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| Burning Down The House: The Story Of CBGB and P-Star Rising |
American Casino (Country: US; Director: Leslie Cockburn)
Politicians and the media like to talk about the relationship between Wall Street and Main Street, but investigative journalist Leslie Cockburn’s debut feature gets to the guts of the matter, visiting defectors from Bear Stearns and Standard & Poor’s and other high-level players in the subprime mortgage gamble and, on the flipside, visiting the working-class Americans who were the unwitting chips on the table. World Premiere, Documentary.
Burning Down The House: The Story Of CBGB (Country: US; Director: Mandy Stein)
Fueled by vintage performances by the likes of Patti Smith, Talking Heads, Television, Bad Brains, and the Ramones, this doc charts the history and far-reaching influence of iconic downtown club CBGB and its fight for survival against the Bowery homeless shelter that sought to shut it down.
World Premiere, Documentary. Full Review
Con Artist (Country: US; Director: Michael Sladek; Cast: Wilfredo Arias, Molly Barnes, Jean Michel Basquiat, Andy Behrman, Pope Benedict XVI, Victor Bockris, Mike Cockrill, Jacob Collins, Adrian Dannatt, Fabio D'Aroma)
One of the biggest names in the East Village art scene of the Eighties, “business artist” Mark Kostabi gleefully made a fortune signing and selling artworks painted by a revolving stable of hired hands. This punk-fueled docu-comedy looks back at Kostabi’s ultimately self-destructive skewering of the celebrity art world, and gets as close as one can to a man who’s been called “the black hole of irony”.
World Premiere, Documentary. Full Review See: Tribeca Film Festival: Diary/Movie/Film reviews - Con Artist, North, Mark Kostabi Official Site
Entre nos (Country: US; Director: Gloria La Morte, Paola Mendoza; Writer: Gloria La Morte, Paola Mendoza; Cast: Paola Mendoza, Sebastian Villada, Laura Montana, Anthony Chisholm, Andres Munar, Sarita Choudhury, Isabel Sung, Lou Martini Jr., Farah Bala, Jacqueline Duprey)
Adoring mother Mariana has toted her two children from Colombia to New York to indulge her husband's whim. But when he abruptly abandons the family, she'll have to rely on her own imagination and courage to survive insurmountable odds during their first summer in the United States. World Premiere, Narrative.
Guy And Madeline On A Park Bench (Country: US; Director: Damien Chazelle; Writer: Damien Chazelle; Cast: Desiree Garcia, Sandha Khin, Jason Palmer)
First-time director Damien Chazelle infuses his black-and-white, vérité-style relationship drama with all that jazzy romance of an old-Hollywood musical. Backed by a grand, alternately rollicking and melancholy score, Guy and Madeline tracks a pair of young lovers in Boston after they separate, search for new romance, and perhaps find their way back to each other. World Premiere, Narrative.
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| Swimsuit Issue and My Last Five Girlfriends |
A Matter Of Size (Country: Israel, France, Germany; Director: Sharon Maymon, Erez Tadmor; Writer: Sharon Maymon, Sharon Maymon, Danny Cohen-Solal; Cast: Shaul Azar, Dvir Benedek, Vivian Brunstein, Itzik Cohen, Shmulik Cohen, Ilanit Dado, Alon Dahan, Levana Finkelstein, Evelin Hagoel, Ra'anan Hefetz)
An overweight, underemployed chef and three close friends abandon their weight-loss group to pursue an activity for which girth is a virtue: sumo wrestling. While training, they discover the soul of sumo, realizing that - fat or thin - love and success will only come from being true to themselves. World Premiere, Narrative.
My Last Five Girlfriends (Country: UK; Director: Julian Kemp; Writer: Alain de Botton, Julian Kemp; Cast: Brendan Patricks, Naomie Harris, Kelly Adams, Cécile Cassel, Jane March, Edith Bukovics, Michael Sheen, Mark Benton, Chris Gascoyne, Johnny Ball)
Based on the international best seller On Love by Alain de Botton, this delightful romantic comedy explores with delicious wit and whimsy just how modern urban relationships go wrong. Surveying the wreckage of his last five relationships, thirtysomething Duncan (Brendan Patricks) concludes that love is a battleground where only the fittest survive.
World Premiere, Narrative. Full Review See: Tribeca Film Festival Movie Reviews/Diary 2009,
Tribeca Film Festival film/movie reviews and diary: Outrage, Garapa, Newsmakers
Off And Running (Country: US; Director: Nicole Opper)
With white Jewish lesbians for parents and two adopted brothers - one mixed-race and one Korean - Brooklyn teen Avery grew up in a unique and loving household. Even so, she can't quell her curiosity about her biological African-American roots and decides to contact her birth mother. World Premiere, Documentary.
Original (Country: Denmark, Sweden; Director: Alexander Brøndsted, Antonio Tublen; Writer: Alexander Brøndsted, Antonio Tublen; Cast: Tuva Novotny, Jesper Christensen, David Dencik, Ghita Nørby, Michalis Koutsogiannakis, Thomas Bo Larsen, Dejan Cukic, Charlotte Fich, Eric Ericson, Helle Fagralid)
In this fresh and colorful lovable loser tale, Henry has spent most of his life trying to blend in. When his seemingly normal life turns upside down, his friend convinces him to move to Spain and open a restaurant. But before he can break free of the mundane, he gets sidelined caring for his mentally unstable mother, running into a lost-soul feminist who does performance art in a strip club, and a big bag of steroids. World Premiere, Narrative.
Playground (Country: US; Director: Libby Spears; Writer: Libby Spears)
This astonishing doc travels to the dark heart of one of the world’s most sinister industries - the child sex trade. Beginning her journey infiltrating brothels in South Korea and Thailand, director Libby Spears soon discovers that the United States is a major player in the human trafficking racket and turns her attention to the homeland. World Premiere, Documentary.
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| Guy And Madeline On A Park Bench and A Matter Of Size |
P-Star Rising (Country: USA; Director: Gabriel Noble)
In the early Eighties, Jesse Diaz was a rising star in the hip-hop world. Now a broke single father in Harlem with two children to support, Jesse finds a shot at redemption in his nine-year-old daughter Priscilla Star, a precocious and immensely talented rapper. Director Gabriel Noble follows four years of father-daughter ups and downs as they navigate the grit and the glamour of the music biz. World Premiere, Documentary.
Swimsuit Issue (Country: Sweden; Director: Måns Herngren; Writer: Jane Magnusson, Måns Herngren; Cast: Jonas Inde, Amanda Davin, Paula McManus, Benny Haag Kalle Westerdahl, Jimmy Lindström)
What begins as a joke turns into a new shot at glory for a group of over-the-hill athletes who decide to form Sweden’s only all-male synchronized swimming team. The less they’re taken seriously, the more determined they are to win the world championship in this fun, feel-good comedy about friendship and family.
International Premiere, Narrative. Full Review See: Tribeca Film Festival Movie Reviews/Diary 2009
TiMER (Country: USA; Director: Jac Schaeffer; Writer: Jac Schaeffer; Cast: Emma Caulfield, Michelle Borth, John Patrick Amedori, Desmond Harrington, JoBeth Williams, Kali Rocha)
Finding true love is easier than ever thanks to a bio-technological implant called the TiMER, which counts down to the exact time people meet their soul mates. Love-starved Oona (Emma Caulfield, TV’s Buffy the Vampire Slayer) is pushing 30, but her TiMER hasn't even started counting down yet. What's worse, she's falling for a guy (John Patrick Amedori, Gossip Girl) who is set to meet his true love in four months. Newcomer Jac Schaeffer crafts a smart romantic comedy that leaves behind the burning question... would you want to know?
World Premiere, Narrative. Full Review See: Tribeca Film Festival Diary and Film/Movie reviews: Departures, The Eclipse, Timer, Fish Child Official Site
Which Way Home (Country: USA; Director: Rebecca Cammisa)
In this unprecedented, revelatory doc, director Rebecca Cammisa (Sister Helen) follows three unaccompanied children on a harrowing odyssey away from their homes in Latin America and through Mexico with one mighty shepherding hope: to reach the United States, where they can either reunite with their own families who made the journey before them, or create new lives for themselves. World Premiere, Documentary.
