I have no doubt this will share that similar strange, whimsical vibe.

AL LADO DE NORMA written and directed by Camila Luna, Gabriela Maturana 14min (Chile) - 49 year-old Jorge is a silent, tired man, whose life seems to revolve around Norma, his elderly mother who has Alzheimer’s. But Antonio, who rents a small room in their home, will provide him with the chance to examine himself and question his monotonous life, which might just make for a radical change.

PAPEL PICADO – written and directed by Javier Barboza - From a 2007 Cal Arts Alumnus, and independent animation teacher and filmmaker, this looks wild! Check out his vimeo works here.

SAINT JOHN, THE LONGEST NIGHT, written and directed by Claudia Huaiquimilla (Chile) 18 min - The filmmaker is of the indigenous Mapuche tribe of Southern Chile. Set amid the happy Saints celebration of June 24, a young boy must wrestle with the reappearance of his violent father.

TOO MUCH WATER (DEMASIADA AGUA) written and directed by Nicolas Botana, Gonzalo Torrens (Uruguay) 14 min - A young woman fills her backyard pool every night and finds it empty in the morning. Strange neighbors and even stranger circumstances stir her paranoia.

Lastly, I have to mention dance beat rapper Kid Cudi’s feature film acting debut in GOODBYE WORLD directed by Denis Hennelly (Rock the Bells doc about Wu Tang Clan) and written by Sarah Adina Smith. Essentially, the film is about a group of friends hanging out when some kind of apocalypse hits. Hijinks ensue. (There’s a trend here after It’s A Disaster and the upcoming “look-we’re-so-cool-celebs partying of This is The End). Although it’s a small role, it is the first of a number of films Kid Cudi is in that are coming through the pipelines. Born Scott Ramon Seguro Mescudi in Cleveland Ohio, he is a beautiful brown blend of African American on his mother’s side and Native/Mexican mix on his father’s side.

The LA Film Festival kicks off with Pedro Almodovar’s, I’m So Excited on June 13 and runs until the 23. Tickets and info here.

Tarantino's Go-To Stuntwoman Zoe Bell on Headlining the Bloody 'Raze' and What She Learned From the 'Death Proof' Director

Nigel M Smith — Wed, 01 May 2013 16:49:41 GMT

Kiwi stuntwoman and sometimes actress Zoe Bell is best known for her standout turn atop the hood of a moving car in Quentin Tarantino's "Death Proof." She played a small role in his hit follow-up "Django Unchained" but remained masked throughout, not getting an opportunity to shine. That changes with "Raze," her first headlining endeavor that world premiered at the Tribeca Film Festival to solid notices from genre purists.

In this sly subversion of the women-in-prison genre, Bell plays Sabrina, who's mysteriously abducted and finds herself in an underground lair forced to do battle with other women for the amusement of an audience.

Indiewire sat down with Bell in New York during the festival to discuss her relationship with Tarantino (who she first met on the set of the "Kill Bill" films -- she was Uma Thurman's stunt double) and where she sees her career going following "Raze."

Was headlining a film on your game-plan when you first got started in this industry as a stuntwoman?

No, not at all. I did drama at school and when I was doubling Xena, one time for my birthday mom and dad bought me an acting course 'cause I've always liked the performance side of anything. Even when I was a gymnast, the floor was my favorite. If I could get the crowd clapping and getting into it, I was like "Yeah!" I feed off that.

But in terms of being an actual actress, it never occurred to me. I mean, being a stuntwoman never occurred to me until I gave up gymnastics and started doing martial arts and met people that were stunt people. I was like, "What? Wait. You get to fight and flip and get paid?" I was like, "Mum, dad, check this out -- I could do this stuff and get paid instead of having you guys pay for me to do it." I got into stunts that way because in New Zealand it was small at the time. I knew someone and made a call and felt like a dick but it worked.

The acting thing -- I would watch people that I was doubling and it never was like, "Oh I could do better," but how fun would it be to do both sides of this character, to do the whole thing? That feeling was only fleeting. And then I worked with Quentin on "Kill Bill" and he basically communicated with me as an actor. He would talk to me about my motivation. I was like, "What? Paycheck, dude, that's my motivation." The way he wanted me to look at it was novel to me. Though his of experience working with me on "Kill Bill," he formed an idea of wanting to put me as a character into one of his movies. I wasn't privy to this idea until after he'd written the script for "Death Proof."

I was terrified of dialogue and I was terrified of having my face open to the camera showing my emotions -- all those things...

That you're asked to hide as a stuntwoman.

That I professionally am required to hide. So once that happened, it struck me as sort of natural progression of where my career might go. Not to say that this has been an easy transition by any means. Convincing the rest of the world, the money people, the producers...

You had to produce this movie in order to get it off the ground.

Right, because we need a name, we need bums in seats, which I also as a producer, totally get now. It's sort of trying to do it in a persistent and polite manner and also keep in touch with the fact that I believe I'm good at it, or that I'm worthy. Because you get told no enough times, it's easy to start believing the universe or start interpreting the universe as saying it.

This is super exciting, being the lead. And being the producer is sort of like one band-aid rip out weighs the other. "Oh my god, I'm carrying the show and I'm in so many frames and there are going to be so many people watching and judging and blah blah"... and then I'm like, "Wait a minute, I'm also the producer and that's a whole different kind of scary." It's a really proud moment to be. We put so much literal blood, sweat and tears, a lot of us put our own money into it as producers. It's worth so much more to me, just the experience and having made a movie... anyone having made a feature film now, even if it's shit, I'm like, "Good on you!" It's a feat.

In many ways the film has a lot in common with "Death Proof," given its grindhouse roots and girls-gone-bad storyline. Is that just a coincidence? Are you attracted to that genre after delving into Tarantino's world?

I came on more during the conceptual beginnings of it and was inspired by the energy and the creative ideas of the people that I was saying yes to. There was a hunger in me that was like yes!

I never was fanatical about films when I was younger. I grew up on an island without TV. We didn't have a cinema on the island. I remember watching "Wizard of Oz" and "Neverending Story." That was pretty much all I saw when I was under the age of 8 or 9. When I was working with Quentin on "Death Proof," it was really the beginning of my education in cinema in general. But particularly that sort of genre, older b type grindhousey. I became a Steve McQueen fan almost overnight. I watched a couple of the McQueen movies and was like, "I wanna marry that man" or "I just wanna be that man." So it wasn't a coincidence but I definitely felt comfortable with it and we also wanted it to be a shift on some of those things. We didn't want it to be a women in prison movie -- we didn't want it to be just a fight movie. I wanted to tell some stories and I, as an actress and as a stunt double, haven't had much experience with visceral real women fights. I love all kinds of action, but it was interesting for me to see if we could put a spin on it that I hadn't experienced before.

In your mind, does this mark your biggest career high since "Death Proof"?

"Death Proof" was obviously massive but "Kill Bill" was massive for me as a stuntwoman and "Xena" was massive before that. I did But yeah, in terms of the combined feeling of awe and excitement and pride in cast, crew and everyone who worked on this show? Without a doubt. I feel like this is my baby -- it's lots of people's babies, of course, and I feel responsible to everybody on it, that it be good. And I feel responsible to audience members as someone who represents action and females around the world, it's really important to me that we get this part of it right.

Making "Death Proof," what scared you more: Quentin's lengthy dialogue scenes or riding atop a car going at warp speed?

The dialogue. Definitely. The car stuff we do as stunt people. I feel like the more comfortable you are with something, the more terrifying you can make it look or the more painful you can make it appear. I remember going to watch "Disney on Ice" when I was a little kid with my mom and there was someone as Goofy on ice skates and he looked like he was always going to fall over. I was like, "Mom, he can't even skate." And i remember my mom saying in order to make it look that clumsy, he needs to be really good otherwise he'd be falling over all the time. That's what we do. I need to be good at what I do in order to make it look like it hurt when that person hit me or when I tripped or when I'm holding on for dear life when I'm on that car.

And you were right? Holding on for dear life?

I was but I had a safety. But I needed that safety so I could throw myself around so that it scared you when you watched it. Otherwise I'd be terrified and the whole chase sequence would just be me frozen because I would die if I came off that thing at 90 miles an hour, without a doubt. But that is my comfort zone.

Watch her in action below:

Watch: Complete Tribeca Talks With Darren Aronofsky & Clint Eastwood And Ben Stiller & Jay Roach

Kevin Jagernauth — Tue, 30 Apr 2013 18:18:00 GMT

Well, the sun has set on another Tribeca Film Festival, but with a packed schedule, we weren't going to have time for everything. That being said, it was a great year for the festival, with more than a handful of surprising films and performances which we broke down in our Best And Brightest Of The 2013 Tribeca Film Festival. But festivals aren't just an opportunity for movies to find an audience, but it's a place for talent to talk, mingle and share anecdotes and while we could find space in our schedule, thank the digital age for preserving these convos.

Darren Aronofsky and the legendary Clint Eastwood got together for a talk, as did "Meet The Parents" team Jay Roach and Ben Stiller and the festival has thankfully put both of those events up online. It's rare to get this kind of time, with these kinds of folks, so sit back and give it a watch below.

Critics Rank the Best Movies and Performances at the Tribeca Film Festival

Steve Greene — Tue, 30 Apr 2013 17:26:20 GMT

As we've seen so far with other 2013 end-of-festival wrap-up polls, critics tend to single out one or two top-notch films that rise above all others. Maybe it's the nature of the Tribeca Film Festival's program, but the ballot responses from the members of our Criticwire Network who chose to participate this time praised a wide variety of films and performances from this year's lineup. The results didn't single out any clear winners but nevertheless demonstrated several of the highlights from the recently-concluded festival.

Still, there were some films that garnered several mentions by critics in multiple categories. A pair of dramas about discovery, Tomasz Wasilewski's "Floating Skyscrapers" and Daniel Patrick Carbone's "Hide Your Smiling Faces," topped the overall Best Narrative Feature tally. Haifaa Al-Mansour's "Wadjda," a tale of a young girl growing up in Saudi Arabia, was singled out as a favorite by a few critics who also praised Waad Mohammed's performance in the title role.

And it wouldn't be a 2013 film festival if "Before Midnight" didn't pop up once or twice. Richard Linklater's film placed on both the Best Narrative and Best Director columns. Also, Jake Johnson's impressive 2013 run continues (after the success of "Drinking Buddies" at SXSW) with a top-vote-getting supporting turn in Jenee LeMarque's "The Pretty One."

On the documentary side, Dan Krauss can add earning the top slot in this poll to a growing list of acclaim for "The Kill Team," his portrait of American soldiers facing sanctions for their actions in Afghanistan. The festival's winner for Best Documentary Feature was joined on multiple ballots by Sean Dunne's "Oxyana," a look at Oxycontin abuse in rural West Virginia. Both films also won prizes from the documentary jury at the festival this year.

We also asked critics to provide their picks in two less groupable categories: Best Scene and Biggest Surprise. To sample some of those more elaborate selections, be sure to check out all the reprinted ballots on the next page.

Joe Bendel, Libertas Film Magazine

BEST NARRATIVE FEATURE

1. Just a Sigh

2. Byzantium

3. Odayaka

4. Will You Still Love Me Tomorrow

5. Mobius

BEST DOCUMENTARY FEATURE

1. Red Obsession

2. Elaine Stritch

3. Cutie and the Boxer

4. Michael H Profession Director

5. The Diplomat

BEST DIRECTOR

1. Odayaka, Nobuteru Uchida

2. Byzantium, Neil Jordan

3. Mobius, Eric Rochant

4. Just a Sigh, Jerome Bonnel

5. Taboor, Vahid Vakilifar

BEST LEAD PERFORMANCE

1. Kiki Sugino, Odayaka

2. Richie Jen, Will You Still Love Me Tomorrow

3. Gabriel Byrne, Just a Sigh

4. Mavis Fan, Will You Still Love Me Tomorrow

5. Fabrice Luchini, Cycling with Moliere

BEST SUPPORTING PERFORMANCE

1. Maya Sansa, Cycling with Moliere

2. Gemma Arterton, Byzantium

3. Makiko Watanabe, Odayaka

4. Tzahi Grad, Big Bad Wolves

5. Rotem Keinan, Big Bad Wolves

BEST ENSEMBLE

1. Odayaka

2. Cycling with Moliere

3. Byzantium

4. Just a Sigh

5. Big Bad Wolves

BEST FIRST FEATURE

1. Red Obsession

2. Elaine Stritch

3. Cutie and the Boxer

4. Mr. Jones

MOST ANTICIPATED (BUT MISSED IT AT TRIBECA)

1. The Project

2. Haute Cuisine

BEST SCENE

1. Laurie Bordesoules' cold reading in Cycling with Moliere

2. First shots of Pumpkinrot's scarecrow-totems in Mr Jones

3. Ally the hotel manager comforting the mysterious guest in the short film Honeymoon Suite

4. Mavis Fan's karaoke number in Will You Still Love Me Tomorrow

BEST SHORTS

1. Honeymoon Suite

2. Recollections

John DeCarli, FilmCapsule.com

BEST NARRATIVE FEATURE

1. Hide Your Smiling Faces
2. Whitewash
3. Broken Circle Breakdown

BEST DIRECTOR

1. Daniel Patrick Carbone, Hide Your Smiling Faces

2. Emanuel Hoss-Desmarais, Whitewash

BEST LEAD PERFORMANCE

1. Veerle Baetens, Broken Circle Breakdown

2. Thomas Haden Church, Whitewash
3. Johan Heldenbergh, Broken Circle Breakdown

BEST FIRST FEATURE

1. Hide Your Smiling Faces

2. Whitewash

David Ehrlich, Film.com

I will say that the most enjoyable moments of my Tribeca were both conversations. The first being the candid and super fun Tribeca Talk between Richard Linklater, Julie Delpy and Ethan Hawke that wisely did without a moderator, and the second being my interview with Matt Creed and Amy Grantham, the folks behind LILY.

BEST NARRATIVE FEATURE

(It should be noted that I missed approximately everything.)

1. Before Midnight
2. Lily
3. Hide Your Smiling Faces
4. The Rocket

5. Michael H. - Profession: Director

Jim Fouratt

BEST NARRATIVE FEATURE

1. Floating Skyscrapers - Against an Antonioni-like landscape, the truth of attraction vs societal demands is revelatory.
2. Sunlight Jr. - Not since Alison Anders' Things Behind the Sun has the tension poverty places on emotional relationships been so nuanced. Director/writer Laurie Collier, as she did in Sherrybaby, does not sugar coat the emotional bombshell scraping to pay the rent hangs over everything, waiting to be ignited by the slightest unexpected turn of events. Watts and Dillon have magnetic resonance and she has never been more authentic in a role.
3. Odayaka - New Yorkers wil recognize the tension between The Mayor and the President telling us to “go shopping.” The air is clean right after the buildings fell on 9/11 and four very different women in Tokyo after an earthquake and Tsunami caused a nuclear reactor meltdown. In this documentary-like narrative, director Nonuteru Uchida explores the relationship between fear and truth and action.
4. Broken Circle Breakdown
5. Six Acts

BEST DOCUMENTARY FEATURE
1. Oxyana
2. Bridegroom

3. Killing Team
4. Teenage
5. Big Joy: The Adventures of James Broughton

BEST DIRECTOR

1. Sean Dunne, Oxyana
2. Tomasz Wasilewski, Floating Skyscrapers
3. Matt Wolf, Teenage
4. Dan Krauss, The Kill Team
5. Felix Van Greningen, The Broken Circle Breakdown

BEST LEAD PERFORMANCE

1. Naomi Watts, Sunlight, Jr.
2. Golshifteh Farahani, The Patience Stone
3. Gloria Pires, Reaching for the Moon
4. Emmanuelle Devos, Just A Sigh
5. Veerle Baetens, The Broken Circle Breakdown

BEST SUPPORTING PERFORMANCE

1. Kim Dickens, At Any Price

BEST ENSEMBLE

1. The Reluctant Fundamentalist
2. Greetings From Tim Buckley
3. What Richard Did
4. Byzantium
5. Some Velvet Morning

BEST FIRST FEATURE

1. Emir Baigazin, Harmony Lessons
2. Jonathan Gurfinkle, Six Acts
3. Daniel Patrick Carbone, Hide Your Smiling Faces
4. Chiemi Karasawa, Elaine Stritch: Shoot Me
5. Matt Creed, Lily

MOST ANTICIPATED (BUT MISSED IT AT TRIBECA)

1. The Rocket
2. Wadjda
3. Taboor
4. Whitewash
5. Stand Clear of the Closing Doors

BEST SCENE
1. The Kill Team: When the marine dad of the accused soldier killer realizes that no one in the military or government cares what is true. They simply want to sweep it under the carpet.

2. GASLAND Part 2: When director Josh Fox is handcuffed and removed from a public hearing because he wants to video the actual hearing. No other journalist is present. It's his wake up call that the political system has failed him because it has been completely kidnapped by lobbyist money.
3. Let the Fire Burn: When we see the "bomb" dropped from a police helicopter explode and a house with 7 people inside become engulfed in flames and then spread to the working class neighborhood full of black-owned homes as the black Mayor takes responsibility for ordering this drastic measure to remove the MOVE collective from their communal home.
4. The Genius of Marian: Not one scene but many that reveals how Alzheimer's is pitting the brain of the filmmaker's mother. Reminiscent in style and emotional impact of Jonathan Caouette's "Walk Away Renee.” The storytelling quietly and relentlessly keeps the slow disappearance of reality in focus and the impact on both the family and the viewer.
5. Gore Vidal: The United States of Amnesia: The choice of opening the film with a graveyard visit to look at the tombstone that has his long time companion’s name carved in it, where he awaits the remains of Gore Vidal to be placed next to him. Finally honored in death for a life of companionship - always kept silent and hid by Gore from public discussion in their 40-year-plus relationship.

BIGGEST SURPRISE

1. Bridegroom: Had passed on it and only went when I was turned away from Adult World and it was was just starting. Though it was to be one more same-sex civil marriage advocacy doc - I get it, I support it, but really there's more to same sex romance than marriage - I found myself deeply engaged in a love story of two small town, midwest gay men who find each other and true love in, of all places, Hollywood. One is an actor/jock/musician and the other a smartypants fem boy with balls, One dies ...and not from AIDS (Oh my) in an accident and that is where life would have been different for the surviving partner if they had been allowed to marry. Two very different families of origin spice the story. Well surprise, surprise: it completely engaged me as a love story so universal that gender and sexual orientation became secondary. Yes, changing laws is necessary, but changing culture is the real battle. Linda Bloodworth Thomason has made a film for every American who does not know a gay person and does not understand the power, joy and strength of same sex love and the devastation learned in crisis of second class citizenship,
2. In God We Trust: The moment I realized this was an advocacy doc about not greed from any side, but the erasure of the role that greed had played in the "victim" turning their head and not wanting to know how they thought they were getting wealthy, while all most all other investors were getting a much lower return own their money.
3. The Project: Seeing Blackwater founder Eric Prince imaged as a hero in a pro-private mercenary army solution to security issues in Nation states was chilling. The fact that most of the white mercenaries were in fact South African Afrikaans and this was only known because of their accents.
4. The Trails of Muhammad Ali: Seeing how nothing would persuade Ali to move away from his convictions about the Vietnam War despite the political fall-out including his losing his title of World Champion and seeing Martin Luther King embrace him, despite the difference in religion and politics.

Melissa Hanson, Cinemit

BEST NARRATIVE FEATURE

1. The Moment
2. Prince Avalanche
3. Before Midnight
4. Sunlight Jr
5. Byzantium

BEST DOCUMENTARY FEATURE

1. Out of Print

BEST DIRECTOR

1. Richard Linklater, Before Midnight
2. David Gordon Green, Prince Avalanche

BEST LEAD PERFORMANCE

1. Jennifer Jason Leigh - The Moment
2. Paul Rudd - Prince Avalanche
3. Emile Hirsch - Prince Avalanche
4. Melissa Leo - Bottled Up

BEST FIRST FEATURE

1. Whitewash

MOST ANTICIPATED (BUT MISSED IT AT TRIBECA)

1. Teenage
2. Adult World
3. Cutie and the Boxer
4. In God We Trust
5. Bridegroom

Kyoko Hirano

BEST NARRATIVE FEATURE

1. Harmony Lessons
2. Before Snowfall
3. The Rocket
4. Ali Blue Eyes
5. Floating Skyscrapers

BEST DOCUMENTARY FEATURE

1. Let the Fire Burn
2. Powerless
3. The Kill Team
4. Big Men
5. Alias Ruby Blade

MOST ANTICIPATED (BUT MISSED IT AT TRIBECA)

1. The Project

Eric Kohn, Indiewire

BEST NARRATIVE FEATURE

1. Stand Clear of the Closing Doors
2. Bluebird
3. Run and Jump
4. Fresh Meat
5. Dark Touch

BEST DOCUMENTARY FEATURE

1. Elaine Stritch: Shoot Me

2. Lenny Cooke
3. Oxyana
4. Teenage
5. Big Joy: The Adventures of James Broughton

MOST ANTICIPATED (BUT MISSED IT AT TRIBECA)

1. The Rocket

2. The Kill Team

3. Whitewash

4. Hide Your Smiling Faces

5. Tricked

Gary Kramer, Gay City News

The documentaries, queer films (both doc and features) were uniformly strong, as were the short films. (You need to acknowledge the shorts in the future; I saw four of the fests' shorts programs).
The world narrative showcase took some risks--TABOOR, for example--that paid off.
Overall, very satisfied with this year's fest. I only wanted to stay longer and see more.

BEST NARRATIVE FEATURE

1. Floating Skyscrapers
2. Hide Your Smiling Faces
3. Six Acts
4. What Richard Did
5. Adult World

BEST DOCUMENTARY FEATURE

1. Oxyana
2. Big Joy
3. The Kill Team
4. Red Obsession
5. Powerless

BEST DIRECTOR

1. Tomasz Wasilewski, Floating Skyscrapers

2. Daniel Patrick Carbone, Hide Your Smiling Faces

3. Jonathan Garfinkel, Six Acts

4. Lenny Abrahamson, What Richard Did

5. Scott Coffey, Adult World

BEST LEAD PERFORMANCE

1. Thomas Haden Church, Whitewash
2. Emma Roberts, Adult World
3. Sivan Levy, Six Acts
4. Naomi Watts, Sunlight, Jr.
5. Waad Mohammed, Wadjda

BEST SUPPORTING PERFORMANCE

1. Maika Monroe, At Any Price
2. Zac Efron, At Any Price
3. Norman Reedus, Sunlight, Jr.
4. Shiloh Fernandez, Deep Powder
5. Amanda Peet, Trust Me

BEST ENSEMBLE

1. Floating Skyscrapers

2. Hide Your Smiling Faces

3. Trust Me

4. Six Acts

5. Some Velvet Morning

BEST FIRST FEATURE

1. Hide Your Smiling Faces

2. Six Acts

3. Wadjda

MOST ANTICIPATED (BUT MISSED IT AT TRIBECA)

1. Harmony Lessons

2. The Machine

3. Before Midnight

4. The English Teacher

5. Mobius

BEST SCENE

1. The teacher drinking her coffee in the short FOOL'S DAY

2. The final scene/shot of SIX ACTS

3. The bear sequence in HIDE YOUR SMILING EYES

4. The end credit sequence of FLOATING SKYSCRAPERS

5. The eyeglass store owner floating away in WILL YOU STILL LOVE ME

BIGGEST SURPRISE

1. FOOL'S DAY--funniest short film I've seen since SPIDER.

2. FLOATING SKYSCRAPERS--I saw the 9:45 am P&I show; I wanted to see it again at 10:30 that same night. It excited me that much.

3. OYXANA--took my breath away with it combination of image and story; so much better than the excruciating BOTTLED UP, which tackled the same topic as a narrative feature.

4. SIX ACTS--can't stop thinking about this film which pushed buttons and envelopes.

5. WILL YOU STILL LOVE ME--a charming, whimsical, feel good film; a true sleeper.

Joey Magidson, Awards Circuit

BEST NARRATIVE FEATURE

1. Before Midnight
2. The Pretty One
3. A Case of You
4. Prince Avalanche
5. Trust Me

BEST DOCUMENTARY FEATURE

1. Lil Bub & Friendz

BEST DIRECTOR

1. Richard Linklater, Before Midnight

2. David Gordon Green, Prince Avalanche

3. Clark Gregg, Trust Me

4. Jenee LeMarque, The Pretty One

5. Phil Morrison, Almost Christmas

BEST LEAD PERFORMANCE

1. Zoe Kazan, The Pretty One
2. Paul Giamatti, Almost Christmas
3. Julie Delpy, Before Midnight
4. Clark Gregg, Trust Me
5. Ethan Hawke, Before Midnight

BEST SUPPORTING PERFORMANCE

1. Saxon Sharbino, Trust Me
2. Paul Rudd, Almost Christmas
3. John Cusack, Adult World
4. Jake Johnson, The Pretty One
5. Emile Hirsch, Prince Avalanche

BEST ENSEMBLE

1. Trust Me

2. Before Midnight

3. The Pretty One

4. A Case of You

5. V/H/S 2

BEST FIRST FEATURE

1. Jenee LeMarque- The Pretty One

2. Lance Edmands- Bluebird

MOST ANTICIPATED (BUT MISSED IT AT TRIBECA)

1. Some Velvet Morning

2. Greetings from Tim Buckley

3. Byzantium

4. Frankenstein's Army

5. Teenage

BEST SCENE

1. The opening scene of Before Midnight

2. The "who'll blink first" scene in Trust Me

3. The funeral scene in The Pretty One

4. The "birth" scene in V/H/S 2

5. The final scene in Almost Christmas

BIGGEST SURPRISE

1. The Pretty One

2. My vague disappointment in Almost Christmas

3. How little I wound up seeing

Kristy Puchko, Cinema Blend

BEST NARRATIVE FEATURE

1. Wadjda
2. The Rocket
3. The Pretty One
4. Whitewash
5. Prince Avalanche

BEST DOCUMENTARY FEATURE

1. The Kill Team
2. Mistaken For Strangers
3. Elaine Stritch: Shoot Me

4. Bending Steel

BEST DIRECTOR

1. Haifaa Al-Mansour, Wadjda
2. Dan Krauss, The Kill Team

3. Jenée LaMarque, The Pretty One
4. Kim Mordaunt, The Rocket
5. Tom Berninger, Mistaken for Strangers

BEST LEAD PERFORMANCE

1. Thomas Haden Church, Whitewash
2. Zoe Kazan, The Pretty One

3. Maxine Peake, Run & Jump
4. Waad Mohammed, Wadjda
5. Sitthiphon Disamoe, The Rocket

BEST SUPPORTING PERFORMANCE

1. Jake Johnson, The Pretty One
2. Emile Hirsch, Prince Avalanche
3. Loungnam Kaosainam, The Rocket
4. Brendan Morris, Run & Jump
5. Gemma Arterton, Byzantium

BEST ENSEMBLE

1. G. B. F.
2. Run & Jump

BEST FIRST FEATURE

1. Wadjda
2. The Pretty One
3. Whitewash

4. Mr. Jones
5. Run & Jump

MOST ANTICIPATED (BUT MISSED IT AT TRIBECA)

1. Before Midnight. Haven't gotten around to it yet. I know, I know.
2. Flex is King. I hear it's insanely amazing. I just missed it again and again.
3. A Single Shot. Sam Rockwell plus buzz of a high tension finale makes me kick myself for having missed this one.
4. Six Acts, I heard only great things about.
5. Teenage.

BEST SCENE

1. The finale of Wadjda. Because of its subject matter (gender disparity in Saudi Arabia), I feared horrendous soul-crushing tragedy would be a given for its third act. But instead Al-Mansour gave her heroine a happy ending that the narrative earned, and left me elated. When the credits rolled, I was a mess of tears and smiles.
2. Chris Schoeck's Coney Island performance at the end of Bending Steel was extraordinary. We've watched this shy strong man come out of his shell over the course of the film, and before he attempts his final feat of strength—one we've only seen him fail at—he gives a speech about overcoming his fears, laying himself bare before the audience. I literally held my breath in hopes he'd succeed. Fantastic, simply fantastic.
3. In Run & Jump there's a spectacular sequence that crosscuts between the teen boy Lenny as he proudly outs himself at a swim meet, with his mother and father attempting to connect through sex for the first time since his father's brain-devastating stroke. It's contains a heady mix of emotions, defiance, hope, ecstasy and despair.
4. James Gandolfini talking about his relationship with Elaine Stritch in Elaine Stritch: Just Shoot Me: "If we had both met when we were 35, I'm sure we would have had a passionate love affair that would have ended very badly." Beyond being hilarious, this comment is evocative, beautifully capturing Stritch's brassy allure.
5. The final freaky and funny shot of Gareth Evans "Safe Haven" contribution to V/H/S/2.

BIGGEST SURPRISE

1. How terrific the slate overall was. I was not only felt spoiled for choice, but also deeply enjoyed most of what I saw.
2. Mistaken For Strangers. I almost skipped it because I didn't know a thing about the band The National, but was urged by fellow critics to give it a shot. I'm ecstatic I did. It's a thoughtful and entertaining look at brotherhood and the creative process.
3. V/H/S/2. I completely hate the first one, finding it frustrating misogynistic and painfully lacking in scares. These troubles didn't bleed in to this sequel.

Stephen Saito, The Movable Fest

BEST NARRATIVE FEATURE

1. The Pretty One
2. Stand Clear of the Closing Doors
3. Whitewash
4. Bluebird
5. Lily

BEST DOCUMENTARY FEATURE

1. Lenny Cooke
2. Oxyana

3. Elaine Stritch: Shoot Me

4. The Kill Team
5. Bending Steel

BEST DIRECTOR

1. Jenée LaMarque, The Pretty One

2. Sam Fleischner, Stand Clear of the Closing Doors
3. Emir Baigazin, Harmony Lessons
4. Emanuel Hoss-Desmarais, Whitewash
5. Josh and Ben Safdie, Lenny Cooke

BEST LEAD PERFORMANCE

1. Thomas Haden Church, Whitewash

2. Naomi Watts, Sunlight Jr.
3. Amy Morton, Bluebird

4. Zoe Kazan, The Pretty One
5. Maxine Peake, Run & Jump

BEST SUPPORTING PERFORMANCE

1. Tess Harper, Sunlight Jr.
2. Andrea Suarez Paz, Stand Clear of the Closing Doors
3. Marc Labrèche, Whitewash
4. Jake M. Johnson, The Pretty One
5. Amanda Peet, Trust Me

BEST ENSEMBLE

1. Trust Me
2. Bluebird
3. The Pretty One
4. Hide Your Smiling Faces
5. Almost Christmas

BEST FIRST FEATURE

1. Jenée LaMarque, The Pretty One

2. Sean Dunne, Oxyana
3. Lance Edmands, Bluebird
4. Emanuel Hoss-Desmarais, Whitewash
5. Steph Green, Run & Jump

MOST ANTICIPATED (BUT MISSED IT AT TRIBECA)

1. Before Midnight
2. The Rocket
3. Before Snowfall
4. The Broken Circle Breakdown
5. Cutie and the Boxer

BEST SCENE

1. Lenny Cooke climax - Wouldn't want to spoil, but what could be an incredibly corny moment near the end becomes eerily effective with some movie magic.
2. Bluebird - Amy Morton's bus driver, filled with regret over an incident on her bus, feels the whole school is judging her when she attends her daughter's concert and retreats to the bathroom. The unique framing of the scene of scene as she collects herself in the bathroom is Edward Hopper-level and could easily be taken as a still and placed in a gallery.
3. Elaine Stritch: Shoot Me - The legendary actress/singer is taking her medicine, insisting to the cameraman that it would be more interesting if he got the shot in a certain way, an incredibly funny moment that shows that even in spite of a weakened state, she still wants what's best for her audience.
4. Stand Clear of the Closing Doors - Although director Sam Fleischner shot the majority of his film on the subway system and braved Hurricane Sandy in the middle of production, one of the film's most striking images is when a cleaning lady (Andrea Suarez Paz) is forced to spend time back at home after her son goes missing and wipes away the dust off her own TV set, never having the time to do so before.
5. The Pretty One - Zoe Kazan and Jake M. Johnson spend an evening in their neighbor's pool, imagining themselves as a married couple in a swooningly romantic moment.

BIGGEST SURPRISE

1. Gasland 2 - A followup that's easier to digest as a narrative and harder to watch for what it says about fracking, Josh Fox's sequel is both necessary and more impressive in all respects than its 2010 forebear.
2. Hide Your Smiling Faces - A really nice debut from Daniel Patrick Carbone, who has an easy way with a young cast and a great eye for locations.
3. Frankenstein's Army - After a rough beginning, a really pleasant, unexpectedly inventive surprise.
4. The English Teacher - If you can't get past some very pronounced logical gaps, some of the most charming work any of the actors have done in a while in a confident debut that plays like a poor man's "Election" from Craig Zisk.
5. Kiss the Water - Eric Steel's profile of Megan Boyd, who dedicated her life to making the perfect flies for fisherman to use as bait, never once shows its late subject onscreen, but has friends and relatives tell her story. Both unusual and low-key, it sneaks up on you.

Don Simpson, Smells Like Screen Spirit

BEST NARRATIVE FEATURE

1. Lily
2. Bluebird
3. Hide Your Smiling Faces
4. Taboor

BEST DOCUMENTARY FEATURE

1. The Kill Team
2. Bending Steel
3. Let the Fire Burn
4. Oxyana
5. Teenage

BEST DIRECTOR

1. Matt Creed, Lily

2. Dave Carroll, Bending Steel

3. Dan Krauss, The Kill Team

4. Lance Edmands, Bluebird

5. Jason Osder, Let the Fire Burn

BEST LEAD PERFORMANCE

1. Amy Grantham, Lily
2. Amy Morton, Bluebird
3. Johan Heldenbergh, The Broken Cycle Breakdown
4. Veerle Baetens, The Broken Cycle Breakdown
5. Nathan Varnson, Hide Your Smiling Faces

BEST SUPPORTING PERFORMANCE

1. Nell Cattrysse, The Broken Cycle Breakdown
2. John Slattery, Bluebird

BEST ENSEMBLE

1. Bluebird

2. Hide Your Smiling Faces

3. The Broken Cycle Breakdown

BEST FIRST FEATURE

1. Lily

2. Bluebird

3. Bending Steel

4. The Kill Team

5. Hide Your Smiling Faces

MOST ANTICIPATED (BUT MISSED IT AT TRIBECA)

1. Lenny Cooke

2. A Birder's Guide to Everything

3. Before Snowfall

4. The Machine

5. The English Teacher

Anne-Katrin Titze, Eye for Film

In 2013, the Tribeca Film Festival has succeeded triumphantly with the MoMA PS1 collaboration for Michelangelo Frammartino's Alberi and how to bring nature into an urban setting through films like Bruno Barreto's Reaching for the Moon, Reha Erdem's Jîn, Whitewash, directed by Emanuel Hoss-Desmarais, Hisham Zaman's Before Snowfall, and Red Obsession, directed by David Roach and Warwick Ross. (Interview with Artistic Director Frédéric Boyer)

BEST NARRATIVE FEATURE

1. Reaching for the Moon - Bruno Barreto's exquisite Reaching For The Moon tells the grand love story between the Pulitzer prize-winning American poet Elizabeth Bishop, and the Brazilian architect Lota de Macedo Soares. Barreto adeptly investigates the art of losing and living with demons. Style is a trigger for communication, and the green layers of nuance are lush.

2. Whitewash

3. Sunlight Jr.

4. Byzantium

5. Some Velvet Morning

BEST DOCUMENTARY FEATURE

1. Michael H. Profession: Director - Cat lover and Academy Award winning director Michael Haneke is profiled in Yves Montmayeur's penetrating Michael H. Profession: Director by frequent collaborators including Emmanuelle Riva, Isabelle Huppert, Juliette Binoche, Jean-Louis Trintignant, Béatrice Dalle, and Josef Bierbichler. The documentary about the filmmaker's career shows Haneke at work, starts with the word "coward" spoken in his 1992 feature film Benny's Video and ends with his statement, that love is a difficult thing and not given to everybody.

2. Lil Bub & Friendz

3. Kiss the Water

4. Red Obsession

5. Gore Vidal: The United States Of Amnesia

BEST DIRECTOR

1. Michelangelo Frammartino, Alberi - Playing in an endless loop in the dome at MoMA PS1, Alberi accomplishes something extremely rare very quickly and profoundly: it allows spectators to breathe, relax and think, about nature, myth, and how good it feels when someone awaits your arrival. Frammartino invites us to remember and forget.

2. Bruno Barreto, Reaching for the Moon

3. Yves Montmayeur, Michael H. Profession: Director

4. Emanuel Hoss-Desmarais, Whitewash

5. Eric Steel, Kiss the Water

BEST LEAD PERFORMANCE

1. Thomas Haden Church, Whitewash - Thomas Haden Church plays Bruce with great strength and impeccable timing. He is a Samuel Beckett character and winter athlete rolled into one, while he juggles a past of glass eyes, a present of strong beer, and an inevitably icy future.

2. Miranda Otto, Reaching for the Moon

3. Emmanuelle Devos, Just A Sigh

4. Naomi Watts, Sunlight Jr.

5. Stanley Tucci, Some Velvet Morning

BEST SUPPORTING PERFORMANCE

1. Glória Pires, Reaching for the Moon - Lota de Macedo Soares is played by Glória Pires with every response a marvelous surprise. The way she meets the world in general and how she slowly changes around Elizabeth Bishop is masterfully subtle. She wonders why their guest is so "stuck-up and defensive" and has already deeply entered a new chapter in her life, without knowing it. Glória Pires conveys all this in a gesture and a movement of her shoulders.

2. Tim Roth, Mõbius

3. Greg Kinnear, The English Teacher

4. Heather Graham, At Any Price

5. Vince Vaughn, A Case of You

BEST ENSEMBLE

1. Reaching for the Moon - The extraordinary yarn begins at the boat pond in New York's Central Park, on a bench, where Elizabeth Bishop (Miranda Otto, translucent and captivating) suffers "weekly attacks" on her poetry and her virtue by good friend Cal (Treat Williams). Former ballet dancer and friend from Vassar, Mary Morse (Tracy Middendorff, a limber Cassandra in a complex role), and right-wing politician Carlos Lacerda (Marcello Airoldi) who wants to be president of Brazil and supports the military coup that ends Brazilian democracy console the central love story.

2. Lil Bub & Friendz

3. Teenage

4. Sunlight Jr.

5. At Any Price

BEST FIRST FEATURE

1. Whitewash - Tribeca Film Festival Best New Narrative Director Emanuel Hoss-Desmarais wins for his chillingly unique snow thriller. On a very snowy night, Whitewash, blows us into the icy world of a man at a crossroads. Bruce's life changes forever after encountering Paul, whose personality couldn't be more different from his but whose situation is no less urgent. He has to confront the basics of survival - food, warmth, shelter.

MOST ANTICIPATED (BUT MISSED IT AT TRIBECA)

1. Bluebird

2. Jîn

3. Cycling with Moliere

4. Odayaka

5. Before Snowfall

BEST SCENE

1. Bub in Lil Bub & Friendz meeting the tiger at the Exotic Feline Rescue Center.

2. Erica's (Kate Hudson) art opening in The Reluctant Fundamentalist.

3. Paul (Marc Labrèche) stealing dolls' eyeballs in Whitewash

4. Haute Cuisine - Monsieur le Président de la République (played by Jean d'Ormesson) endears himself to Hortense (Catherine Frot) when at the first lunch she prepares for him, we learn that he eats the carrot top. Any wise bird can tell you about it.

5. Gore Vidal in Gore Vidal: The United States Of Amnesia explaining JFK.

BIGGEST SURPRISE

1. Michelangelo Frammartino's World Premiere of his breathtaking 28 minute continuous cinematic installation Alberi in the VW Dome at MoMA PS1.

Daniel Walber, Film School Rejects

BEST NARRATIVE FEATURE

1. Wadjda
2. Floating Skyscrapers
3. Ali Blue Eyes
4. Dark Touch
5. Fresh Meat

BEST DOCUMENTARY FEATURE

1. Cutie and the Boxer
2. Alberi
3. Big Joy
4. The Kill Team
5. Raw Herring

BEST DIRECTOR

1. Haifaa al-Mansour, Wadjda

2. Zachary Heinzerling, Cutie and the Boxer

3. Tomas Wasilewski, Floating Skyscrapers

4. Big Joy, Stephen Silha & Eric Slade & Dawn Logsdon

5. Alberi, Michelangelo Frammartino

BEST LEAD PERFORMANCE

1. Waad Mohammed, Wadjda
2. Mateusz Banasiuk, Floating Skyscrapers
3. Bartosz Gelner, Floating Skyscrapers

4. Nader Sarhan, Ali Blue Eyes
5. Riz Ahmed, The Reluctant Fundamentalist

BEST SUPPORTING PERFORMANCE

1. Marta Nieradkiewicz, Floating Skyscrapers
2. Reem Abdullah, Wadjda
3. Karel Roden, Frankenstein's Army
4. Ahd, Wadjda
5. Joyce Payne, Prince Avalanche

BEST ENSEMBLE

1. Fresh Meat

2. Ali Blue Eyes

3. Dark Touch

4. Will You Still Love Me Tomorrow?

BEST FIRST FEATURE

1. Wadjda

2. Cutie and the Boxer

3. Big Joy

4. The Kill Team

5. Frankenstein's Army

Tribeca: Robert De Niro, Martin Scorsese & Jerry Lewis Reflect On 'The King Of Comedy,' Improv, Deleted Scenes & More

Gabe Toro — Mon, 29 Apr 2013 18:57:00 GMT

The Tribeca Film Festival closed last night with a digitally-restored screening of “The King Of Comedy.” Thirty years later, the film still reverberates as an acidic take on celebrity worship that has, oddly enough, become timeless, and the re-master is gorgeous. The film was greeted with rapturous applause, but the real fireworks started after a raucous Q+A featuring a chatty Martin Scorsese, a shy Robert De Niro, and a more-than-eager Jerry Lewis.

Scorsese and De Niro spoke first about the genesis of “The King Of Comedy,” a script by Paul Zimmerman that late-night devotee Scorsese could not figure out. “It was between ’75, to 1980 before I could actually get it,” the director said. “I discovered it as I went along.” Scorsese referred to how “The King Of Comedy” was very much looked upon as one of the last of a dying breed of picture. “We did ‘Raging Bull,’ and that came out ten days before they released ‘Heaven’s Gate,’” he said. “This film was one of the last vestiges of that type of picture. It snuck in under that radar, because that whole world had changed.”

Scorsese showed an active engagement with the material early on, noting how he was a massive fan of the world he saw through the prism of late night talk shows. “I was introduced to Lenny Bruce, Jack Kerouac, people I hadn’t been introduced to otherwise,” he said. “That world was very close to me. So all the characters you see, they’re all part of that. Ed Herlihy, guys that like, were all a part of that world.”

To prepare for the shoot, Scorsese and De Niro attempted to hone the character of deluded standup Rupert Pupkin by hitting stand-up joints and shadowing other comedians. De Niro claimed he worked with the likes of Richard Beltzer and Robin Williams to find the character, but the eureka moment came from the wardrobe. Regarding the iconic red suit Pupkin wears in the film, De Niro recounts, “We went to this store on Broadway, Blue Mountain.”

“Shirt-maker to the stars!” Scorsese added.

“And we saw it on a mannequin,” De Niro continued, “and said, let’s just do that.”

“The face, mustache and shirt were all there,” Scorsese confirms. “The red tie and everything. We said, that’s him, let’s do it.” Scorsese also claims to have spent time with the autograph hounds waiting for the late-night stars, a milieu that shows up in a pivotal early scene of “The King Of Comedy.” But Scorsese easily credits De Niro and screenwriter Zimmerman for fleshing Pupkin out. “The actual monologue was written by Paul Zimmerman,” Scorsese says of the climactic stand-up routine. “That whole monologue, [De Niro] did it in one take. On video. The level of the humor is kind of middle ground. It’s not terrible. It’s not great. It’s enough to get by.”

Scorsese, who says it wasn’t a “comedy” per se (“We didn’t intentionally make it funny!” he protests), nonetheless emphasized how hard the film’s production was. "We did a lot of takes, sometimes 25 to 35 takes, variations of the reading of one line,” he says, noting they shot a million feet of film. Much of that is still sitting around, he says, mentioning one scene between De Niro and Diahnne Abbott, playing attractive barmaid Rita, that had to be deleted.

“There’s a scene where he calls her, and she goes to the phone,” De Niro recalls, referring to the amount of excised scenes. “And she goes out and she meets Rupert, and goes to his loft,” Scorsese added, often finishing De Niro’s sentences. “ And it doesn’t go well. It’s an interesting sequence, but the whole thing had to be lifted out. It’s one of those things people are interested to see as an extra.”

At the mid-point of the Q+A, Lewis joined the duo, sprightly and eager to be there. After beginning with an off-color routine about bestiality and the subway system, Lewis discussed how he got involved with the production. Speaking to Scorsese, he said, “You called me, you said, you and Bobby were talking last night, and we thought it would be great if you did ‘The King Of Comedy.’ I was playing Lake Tahoe, and you called me, and I said, I’d go anywhere the world for you Marty. Send me the script, but I don’t need it because I’d love to work with Marty and you. That’s how I met Marty.” He added drolly, “And he was thrilled.”

Scorsese, who says he still screens Lewis’ films, mentioning “The Ladies’ Man” as the last one he’s re-watched, was in awe of Lewis’ skill, remarking about how perfect he was to play talk show host Jerry Langford. Regarding casting, Scorsese said, “If you go to the talk show hosts, then you go to the actors, a list of actors, then you go to directors… Jerry’s been all of them. Performer, director, actor, host. Inventor. What we use now, a lot of people don’t know this, but the video assist was started by Jerry. Prior to that, we didn’t know what we were getting, he did the video assist first.”

Lewis started off his comments by establishing, “When the comedy comes, if the comedy is real, it’s always gonna score better.” Later, he emphasized this by revealing that a tense scene at Langford’s summer home when Pupkin rudely intrudes, revealing that was a product of improv. “The entire scene in my home when he comes in, and I come back to my home with the golf club, all of that was ad-libbed, the whole seven-to-nine minute scene,” Lewis said. “The line with Bobby, I said something about Hitler, he said, That’s not fair! The man made a mistake!”

Scorsese added, “Everything was so uncomfortable to make that scene.”

To which Lewis interjected, “We heard you sitting behind the camera, hysterical. I said, are you gonna continue laughing, or are you gonna cut this goddamn scene?”

Though she couldn’t be there for the screening, Sandra Bernhard recorded a message to play to the audience. Edited quickly, the minute-long message featured jokes mixed with rapid-fire remembrances that the audience laughed over, though she did get to ask Lewis, “Hey, remember when you called me Fish Lips?” Bernhard was famously discovered for “The King Of Comedy” during a routine with fellow stand-up Beltzer, material that Scorsese says was slightly repurposed for the scene where she has Langford taped down at gunpoint.

Lewis, responding to Bernhard’s story about stealing back his own apology letter to the comedienne, talked a bit about working with her in a way that suggested grudges had not been forgiving. “I remember the day we were doing the tape scene,” he recalled. “I went to Marty and said, 'Marty, there’s so much angst going on. Jerry Langford has so much angst and anger at this injustice that’s been perpetrated on him, and I think when he gets out of the tape, he should punch her in the mouth.' He said, 'You wanna do that?' I said, 'More than anything in the world.' I gave her a shot. Thank god I missed, because she’d have been dead.” He added, charitably, “But she’s the reason for birth control.”

Fortunately for Lewis, it was one of the few bits of reality that intruded upon the picture. When asked if he’s ever experienced an encounter with a Pupkin-type, he casually mentions, “I’ve had three or four stalkers in the last forty years. They’re all gone. The sons of Al Capone have been hanging out for me. I gave ‘em a call, told them, you should visit this schmuck.” He shrugged, “You get out of it pretty easy.”

The Best And Brightest Of The 2013 Tribeca Film Festival

The Playlist Staff — Mon, 29 Apr 2013 18:17:01 GMT

And so we’ve reached the end of the Tribeca Film Festival. Known for its wide-ranging selection of films from all over the globe, they truly outdid themselves this year with a slate of diverse, boundary-pushing films that suggested that, outside of the most prestigious fests like New York, Cannes and Sundance, independent cinema was alive and well, flourishing in the fest’s eleventh year. We profiled twenty films at the start of the fest that might be worth discussion, and a number of those spotlight films didn't disappoint. But the excitement of the Tribeca Film Festival is that there's often greatness emerging from where you least expect it.

Granted, we didn’t manage to see everything at the fest this year, but our staff was able to put our feet to the pavement to collect insights on what were the best offerings at Tribeca. Below, you’ll find a collection of the eleven best films we saw at the fest, a group that includes incisive documentaries, compelling dramas and unique visions from filmmakers both established and fresh. In addition, we’ve singled out four breakout talents of this year’s festival -- writers, directors and actors who hopefully will springboard from the fest to careers of great promise.

“Bending Steel”
Synopsis: Chris “Wonder” Schoeck tries to help resurrect the Coney Island Strongman presentation by exhibiting his very specific skillset involving the extraordinary manipulation of steel by hand.
Verdict: It was unlikely to find a documentary as niche as this at Tribeca this year, given that not only is it focused on a peculiar subculture – the strongman world, where feats of strength are exhibited to audiences – but on an introverted neophyte with unconventional skills attempting to break into that milieu. “Bending Steel” doesn’t shy away from the very particular oddness of Schoeck’s skill, which plays to crickets at an un-amused open mic crowd and quizzical stares from Schoeck’s own parents. What it does provide, however, is a tale of inspiration, creating an unassuming everyman hero and thrusting him into an unusual world where we root for his dream to come true. Director Dave Carroll avoids either sentimentalizing or mocking this unusual world, providing a reverent treatment of a quest that mirrors Schoeck: unfussy, clear-headed and unexpectedly poignant. [Read our review here.]

“Big Bad Wolves”
Synopsis: An Israeli cop thinks he’s fingered the creep responsible for a series of vile child murders, but after cell phone footage of him roughing up the suspect turns up online, he’s kicked off the case. Later he forms an uneasy alliance with one of the murdered girl’s fathers, in a gruesome attempt at revenge and reconciliation.
Verdict: “Big Bad Wolves” has the rare distinction of being one of the best movies at the festival this year while being one of the least-talked about movies, too. Not sure why this is, exactly, since the film is very nearly flawless – a whip-smart, occasionally quite funny, beautifully photographed and deeply unsettling foreign thriller. Honestly, we haven’t felt this way about a genre movie at Tribeca since “Let the Right One In” back in 2009. And that’s really saying something. [Read our review here.]

“Bluebird”
Synopsis: A bluebird flies into the life of a school bus driver in a decaying logging-town in Maine and sets off a chain of events that will haunt two seemingly unconnected families.
Verdict: Another outstanding debut from another talented above-the-line creative turned writer/director is Lance Edmands’ “Bluebird.” Edmands got his start in the editing room, most noticeably cutting Lena Dunham’s debut feature, “Tiny Furniture.” A mature, super wise-beyond-its-years portrait of family, consequences and interconnectivity in the universe, the closest analog we might be able to find for this film is David Gordon Green’s “Snow Angels,” but “Bluebird” is more authentic and existential. On top of a thoughtful filmmaking approach, “Bluebird” also features a stellar cast. And yes, while folks you know like “Mad Men” star John Slattery and Adam Driver from “Girls” shine in supporting roles, it’s mostly the relative unknowns who really are the film’s breakout stars (more on that below). Patient, subdued and wise, you’d never guess that “Bluebird” was a first film. It’s not particularly flashy, but that’s what we deeply appreciate from this wintery and absorbing drama. [Read our review here.]

“Cutie and the Boxer”
Synopsis: A documentary detailing the contentious, artistically fruitful relationship between Japanese artist Ushio Shinohara and his much younger (but just as talented) wife, Noriko. Ushio is known for his papier-mâché motorcycles and splattered masterpieces, created by soaking boxing gloves in paint and pummeling the canvas.
Verdict: A true triumph, one in which the complexities of the couple's relationship is only rivaled by how complicated their working life together is. Director Zachary Heinzerling brilliantly takes Noriko's own illustrations, which weave an autobiographical portrait of her life with Ushio, and animates them. It gives us the story of their forty-year-plus relationship in a delicately dreamlike manner, full of vivid detail and emotion. Ushio always battled for international superstardom, which never really came his way, but his biggest achievement was keeping Noriko around for all these years. [Read our review here.]

“Hide Your Smiling Faces”
Synopsis: In a summer that should be full of adventure and fun, an unexplained accident forces death into the lives of two young boys, leaving them confused, devastated and angry.
Verdict: DP turned feature-length narrative writer/director Daniel Patrick Carbone might be the festival's biggest directorial discovery. Beautiful, yet anguished and tense, “Hide Your Smiling Faces” marks the start of an auteur in the making. The film could be described as if a young Michael Haneke directed David Gordon Green’s directorial debut “George Washington," and there are some spiritual similarities to Terrence Malick. But Carbone, who recently worked with indie filmmaker Rick Alverson, is in the end, his own person with his own voice. “Hide Your Smiling Faces,” is unnerving and disquieting, but also possesses the curiosity and inquisitiveness of young boys at play, but figuratively and literally. A brooding and atmospheric score from one of the members of Labradford adds yet another layer of simmering mood to the picture and it’s gorgeously shot too. It’s a bit of a shock the film didn’t take any major awards (perhaps it’s missing the awards-vital ingredient of a crowd-pleasing tone), as it’s an accomplished effort, the type that rarely comes from a first film, but nonetheless, it’s easily one of the best film from this festival’s crop. [Read our review here]

“Lenny Cooke”
Synopsis: A documentary regarding the number one high school basketball player in the country and why he seemed to vanish from professional ball as soon as he left school.
Verdict: There’s a certain heartbreaking sadness once you piece together the reality of the making of “Lenny Cooke.” It’s clear from the exhaustive footage from Cooke’s youth that directors Joshua and Benny Safdie assumed they were at one point making a film about the next big superstar. The footage bears this out, revealing Cooke as an exciting, rangy talent that traded baskets with the likes of LeBron James and Carmelo Anthony in the early 2000s. But Cooke’s career never took off, as he fell off the radar following failures at home and in school; by the time he readied himself for the NBA Draft, he went virtually ignored. The rest of the footage captures a heftier, more modest Cooke at an older age, seemingly beat down from what seems like a lifetime of too-late hustle to make up for just a couple of lost years in the spotlight. Most sports stories are like this, the tale of the one-time prospect who doesn’t pan out for one reason or another, the underlying truth being that they simply did not have the intense desire to succeed in that field despite being anointed as a superstar at a too-young age. But few of those stories feature a talent as remarkable and peerless as the young Lenny Cooke and none feature the sort of candid access to Cooke’s current life and struggles as this film, which transcends the sports doc formula to produce something wholly indelible. [Read our review here]

“Lily”
Synopsis: A young New York City woman attempts to balance her social and professional life with the end of her cancer treatment.
Verdict: First-time director Matt Creed has made a picture of startling loveliness, capturing the feeling of having to jump back onto a treadmill long after having stepped off. As brought to life by co-writer and star Amy Grantham, Lily is a touching character, not a wallflower but not in a rush to be the center of attention either, and her lack of chemistry with the friends and lovers that clutter her self-esteem speaks not just to the awkwardness of someone hoping to rejoin the rest of the world, but of the unending momentum of New York City. “Lily” is a New York movie through and through in an age where most visions of the city are highly corporate and basically anonymous. Creed and Grantham perfectly capture the vibe of a city that seems alive and vital, demonstrating that a great New York City film should play like a musical, but without the lyrics and instruments, just the melodies. [Read our review here.]

“Oxyana”
Synopsis: A stark documentary set in Oceana, West Virginia where, after the local mining industry closed down and left the local economy in a state of desperation, a new trade has emerged – the drug trade. The locals have nicknamed the town Oxyana after the OxyContin epidemic that has seized the tiny Appalachian community -- now every resident is a potential addict.
Verdict: Documentarian Sean Dunne came to our attention back in 2008 at the Independent Film Festival of Boston where his LP-obsessives documentary “The Archive” screened. The doc made an impression and later went on to become Emmy Nominated. He’s since directed the short Insane Clown Posse Juggalos documentary “American Juggalo” and “Oxyana” is his feature length documentary debut. Stark, unflinching and sometimes hard to watch, “Oxyana” is a gripping portrait of a community in crisis. Featuring a haunting, broken-down score by members of Deer Tick, “Oxyana” doesn’t editorialize outside of some key moments of music, instead eschewing drama to tell, raw-nerved stories of addiction and struggle from the people themselves. [Read our review]

“The Rocket”
Synopsis: Set against the lush backdrop of rural Laos, a young boy said to be born of bad luck yearns to break free from his ill-fated destiny. After his poor village is displaced by an Australian corporation and his mother dies in an accident during relocation, the boy, his father and grandmother set out in search for a new home in the Laotian outback. Along the way, they come across a rocket festival that offers a lucrative—but dangerous—chance for a new beginning.
Verdict: Endearing, spirited and lovely, “The Rocket” balances third world hardship with the humanist story of family and a young boy who wants to prove his birth superstitions wrong. The narrative feature debut of documentarian Kim Mordaunt, “The Rocket” is an impressive drama, that’s soulful, carefully considered and crowd-pleasing. Navigating humanist and social concerns, “The Rocket” never stoops to being an enlightened third world drama, but is instead teeming with resilience, life and its myriad struggles. While it also features a feel-good tone in the last act that helped it win some of Tribeca’s major awards, including the Main Narrative Audience prize, it’s big finish is genuine and well-earned. [Read our review here.]

“Six Acts”
Synopsis: A young Israeli girl copes with the intensity of class tension and sexual pressure by becoming the girlfriend of a party-going playboy who proceeds to exploit her among a small circle of friends.
Verdict: One of the smaller films of Tribeca, this intense drama avoids the easy moralizing of stories about “wayward youth” while also sidestepping the grotesqueries of Larry Clark freakshows to keep the focus on both protagonist Gili (Sivan Levy) and the “six acts” that define her to a group of prying male deviants. What’s arresting about this upsetting narrative is that Gili is smart enough to know that these flashy partyboys are simply using her, but tries to use it as a form of social currency, an attempt by this young woman to own and control her sexuality. What “Six Acts” becomes is a study of whether one can ever fully take control of their sexual agency and if Gili is a victim by her own choosing, or at the mercy of her circumstances in a hyper-sexualized world of dominance and abuse. [Read our review here.]

“Some Velvet Morning”
Synopsis: A young and beautiful New Yorker (Alice Eve) is surprised when an old lover -- that she has not seen or heard from in four years (Stanley Tucci) -- appears at her door with great expectations. Guess what, he's finally left his wife for her. This strange, out-of-nowhere bewilderment is complicated by the fact that she is now friends with Fred’s recently married son.
Verdict: Most fans were ready to shovel dirt on the coffin of Neil LaBute after the threesome of “The Wicker Man,” “Lakeview Terrace” and the appropriately-bloodless “Death At A Funeral” remake. Instead, the accomplished playwright decided to strip down his craft for this claustrophobic relationship drama that has the tension and immediacy of great theater, combined with the vision and atmosphere of superbly-fascinating filmmaking. LaBute, in his commonly cruel way, strands two actors on their own island of self-absorption, pitting pugilistic white-collar jerk Tucci against much-younger would-be paramour Eve, her defenses not prepared for his self-defeating doublespeak disguising an intense, almost uncomfortably revealing sense of self-love. Without another location nor another actor, these two actors claw at each other, Tucci’s combative romantic refugee escaping from his wife only to find the cold, unwelcoming arms of Eve attempting to escape to a lunch date with his son. It’s a portrait of the lifetime of a relationship and how sometimes we forget that that lifetime is exceedingly limited, dependent on a mutual agreement that can never realistically exist between lovers. [Read our review here.]

Five To Watch

Tom Berninger (Director, "Mistaken For Strangers")
There’s something incredibly endearing about the scenes late in The National documentary “Mistaken For Strangers” where Berninger gazes upon a wall of disorganized notecards, attempting to piece together the narrative of his own film as if it will come together through osmosis. But that image of a bumbling goofball trying to make sense of the abstract (accompanied by his brother’s patient nodding) runs counter to the format of “Mistaken For Strangers,” a proudly revelatory documentary about what it’s like to be the brother of a rock-star. As Berninger follows brother Matt and his band The National on the road as an awkward roadie, he also captures moments of unusual serenity that exist when a major band is on-tour, hitting either far-off European countries or holding court with the President of the United States. “Mistaken For Strangers” is the rare doc that puts a face not only on a wildly popular but anonymous-seeming band, but also on the lives touched by rock stardom, in one way or another. Berninger, who shows off two previous films he’s made with splatter-horror bonafides, may have just found a more viable muse as the ultimate rock and roll outsider. [Read our review here.]

Amy Grantham (Writer-Star, “Lily”)
As the title role in the comedy-drama, Grantham is arresting as soon as she appears in front of the camera. Whether it be in a thick set of bangs, her eyes shining through an elaborate chemo-wig, or her short pixie cut highlighting her lithe physicality, Grantham immediately puts viewers at ease; this may be a film about cancer, but Grantham’s easy smile and sweet nature conveys that she’s a survivor. Despite her girlish glee, there’s hardness to Grantham, a worldliness that reveals an inner toughness, pivotal to this film considering that given Lily’s cancer treatments, personal troubles and difficulty finding work would suggest she’s a victim. It’s a beautiful performance from a writer-actress whom we hope to see more of very soon.

Maxine Peake (Actress, “Run And Jump”)
“Run And Jump” earned attention during the fest for being the first dramatic role for comedian Will Forte as Dr. Ted Fielding. While he acquits himself well as the role of a humorless doctor with a secret love for the sticky icky, it’s impossible for viewers of the film to keep their eyes off Ms. Peake. As struggling wife Vanetia, Peake has to balance a natural effervescence and upbeat nature with the everyday disappointment that comes from coping with a post-stroke husband who has lost most of his motor skills (an also-excellent Edward MacLiam). Peake has a natural vitality and joy onscreen, and it’s not hard to imagine the exceedingly-devoted Dr. Fielding shirking his professional responsibilities and spending the evening hours lighting up and dancing to old 45s with this beacon of Irish joy. [Read our review here.]

Tomasz Wasilewski (Director, “Floating Skyscrapers”)
Befitting its vague, elliptical title, “Floating Skyscrapers” places a strong emphasis on the elaborate exteriors of gyms, apartment buildings and offices, turning wide-open spaces into claustrophobic set design to emphasize the closing worlds of the illicit homosexual lovers within the narrative. But “Floating Skyscrapers” isn’t just an airless observation of humans amidst architecture, but also a surprisingly sharp domestic melodrama that plays off a small cast of characters consistently bouncing against each other in an attempt to cope with a massive change in the life of Kuba, the swimmer that everyone is counting on to produce. “Floating Skyscrapers” carries an obvious plotline involving tragedy befalling gay lovers, but it doesn’t neglect the blisteringly explicit lovemaking scenes between lovers both gay and straight, moments where bodies collapse and collide into each other like crashing buildings, leaving the impression that director Wasilewski captures the human body like no other, powering this drama with the lust and focus of messy, borderline irresponsible love. [Read our review here.]

The Women Of "Bluebird"
Like we said above, "Bluebird" is a terrific debut film picture and yes, "Mad Men" and "Girls" stars don't hurt, but there's exceptional female trio in the cast that are all mostly unknown and they are all stellar. The women are Amy Morton (Tony winner for “August: Osage County,” also George Clooney’s sister in “Up In The Air”), Louisa Krause (the bitchy, scene-stealing hotel clerk in "Young Adult") and Emily Meade ("Fringe," "My Soul to Take"). As the devastated mother who inadvertently creates a tragedy (and true lead of the film) Morton is fantastic and someone we hope to see on screen all the time. Krause plays the dysfunctional, alcoholic mother of the boy whose life is hanging by a thread, and Meade plays Morton's disaffected and alienated daughter. In a movie about how we're all connected yet emotionally divided, these three exceptional female talents bridge a world of deep pathos, confusion and longing. They're all outstanding performances and they are now, forever on our radar moving forward.

Honorable Mention:
We wanted to say something about the handsome Jack Reynor of “What Richard Did” though we doubt he needs the extra dap given that he’ll appear in the next “Transformers” film. Both Johan Heldenbergh and Veerle Baetens brought a strong emotional intensity to “The Broken Circle Breakdown” (with the latter winning an award at Tribeca) while Tribeca's Best Documentary award went to Dan Krauss for “The Kill Team,” an honor that we cannot dispute. Andrea Suarez brought a toughness to her lead role in “Stand Clear Of The Closing Doors,” while the Lynch-like direction on “Taboor” makes us think director Vahid Vakilifar might be one of our next great surrealists in the vein of Elia Suleiman, and even surrounded by a collection of hokey plotlines, newcomer Saxon Sharbino brought a Tatum O’Neal-like maturity to her role in “Trust Me.” Jenée LaMarque, the writer/director of the quirky, but emotionally substantial “The Pretty One” definitely has personality and we’ll clearly keep seeing good things from her in the future. Laurie Collyer, the director of “Sherrybaby” knows the downtrodden well and while this year’s Tribeca entry “Sunlight Jr.” was a bit too unrelentingly bleak, it is a strong effort nonetheless and features impressive performances from Naomi Watts and Matt Dillon. And yes, they're mentioned above, but director's Lance Edmands, Sean Dunne, Daniel Patrick Carbone and Kim Mordaunt all having exciting careers ahead of them and we can't wait to see what they do next. - Gabe Toro, Rodrigo Perez, Drew Taylor

Tribeca Review: Iranian Oddity 'Taboor' Is Hypnotic, Lynch-Like

Gabe Toro — Mon, 29 Apr 2013 17:23:00 GMT

What to say about "Taboor," a film that feels as if it was beamed down from a backwards Earth? This maddening low-fi fantasy seems to share its DNA with "Holy Motors" in a story that revolves around the unpredictable actions of a man who keeps escaping definition. At first, he's just a frail, elderly gentleman waking in the late evening and applying his uniform, headed to work. Until you realize his clothes might as well be a costume of sorts, a puffy silver body suit folded upon itself with massive, slick collar. Is this man a superhero?

He might as well be. The night seems to cough him up as he speeds into the darkness on his motorcycle, wearing the same sternly-serious expression. With dead silence (the lines he speaks could be counted on two hands), the knee-jerk reaction is to suggest, this guy's got swagger. His "missions" as they were keep evolving over the night, though what's clear is that he's fulfilling appointments. But whatever menial tasks he's fulfilling (menial in that there seem to be no surprises, and no one is especially thrilled to see him) seem to fly in the face of his appearance: exceptionally well-groomed beard and a thick helmeted silver mane stretching across his head. All the while, he remains silent, but his eyes stay fixed, intense.

Writer-director Vahid Vakilifar seems like a strange duck indeed, and portions of "Taboor" seem to suggest a marriage of the every-day otherworldliness of Alejandro Jodorowsky and the dream-like serenity of David Lynch. Vakilifar is fond of the two-shot that suggests a forced perspective, making Taboor something of a conduit for the needs and hopes of others, whether it be a quick repair to the facilities, or as a pawn for a peculiar game they might want to play.

Outside descriptions claim "Taboor" is taking place in a future world of Iran. I'm not entirely sure about the futuristic aspect, though there's certainly something of a science fiction idea behind the film. The very first shot where Taboor slowly gets dressed seems to be occurring in a room lined with foil, suggesting the sort of low-rent spaceship David Bowie would fly in "The Man Who Fell To Earth." Similarly, Taboor "unwinds" (though he never looks anything other than serene) by taking in a 3D virtual reality ride into an underground cave, hosted by an old-timey prospector who speaks riddles in English. Could this be Taboor's attempt to reconnect with the past? Or is the old man's warnings about sacred ground speaking of Taboor's own need to avoid interacting with his subjects? Are Taboor's rituals "surrender"?

Throughout this inscrutable film, we remain fixated on the crevasses and valleys of star Mohammad Rabbanipour's face, a masterpiece of construction contrasted with the overwhelming cityscapes seen above most of the film's exteriors. Given his automaton behavior, Taboor could simply be just another creation of an industrial world. The fact that he speaks only of medical conditions and metaphors suggests, unlike his surroundings, he's developed the ability to heal. One could argue that, given the downbeat, often frightening "Taboor," his task may be futile; machines can't teach themselves to rebuild. [B+]

What This Year's Tribeca Winners Tell Us About the Value of the Festival

Eric Kohn — Mon, 29 Apr 2013 15:57:45 GMT

The Tribeca Film Festival concluded its 12th edition this weekend with an announcement of its winners in both the documentary and narrative sections. That wasn't the whole story: Finalists were selected from a pool of two dozen titles representing 14 countries -- only a sliver of the 89 features included in this year's lineup, which remains relatively small compared to other big festivals but still a lot to take in.

Continually struggling with a difficult time on the festival calendar and a cluttered program, Tribeca has never been an easy festival to analyze as a single event. Aside from its availability, what defines the ideal Tribeca film? This year's top winners suggest a potential answer in the form of first-rate documentaries, small character studies and international cinema buried overseas. If this quartet could define the entire festival, it might be on to something.

Tribeca always offers a strong heaping of documentaries, due in part to the fact that there's always an overabundance of quality non-fiction films in need of exposure these days. With so much to choose from, however, it's refreshing to see that two of the best selections from the competition section won it.

"The Kill Team," one of innumerable military exposés produced in the wake of the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, delivers a blistering indictment of U.S. army protocol rooted in the travails of a deeply sympathetic protagonist. The winner of Tribeca's Best Documentary Feature award focuses on Private Adam Winfield, the whistleblower who exposed the morbid antics of his platoon in 2010, when it came out that the group had repeatedly murdered innocent Afghanis for sport.

Rather than getting thanked for his efforts, Winfield wound up the subject of military prosecution for not acting soon enough. Krauss captures this icy tragedy with a remarkably intimate look at his family -- particularly his ex-military father -- as they cope with the possibility of their son doing time in spite of his apparent innocence.

The filmmaker expertly cuts between these tender moments and Winfield's harrowing account of the kill team's infuriating antics, which the men themselves documented in a slew of grisly photos that deepen the impact of each ghastly anecdote. As it builds toward a wrenching climax in which Winfield appears resigned to his fate, "The Kill Team" is especially unsettling because of the minuscule sampling of soldiers it involves, leaving open the possibility that the hard evidence of their terrible acts may point to countless more like them.

READ MORE: The Playlist Reviews 'The Kill Team'

Overseas wars aren't the only incursions casting dreary shadows on American society. In "Oxyana," which won Tribeca's Best New Documentary Director Competition, Sean Dunne captures the despair of virtually every resident in Oceana, West Virginia, a town that has adopted the nickname of the movie's title as long as it has been crippled by an outbreak of oxycontin addiction. Beautifully shot to accentuate the elegiac focus, "Oxyana" combines a somber atmosphere with the testimonies of locals, some of whom shoot up on camera, as they explain how the isolated world and lack of opportunities surrounding them feed their addictions. Dunne wisely lets his forthcoming subjects lead the way, their stories ranging from statements of frustration to startling recollections of violence, all traced back to drug addiction. The pileup of tales ultimately add up to a generational howl.

READ MORE: Thompson on Hollywood Talks to 'Oxyana' Director Sean Dunne

A similar form of desperation hovers over "Whitewash," the winner of Tribeca's Best New Narrative Director Competition. Thomas Haden Church delivers one of his most intriguingly off-beat performances in this cryptic deadpan story of lonely, alcoholic widower Bruce as he wanders Quebec's snowy forests in the dead of winter. In a murky opening sequence, Bruce accidentally kills a man with his snowplow, establishing the first of several instances in which the downbeat anti-hero finds himself in a situation where he has no one to support him. After burying that secret, he spends much of the movie traipsing about the blank terrain in a series of misadventures that lead to one dead end after another.

Constantly dreading the possibility of facing repercussions for his actions, Bruce rehearses his responses to an interrogation that never arrives. Meanwhile, he forms a curious bond with an equally depressed local (Marc Labrèche) and ponders his oddly claustrophobic state to the point where it's hard to tell if anything actually takes place outside of his eerie headspace. First time writer-director Emanuel Hoss-Desmarais directs the material with an eye for ambiguity on par with fellow French-Canadian director Denis Cote, whose "Curling" would make a good companion piece to the small town oddities captured here. For Bruce, the bland whiteness surrounding him and his plow form a self-made purgatory to which he can never truly escape. "Seriously," he says aloud to the empty forest, "why am I being kept here?" That's a mystery "Whitewatch" leaves unresolved, resulting in an experience both difficult to comprehend and wholly fascinating, not unlike Bruce's perspective on life.

Not every standout entry at Tribeca was a complete downer. "The Rocket," which won both Best Narrative Feature and an audience award, brings a crowdpleaser mold to an unconventional setting -- the impoverished communities of rural Laos. The movie, which premiered at the Berlin International Film Festival in February, follows adolescent boy Ahlo (Sitthiphon Disamoe) through a series of tribulations when his mother dies and the remaining family is displaced by a dam.

Forced to wander the countryside in search of shelter, Ahlo befriends a young girl and her crazed, pop culture-savvy uncle as an escape from their grim surroundings, while coping with his grandmother's belief that he's cursed. Despite the sad backdrop, "The Rocket" eventually turns into a coming-of-age tale in which Ahlo decides to enter a rocket-building competition in a desperate bid to save his relatives. Australian writer-director Kim Mordaunt delivers an affecting drama that at times suffers from its obvious progression toward a triumphant finale, but even then, it's elevated by the uniqueness of a familiar mold applied to a drab setting.

Certain to generate Oscar buzz as a foreign language film contender if it finds a distributor willing to play that game, "The Rocket" has the familiar uplift of a Spielberg-certified plot. Without breaking any rules, its capacity to work within that vein in spite of the grimy, hopeless environment where it unfolds makes "The Rocket" worth singling out, as its placement at Tribeca this year managed to do. As long as the festival can unearth titles like these from the clutter of new cinema unleashed within the first few months of each year, its battle to remain relevant may have a genuine direction.

'The Rocket' and 'Bridegroom' Take Heineken Audience Awards at Tribeca

Ryan Lattanzio — Mon, 29 Apr 2013 15:50:43 GMT

The 12th annual Tribeca Film Festival announced the recipients of the Heineken Audience Awards Saturday night. Kim Mordaunt's 'The Rocket,' which has already won two prizes at Tribeca, was the audience favorite for narrative film while "Bridegroom," directed by Linda Bloodworth Thomason, won for documentary. The festival concluded on Sunday with a screening of each film. Both received $25,000 prizes.

The story of a displaced family in Laos, "The Rocket" won the world narrative prize for best feature last Thursday at Tribeca. Its young star Sitthiphon Disamoe took best actor as a scrappy kid who sets out to find a new home for his family (our TOH! review).

"Bridegroom," a documentary chronicling the legal struggles of a gay man after his partner's accidental death, is poised to be a controversial film given its incisive -- and personal -- portrait of marriage inequality (Indiewire's interview with the director). Watch trailers for both films below.

Watch The Winners of Tribeca's #6SecFilms Vine Competition

Mark Lukenbill — Mon, 29 Apr 2013 14:56:45 GMT

Six-second video sharing app Vine has only been available since this January, but already the film industry has been hard at work considering what exactly to do with it, from filmmakers and actors embracing the app to Oscilloscope releasing the David Cross comedy "It's a Disaster" in six second loops.

The Tribeca Film Festival, which ended Sunday, joined in on the Vine loving this year by promoting a six second film festival. TFF Programmer Genna Terranova created a shortlist, which was then presided over by a panel including filmmaker Penny Marshall, actor Adam Goldberg, and the team behind the website 5SecondFilms. The winner, in the categories of Genre, Auteur, Animate, and Series, receives a $600 cash prize (ostensibly $100 per second of Vine).

Watch the selected winners below:

Auteur: "There is no sunny-side to this story" by Kevin Polizzotto / @KevyPizza

Series: "The Book Beetle" by Chris Donlon / @creepycrawler

Animate: "How to clear out your garage from a scary ghost" by Jethro Ames / @JethroAmes

Genre: "Lazer's close shave with Donald" by Matt Swinsky / @MattSwinsky

Filmmakers Weigh in on the Film vs. Digital Debate at the Tribeca Film Festival

Mark Lukenbill — Mon, 29 Apr 2013 12:52:49 GMT

The spirit of Keanu Reeves hung heavy in the SVA theater last Thursday at Tribeca Talks' New Filmmaker in the Digital Age panel, or specifically the themes and influence of the actor's much lauded documentary "Side by Side," a comparison of film and digital filmmaking techniques taught as sort of a master class interview by a parade of filmmakers. The film was name dropped a number of times throughout the panel, and much of the same topics were covered by the band of young festival-approved filmmakers who graced the stage. Moderated by Panavision's Peter Brogna, the panel featured "Bluebird" director Lance Edmands, "A Birder's Guide to Everything" director Rob Meyer, "The Pretty One" director Jenee LaMarque, and "Run and Jump" producer Tamara Anghie; all filmmakers with films screening at Tribeca. While no earth shattering revelations were reached upon where the film industry is headed, the group brought a fresh, rational voice to the debate that essentially boils down to "do whatever is best for your film."

Of the four representative filmmakers, only Edmands had shot his feature (gorgeously, it's worth noting, by "Martha Marcy May Marlene" DP Jody Lee Lipes) on 35mm film. The other three shot digitally, predominantly on the Arri Alexa, though Meyer's award winning short film "Aquarium" was shot on film. In some cases, however, this didn't seem to be the choice of the filmmaker but rather an imposed restriction by funders.

"I think shooting on film would've lent a wonderful vintage quality to the film that we do achieve through other means, through costume design, through production design and the lenses that we chose," LaMarque said. "But yeah, I think it would've benefited a lot from being shot on film."

Anghie agreed, saying, "In this instance, had we had more money, I think we would've pushed harder to shoot on film" on Steph Green's "Run and Jump." You can check out a few more fascinating tidbits from the panel and Q&A below, which ranged from discussing the future of film preservation to the current trend of editors beginning work while production is still occurring.

Rob Meyer on how shooting digital changes the shoot's atmosphere:
"There's a certain amount of pressure, shooting on film, that you can just hear the money burning. Not that we just let the camera roll casually, but at the same time that's a lot of pressure for kids. So shooting on video was appealing as it would take away that pressure. We still ran the set very much like a film set, except mags don't jamb or anything that can kind of make for a tense set."

Lance Edmands on the disadvantages, or lack thereof, of still shooting film:
"A film camera is a little bit heavier… I don't know, the Alexa's pretty heavy though. It's not like you need less stuff shooting on video. The crew size is basically the same. You maybe save on a loader, but you need a DIT (digital imaging technician), so it all just comes out in the wash. You still need to do makeup, you still need to design the sets, you still need to drive trucks. There really isn't a lot that gets saved other than the physical boxes of film that then get shipped, processed, transferred and then sent back on drives in our case. Film does get fucked up. We had light leaks on a major scene that I then did not want to film again for performance reasons. It would've been difficult for everybody. But there were these huge light leaks when we got the dailies back. And we had to digitally erase all of them, it took like a month. But, you know, it looks fine and there was a moment where everyone panicked. But I said, let's see if we can fix this digitally and they said, it'll be tough but we can do it. And it was done. I think no matter the format you're going to have a corrupt file or something. There's always something."

While the other directors could view their dailies instantly, Edmands had to take a different approach:
"We processed in New York, at Technicolor. We had to Fedex dailies every other day. The dailies colorist would do the dailies and send them back and we would watch them off of a hard drive, plugged into a TV, at the end of the day. It's tough because you don't see what you shot until four days later, generally, in our case. You're kind of holding your breath, but you're in production so you kind of forget what you shot. So when it comes it's like, oh, that's beautiful. It's like unwrapping a little present. I probably also would've gotten a little obsessive if we had had the movie to watch immediately."

Meyer on the advantages and distractions of instantaneous feedback:
"There's a setting on the Alexa that allowed to us to watch the footage, even though we were shooting Raw, in kind of a ballpark estimation of what a colored version of our footage would look like. But we would tried not to do too much with lookup tables on set, or mess with it too much.

"Our editor started right when we started shooting, which was great. It also just helps truncate our entire post schedule, which is a good economic thing. He did post some scenes, and I wish I hadn't watched them, because while there' s nothing more exciting than seeing dailies for the first time there's nothing more depressing than seeing the first cut of a scene. You're not in the room to give notes, and it sounds bad… The scenes all look great now, trust me."

This process also saved Meyer from having to return to location for reshoots:
"There were some transition shots and stuff that he was able to say 'you're going to need these' two weeks into the shoot, which was great. We were able to go right back in and pick them up."

On the preservation and printing of digital movies:
Tamara Anghie: "We had to deliver on print. The Irish Film Board, that's a requirement for them, to have a separate, 35 mm, print that goes into the film archive. It gives me a piece of mind."

Rob Meyer: "Hard drives fail, they have a 100% failure rate, They're like people. They're gonna die. Sorry to take it down to that level. I don't know if it's all going to end up in the cloud or whatever. We can find the first films ever made and still project them and they're gonna look great. We're hoping we get picked up at the festival and the distributor makes a negative for theatrical distribution, but then a lot of distribution is digital. So you're not going to make prints."

On digital distribution:
Lance Edmands: "I really only care that the movie will be in a movie theater and that people will be sitting down, in the dark all together and watching it because that's how I fell in love with film. But someday it'll be on iTunes and Netflix. It's sort of just the reality."

Jenee LaMarque: "I'm excited about the VOD. I'm very aware of how my friends and I are consuming media right now."

Tribeca Review: ‘Cutie And The Boxer’ Reveals Love Is As Complicated & Unwieldy As A Giant, Fanged Papier-Mâché Motorcycle

Drew Taylor — Sun, 28 Apr 2013 17:58:24 GMT

Love is complicated, this much we know is true. But love is even more complicated, as Zachary Heinzerling’s brilliant new documentary “Cutie and the Boxer” illustrates, when the regular mechanics of romance (co-dependency, support, a nearly psychic transference of ideas and emotions) are housed within an artistic working relationship. Following the stratospheric ups and the depressive downs in the 40-year marriage and artistic collaboration between famed Japanese artist Ushio Shinohara and his wife, Noriko, “Cutie and the Boxer” delicately and playfully attempts to diagram how such a complex relationship functions (or doesn’t function). One of the most lively and emotionally resonant documentaries to debut this year, “Cutie and the Boxer” is a work of art in its own right.

Chances are, even if you don’t know Ushio Shinohara’s work outright, you’ve seen it before – his claim to fame was a series of jarring papier-mâché motorcycles with giant, growling faces and occasionally wild splashes of colors. (He would make these creations out of discarded cardboard he would find in various New York City dumpsters.) The other major series Shinohara is known, which gave the documentary its somewhat awkward title, is a sequence of paintings created by dipping boxing gloves into paint and then slamming them into large canvases. It’s a kind of Jackson Pollock-meets-Rocky Balboa aesthetic that is quite arresting, simultaneously both brilliant and profoundly stupid.

These are the two major paths Shinohara has gone down as an artist since making a very literal splash on the art world decades ago. What “Cutie and the Boxer” attempts to illuminate is Noriko’s involvement in Shinohara’s critical success and her own accomplishments as both an artist and a collaborator. This is accomplished in two ways – one, the movie documents their lives together as they live it today (the movie begins on his 80^th birthday). They reside in a crummy apartment downtown overstuffed with junk, living closer to squalor than any artist who has flirted with global notoriety ever should. The camera placidly observes as she serves him food while he grumbles or shoves it into his mouth. She stands up for herself, and contributes not only to the day-to-day running of the house but in the larger artistic actions that involve his work. But you can’t help but feel her being marginalized, shoved into the corners of his rowdy world.

The other way that Noriko’s story is illuminated is very literal – she is working on a series of biographical illustrations charting her relationship with Ushio. Heinzerling, picking up on the almost cartoonish look of these illustrations (which are just as beautiful and profound as anything Ushio has come up with), the filmmaker has decided to animate the illustrations. These illustration sequences make up a large portion of the movie – a heartbreaking biographical aside that makes you appreciate her work (to this day), even more. Almost everything is covered – how, at age 19, Noriko moved to New York City and was both charmed and scammed by the markedly older Ushio. She ended up paying for many things – and in return she was able to luxuriate in the company of an artist who had always banked on international acclaim and stardom, something that was flirted with but never quite realized. Her parents cut her off, she became pregnant with his child, and was stuck, forced to make excuses for his abuse and alcoholism (he’s been clean for years because his body can no longer process it), all the while contributing to his work without ever getting the recognition she so deserves.

As “Cutie and the Boxer” unfolds, a gallery show of Ushio’s work is being readied for a downtown New York exhibition. But as the curator walks through their apartment, Noriko shows him some of her work too and the decision is made that a section of the exhibit will be devoted to her “Cutie” series (Cutie is her alter ego in the illustrations). Ushio gets worked up and fumes, storming around and attempting to create some bold new art. Noriko works placidly, digging deep into her own tortured personal history to come up with something gorgeous and unique. When the show is finally exhibited, her room, without a single snarling motorcycle or bruised-up canvas, is clearly the one people are drawn to – the simple personal story, gingerly drawn, of a woman who fell in love with a deeply troubled artist, and never became untangled.

For all of the fascinating art world flourishes crammed into this documentary (a woman from the Guggenheim takes a look at his work in one hilarious passage, and their art world agent is a caricature of such a professional), “Cutie and the Boxer” is really a story about love. There is no doubt, for even a moment, that these two love each other (even when Ushio grumbles that he is clearly the artistic genius of the couple), and that their decades-long relationship is one of deep understanding and caring. But the animated passages show a kind of alternate universe, one in which Noriko, freed from the burden of propping up not only Ushio and his artistic empire but also their son (who is now struggling with alcoholism just like his father), could have been free to be her own creator. Could she have gone on to reach the kind of widespread global acclaim that he so desperately dreamed of? Could she still?

As a documentary and a love story, “Cutie and the Boxer” is nothing short of breathtaking. There’s a nimbleness to the storytelling that always keeps you involved, including a small stretch comprised of archival footage of Ushio’s early days when he still was something of a sensation, and an emotional core that most documentaries sidestep entirely. It’s not mushy but it is resonantly heartfelt. At the end of the day, the couple’s relationship, clearly, is their greatest collaborative effort. [A]

Tribeca Review: The Unflinching 'Oxyana' Soberly Charts An Insidious Drug Epidemic In West Virginia

Rodrigo Perez — Sun, 28 Apr 2013 15:19:06 GMT

Oceana, a small coal mining town in Wyoming County, West Virginia, is, on the surface, like any other small town in Appalachia. An hour away from almost any major city, and with an approximate population of 1,400, it’s small, close-knit and not necessarily very open to outsiders. But quietly simmering underneath the surface of this municipality, an insidious epidemic is growing; a scourge of OxyContin and prescription pills that has devastated the town and given it the unfortunate nickname of “Oxyana.”

Directed by Sean Dunne (the helmer behind Emmy-nominated documentary short “The Archive” and the Insane Clown Posse Juggalos documentary “American Juggalo”), “Oxyana” is a gripping and sometimes hard-to-watch portrait of this struggling township under siege by a drug epidemic. Dispassionate in the best sense of the word, “Oxyana” is respectful to the point of being detached. Aside from some hauntingly broken down music by members of Deer Tick (which resembles the wailing violins and trudging drums of The Dirty Three), “Oxyana” almost never editorializes. The film is told almost 100% through talking-head interviews from addicts who are more than willing to share their stories.

And as sometimes customary and commonplace (even boring) as the talking-head style documentary can be, it’s absolutely the correct method for these compellingly told, brutal and sobering stories. Struggling with poverty and unemployment, the town has a legacy of being exploited via its coal mines, and therefore the pill abuse -- a perfect way to keep on slogging through the backbreaking work -- is well explained. Yet somehow, Oceana went from a generation of hardscrabble coal miners using pills to get by, to a newer generation that has abused the drug to the point of death.

To this end, it’s very easy to cry exploitation when telling the stories of the poor, uneducated and disadvantaged, yet Dunne and his team form a respectful and simple portrait: turning the camera on and simply letting these people share what they want to. Names are never used, no postscript of where they are at in the conclusion is employed, and the interviewers are never seen or heard. It’s stark, but powerfully effective stuff.

And the stories of “Oxyana” are many different shades of unfortunate and tragic. A father and dentist laments the demise of his town, one that he won’t leave because he simply cares and loves it too much despite the uptick of violence, overdoses, crime and deaths. Several addicts tell their stories with raw, open-wound vulnerability, including one couple with a withering and emaciated husband dying of brain cancer excruciatingly stuttering away as he struggles to tell his tale. One young man has a baby on the way and knows he wants to be a good father, but he cannot help but shoot oxy into his veins just to maintain an even keel. Another heavy-set, thickly-drawling 20-something has felt the consequences of the drug problem first hand and appears as if he is just waiting to die. His drug-addicted father shot and killed his younger brother and mother and he was a witness to the bodies only a few short hours later. Former addicts talk about the destitute lows they had reached -- prostitution, crime, sleeping under bridges on dirt -- and the absolute controlling power the drug has when it quickly coils and forms a bitterly hard-to-break addiction.

Parents, mothers, addicts and members of the community speak candidly and at length about how their families have been affected. The brief law enforcement section of the documentary almost feels too short, but overwhelmed with processing paperwork, it’s clear they have mostly given up the fight in drug busts and can only handle major crimes.

Not for the faint of heart, several addicts shoot up on camera, and the aforementioned couple with the man dying of brain cancer is painfully difficult to watch. But what makes “Oxyana” absorbing and tolerable is its considerate non-judgmental approach. By giving each person his or her due in a simple, straightforward manner, the documentary humanizes each one of these addicts without turning them into victims. They are who they are, and their portraits and stories are presented plainly for you to make of them what you will.

“Oxyana” doesn’t provide a lot of answers, but it would be dubious to assume it should. It spends time with various people, all of whom don’t have a lot of hope for the region, stuck and trapped in its vicious cycle. Even worse is how the drug contagion has become an embedded part of the sleepy town’s already depressed economy. With the coal mines largely abandoned, a haunted pall hangs over the town, and Dunne captures this in an eerie, yet honest fashion. Crime and violence is on the rise and several participants discuss loved ones who have disappeared and turned up as bodies months later. There’s a not a lot of hope to be found.

Dunne wisely sidesteps any drama or melodrama in the movie (a Q&A after the film suggested some much uglier forms of violence took place with some of the couples near the end of the shoot, but the filmmakers decided to eschew it and stick to their portrait). Unwavering and unflinching, “Oxyana” is anguished and hard to look at. It’s a pained and uncompromising look at horrors that have decimated a community, and while raw-nerved and difficult to stomach at times, Dunne’s respectful ability to never look away from these harsh realities is what makes the doc so vital, powerful and striking. [A]

Underrated At the Tribeca Film Festival : 'Almost Christmas'

Caryn James — Sun, 28 Apr 2013 15:02:00 GMT

The new film from Phil Morrison (the director of Junebug) has not been embraced by most critics at the Tribeca Film Festival (actually, most of them hated it) but I so disagree. Almost Christmas is one of my favorites from this year's festival, a thoroughly fresh dark comedy - more sly and absurd than laugh-out-loud - with Paul Giamatti and Paul Rudd as down-on-their-luck Canadians who come to New York to sell Christmas trees for a month.

The emotional undercurrent explains the darkness: Giamatti's character, Dennis, has just been released from prison, and learns that his former best friend and partner, Rene (Rudd), has gone straight. Rene is also engaged to Dennis' his ex-wife. Oh, and the ex-wife has told their daughter that her father is dead. Not your typical cheery little Christmas movie, but it works and eventually becomes joyful (within reason) instead of depressing.

There are perfect small touches. Rudd has a brown tooth. The score of jazz-inflected Christmas carols is a soundtrack you want to have. It's a small out-of-season miracle.

You can catch the film in the last hours of the festival: Almost Christmas will play in the Back by Popular Demand slot at 9 P.M at AMC Loews Village 1.

Tribeca: Eastwood and Aronofsky Talk First Takes and Failing on Your Own Terms at World Premiere of 'Eastwood Directs' (VIDEO)

Maggie Lange — Sun, 28 Apr 2013 01:12:41 GMT

In a scene from 1995's "The Bridges of Madison County," Meryl Streep's farmwife gazes over one of the bridges as Clint Eastwood, playing a lanky photographer passing through, catches her off guard with a candid snapshot. He's delighted that he has captured her in a natural moment. One of many sequences highlighted in "Eastwood Directs: The Untold Story," it underscores what the director is always chasing.

In the Tribeca Talk Saturday following the world premiere of "Eastwood Directs," the 82-year-old director/star told younger director Darren Aronofsky ("Black Swan") that he learned a key trick from directing children: "It's best if you get them when they don't know they're being filmed."

"Eastwood Directs," directed by friendly critic/documentarian Richard Schickel, almost panders with careful reverence. In the film a wide range of actors, directors, and producers attest to Eastwood's gifts—especially his ability to direct actors. Not surprising for a man with a full-fledged acting career before and after he started directing, Eastwood seems most in his element as an actor's director.

After the screening Eastwood told Aronofsky that he’s never worked with a bad actor. While he undoubtedly works with skillful people, this may be more testament to Eastwood's sensitivity. Streep, Hilary Swank, and Kevin Bacon each say that they could barely tell when Eastwood was directing them.

The director learned early to make sure camera crews were ready during rehearsals to capture key performances. He told Aronofsky, "I do more shots than a lot of people, and reverse masters-- just not as many repetitions." Eastwood swears on the first time, either rehearsals or first takes, as the source of acting brilliance. "Mystic River" was primarily comprised of first takes and performances from Morgan Freeman and Gene Hackman in "Unforgiven" were built from many rehearsal takes.

Throughout the documentary, the same sentiments about Eastwood were echoed again and again, confirming the director's industriousness, vision, versatility, loyalty, and "seductive diffidence," as Streep puts it. "The second we try to pigeonhole him, he does something out of left field," noted Spielberg. And several admitted that upon seeing a rare flash of Eastwood's anger, they wanted to never see his temper again. That intimidation factor also inspired excellence.

Throughout his career, Eastwood continues to reassemble his cast and crew. Directors who worked with Eastwood early in his acting career, Sergio Leone and Don Siegel, were his primary inspirations. After casting Siegel in a bit part in Eastwood's directorial debut "Play Misty For Me," he told his mentor, "I’ll have you there in case anything goes wrong." Eastwood also quotes Siegel's advice about refraining from over-editing: a Hollywood plague of "killing it with improvement."

Even with all his Oscars and accolades, Eastwood's humility and work ethic remain evident. He discusses fighting to make films that the studio rejected for being too dark or potentially uninteresting to audiences. When studios said that no one would see a movie about a female boxer, Eastwood responded: "Who the hells wants to see anything? You don’t know till you get to it." He pushed for "Million Dollar Baby" and eventually the studio conceded. "If you fail on your own terms," he says, "you can fail with your head held high."

Tribeca Review: A Lovely & Considered Humanism Courses Through ‘The Rocket’

Rodrigo Perez — Sat, 27 Apr 2013 19:11:04 GMT

There’s a tricky balance to be found in Australian documentarian Kim Mordaunt’s impressive narrative debut “The Rocket.” Mordaunt, who returns to Laos after exploring the country in his documentary “The Bomb Harvest,” tells a tale that’s both humanistic and soulful, yet political and socially aware. Tip the scales in either direction and your tonal equilibrium is thrown out of order. And that’s perhaps what makes “The Rocket” so special; it’s a thoughtful, well-observed drama that contains many painful struggles and hardships, quietly chronicles third world poverty and social inequities, and yet never condescends to preach or teach. In fact, when the beleaguered protagonists finally receive some much-needed respite and joy, the payoff is well-earned.

In rural Laos, a young boy, Ahlo (Sitthiphon Disamoe), is unknowingly born into bad luck. Local superstition dictates that twins are evil omens and the children should be killed off. Ahlo’s seen as doubly rotten because his twin brother is stillborn. The boy’s grandmother Taitok (Bunsri Yindi) pleads with his mother, Mali (Alice Keohavong), to get rid of this harbinger child, but she resists and nurtures him instead. 10 years later, still poor and disadvantaged, Ahlo and his family, along with his father Toma (Sumrit Wari are relocated by the government from their village -- the local Australian corporation that essentially owns the area is planning on building a dam and flooding the area. The family and villagers are assured new housing and money to compensate for their troubles, but these guarantees end up being empty promises, and beleaguered villagers are brought to live in squalid slums.

Ahlo’s family’s difficult exodus becomes tragic when his mother is killed in an accident while trying to cross a mountain with all their possessions. Cursing Ahlo, his grandmother once again admonishes him as a cloud of misfortune around the family and blames the young boy for his mother’s death. Stricken, the father can do nothing apart from help his family finish the journey.

The makeshift ghetto they are forced to endure is arduous, with no proper sanitation, running water or electricity. To boot, Ahlo’s inquisitive and vivacious yet mischievous nature gets him in dutch with the neighbors. And with tensions already running high, a small unintentional insult transforms like a brush fire into an outraged affront and a show of violent force. Now scorned and despised by the community even more so than the resident misfit, James Brown-loving weirdo Purple (Thep Phongam) and his niece Kia (Loungnam Kaosainam), the family is forced to set out once again to look for shelter, food and a place to call home. With the legacy of war all around them -- Mordaunt clearly referencing the consequences of conflict he documented in “Bomb Harvest” -- this new family unit, Purple and Kia also in tow, face several calamities on their journey. But their circumstances could soon change.

An exciting and lucrative yet dangerous rocket festival is on the horizon, and to prove he is not the cause of all disasters, Ahlo enters the annual contest in hopes of bringing hope back to his family.

While tonally in the same vein as, say, “The Kite Runner,” "Turtles Can Fly" or “Tsotsi,” with similar circumstances of resolute humanism in the face of bleak hardship, “The Rocket” is not just another enlightened third world country movie. Any political commentary is tertiary to the story of family, love and, yes, overcoming odds. While the film's emotional and celebratory big finish is perhaps predictable and feel-good, it’s joie de vivre is genuinely well-earned. Furthermore, there’s tonal balance throughout. Many bleak hardship movies can be relentlessly oppressive (Sundance hit “Frozen River” with Melissa Leo comes to mind), whereas Mordaunt contemplatively observes struggle without ever employing a heavy hand to underscore it. There are also naturalistic joys and humor to be found that feel like organic life moments rather than well-calibrated and crafted moments of comic relief.

In fact, this is exactly where Mordaunt’s film succeeds where others may fail. There’s a fundamental integrity and respect for the characters, the situations and the overall milieu. “The Rocket” never exploits its characters’ burdens and catastrophes, instead treating them with a straightforwardness and virtue. Well-shot and well-scored, Caitlin Yeo’s original music is particular affecting and beautiful without dipping into the sentimental or treacly. It imbues the expressive, yet impartial movie with a resonant soul.

Mordaunt’s eye indicates a thoughtful filmmaker able to listen to the winds of what a movie needs. Effortlessly natural, his workmanlike craft carries the capacity to keep an ear open to happenstance. He coaxes tremendous lightning-in-a-bottle performances out of the children in the film that are always affecting and never feel forced.

Endearing, gripping and heartwarming, “The Rocket” recently won the "World Narrative Competition" prize at Tribeca, and it’s easy to see why. The picture is crowd pleasing and enjoyable, but admiringly respectful and carefully considered. A deeply accomplished first narrative feature, “The Rocket” will hopefully make a bigger splash when it inevitably gets picked up for distribution later in the year. [A-]