The sprawling Tribeca Film Festival always offers audiences sure-fire crowd pleasers. This year's festival opens with Woody Allen's Whatever Works and closes with Nia Vardalos in My Life in Ruins. In between the popular choices, the downtown fest also screens an exciting range of undiscovered foreign and independent releases. Here are our top ten picks of films you shouldn't miss.
Last year we were mesmerized by Isild le Besco's Charly. This year, Tribeca screens a new film by her older sister Maïwenn. In the mockumentary All About Actresses, Maïwenn sets out to resolve her own identity as a tortured actress by making a film about the lives of French actresses. Her subjects include cult thespian Charlotte Rampling and rising young ingenues Karin Viard, Mélanie Doutey, Jeanne Balibar, and Julie Depardieu.
Winner of the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film this year, Yojiro Takita Departures tells the story of Daigo, a young cellist who, together with his adoring wife, decides to return to his hometown in Japan's far north after his Tokyo orchestra breaks up. A cryptic classified ad leads him to an unexpected new job as undertaker.More »
We've recently developed a taste for contemporary Danish film: from Susanne Bier's masterful melodramas to Eric Poppe's powerful thriller Troubled Water, which took the top prize at last year's Hampton's Film Festival. No wonder we're excited by the premiere of Dogme director Kristian Levring's Fear Me Not, the story of a complacent middle aged man whose life is turned upside down after he participates in a drug trial for an experimental anti-depressant. Celebrated Danish actors Paprika Steen (The Celebration, The Idiots, Open Hearts) and Ulrich Thomsen (The Celebration, The Weight of Water, The World is Not Enough) star in this psychological thriller.
It's been five years since Alexander Payne's Sideways followed Thomas Haden Church as a well-meaning oaf who goes on a wine tasting binge before his marriage. The lingering memory of that fantastic comic performance makes us excited for the Church's return to the lime light in writer/director Jake Goldberger's debut film Don McKay. In the title role, Church returns home after a twenty-five year absence to see his dying high school sweetheart (Elizabeth Shue). The problem is, McKay doesn't quite recognize his young love and there is also something strange about her caretaker, played by the excellent Melissa Leo.
James Gandolfini may be holding a gun in the photo, but don't mistake him for Tony Soprano. Armando Iannucci's In The Loop, a wicked political satire about the U.S. and Britain on a secret road to war with a hostile nation, is crackling with intrigue and dark humor. Gandolfini is part of a fantastic ensemble cast that includes the reliably hilarious Steve Coogan (Hamlet 2, Tristram Shandy) Peter Capaldi, Tom Hollander, David Rashe, Gina McKee, and Anna Chulmsky.
Lee Yoon-Ki's (This Charming Girl) melancholy comedy trails a pair of former lovers, a romantic and a realist who could never get along. A year later their paths cross; Hee-su wants back the money she had lent him, the penniless Byung-woon is unable to repay her. In one funny, bittersweet day, they make their way through downtown Seoul on an often madcap mission to collect his old debts. Remarkable actress Jeon Do-youn previously starred in Lee Chang-dong's marvelous Secret Sunshine , for which she was named best actress at Cannes in 2007.
1. All About Actresses
Last year we were mesmerized by Isild le Besco's Charly. This year, Tribeca screens a new film by her older sister Maïwenn. In the mockumentary All About Actresses, Maïwenn sets out to resolve her own identity as a tortured actress by making a film about the lives of French actresses. Her subjects include cult thespian Charlotte Rampling and rising young ingenues Karin Viard, Mélanie Doutey, Jeanne Balibar, and Julie Depardieu.
2. The Exploding Girl
Rising star Zoe Kazan first caught our eyes as the guileless young secretary who is gently used and abused by Leonardo DiCaprio in last year's Revolutionary Road. Watching Kate and Leo duke it out in the suburbs, we wanted more Zoe instead. She has a starring role in Bradley Rust Gray's sensitive drama The Exploding Girl. Kazan plays Ivy, an even-tempered college student back home in Brooklyn for summer break with her longtime friend Al (Mark Rendall). As the lines of friendship blur, the audience is forced to wonder how long Ivy -- a suggestive name, after all -- will be able to keep everything that is boiling inside her from spilling over.More »
3. Departures
Winner of the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film this year, Yojiro Takita Departures tells the story of Daigo, a young cellist who, together with his adoring wife, decides to return to his hometown in Japan's far north after his Tokyo orchestra breaks up. A cryptic classified ad leads him to an unexpected new job as undertaker.More »
4. The Fish Child
Argentinian filmmaker LucÃa Puenzo follows up her debut XXY, the sensitive story of a teenage hermaphrodite, withThe Fish Child. Reteamed with the immensely talented Inés Efron, she tells the story of Lala, a pretty and unassuming girl from the most exclusive suburban neighborhood in Buenos Aires who falls madly in love with her family's gorgeous 20-year-old Paraguayan maid. Being hailed as a modern day Thelma and Louise, Puenzo's passionate love story changes tone in the film's second half as the young lovers hatch a desperate -- and criminal -- escape plan.More »
5. Fear Me Not
We've recently developed a taste for contemporary Danish film: from Susanne Bier's masterful melodramas to Eric Poppe's powerful thriller Troubled Water, which took the top prize at last year's Hampton's Film Festival. No wonder we're excited by the premiere of Dogme director Kristian Levring's Fear Me Not, the story of a complacent middle aged man whose life is turned upside down after he participates in a drug trial for an experimental anti-depressant. Celebrated Danish actors Paprika Steen (The Celebration, The Idiots, Open Hearts) and Ulrich Thomsen (The Celebration, The Weight of Water, The World is Not Enough) star in this psychological thriller.
6. Don McKay
It's been five years since Alexander Payne's Sideways followed Thomas Haden Church as a well-meaning oaf who goes on a wine tasting binge before his marriage. The lingering memory of that fantastic comic performance makes us excited for the Church's return to the lime light in writer/director Jake Goldberger's debut film Don McKay. In the title role, Church returns home after a twenty-five year absence to see his dying high school sweetheart (Elizabeth Shue). The problem is, McKay doesn't quite recognize his young love and there is also something strange about her caretaker, played by the excellent Melissa Leo.
7. The Girlfriend Experience
Steven Soderbergh's latest low-budget experiment explores the life of a $2,000-an-hour Manhattan call girl who navigates needy johns, treacherous critics, and a devoted boyfriend who struggles to accept her lifestyle. In a stroke of genius casting, the lead is played by porn star Sasha Grey.
8. Guy and Madeline on a Park Bench
The title of Damien Chazelle's debut feature is enough to make us curious, and the publicity still seems like reason enough to see the movie: a young woman in a polka dot shirt plays trumpet while a an attractive young man, quite possibly besotted, looks on. Shot in black-and-white on 16mm film, this vérité-style relationship film tracks young lovers Guy and Madeline in Boston after they separate, search for new romance, and perhaps find their way back to each other.
9. In The Loop
James Gandolfini may be holding a gun in the photo, but don't mistake him for Tony Soprano. Armando Iannucci's In The Loop, a wicked political satire about the U.S. and Britain on a secret road to war with a hostile nation, is crackling with intrigue and dark humor. Gandolfini is part of a fantastic ensemble cast that includes the reliably hilarious Steve Coogan (Hamlet 2, Tristram Shandy) Peter Capaldi, Tom Hollander, David Rashe, Gina McKee, and Anna Chulmsky.
10. My Dear Enemy
Lee Yoon-Ki's (This Charming Girl) melancholy comedy trails a pair of former lovers, a romantic and a realist who could never get along. A year later their paths cross; Hee-su wants back the money she had lent him, the penniless Byung-woon is unable to repay her. In one funny, bittersweet day, they make their way through downtown Seoul on an often madcap mission to collect his old debts. Remarkable actress Jeon Do-youn previously starred in Lee Chang-dong's marvelous Secret Sunshine , for which she was named best actress at Cannes in 2007.
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