For the first time since it was founded 11 years ago, the narrative films competing for awards at the Tribeca Film Festival made up a noteworthy and motley bunch, and it was a real race. Usually gems by an unknown filmmaker made without any stars can be discovered in the various sidebars, but this year, […]
Some of Tribeca Film Festival’s lesser-known documentaries and fiction films were the strongest I’d seen in the program. There were certainly standouts, films that had what seemed like impossible footage of an event—Alias Ruby Blade shares secrets firsthand from within the heart of a country’s rebellion—or feature films that explore familiar territory with nuance and […]
The more than two dozen documentaries at the 2013 Tribeca Film Festival aimed for hearts and minds and many succeeded as audience pleasers. This year’s selections, in and out of competition and as special events, straddled the world, and are notable for their timeliness, for celebrating people at a surprising variety of work, and for […]
This year at the Tribeca film festival, now in its 12th year, films from all over the world included some by major names (Richard Linklater’s Before Midnight and David Gordon Green’s Prince Avalanche) and newcomers trying to make their mark, not to mention the countless documentaries and short films. But not to be overlooked amid […]
Directed by Julia Dyer Written by Gretchen Dyer Produced by Stephen Dyer & Angie Meyer Released by Freestyle Releasing USA 83 min. Not rated With John Hawkes, Molly Parker, Olivia Harris, Jonathon McClendon, Alexandra Doke, Ian Veteto, Jonathan Brooks, Lydia Mackay & Cody Linley In this mini Deadwood cast reunion, Molly Parker and John Hawkes […]
Directed by Andrew Shea Produced by Shea, David D’Arcy & Barbara Morgan Written by Shea & D’Arcy Released by Seventh Art Releasing USA/Austria. 90 min. Not Rated Portrait of Wally is a real-life thriller that starts out as an historical legacy from the Holocaust, then ratchets up into a contemporary scandal with rich villains suavely […]
Socially conscious documentaries at the 2012 Tribeca Film Festival perceptively examined female roles and the culture wars, and brought well-deserved attention to unconventional heroes. Nisha Pahuja’s The World Before Her, the festival’s Best Documentary Feature winner, adds considerable depth to the usual superficial contrasts of Indian women as either Bollywood stars or slumdogs. The beautiful […]
During its final days, the Tribeca Film Festival world premiered three New York-centric fine arts documentaries. The most penetrating of the trio, Wagner’s Dream is an engrossing look behind the curtain of the Metropolitan Opera, and is the perhaps best film about that art form, fictional or otherwise, though it may have that field all […]
Documentaries about athletes and ruggedly macho jobs won awards at the 2012 Tribeca Film Festival and were also popular with audiences. In Wavumba (“they who smell of fish” in Swahili), Best New Documentary Director Jeroen van Velzen finds the spiritual aspects of traditional shark hunting off the coast of Kenya through shamans and the eyes […]