Tribeca announces competition titles

World and US narratives to be split for the first time

by Amber Wilkinson

Jodie Whittaker as Anna in Adult Life Skills
Jodie Whittaker as Anna in Adult Life Skills Photo: Jo Irvine
The Tribeca Film Festival has announced its competition titles for the 2016 edition. The festival - which runs from April 13 to 24 - is to split the narrative competition into two separate sections for the first time, one for US films and a second for international features.

Festival director Genna Terranova said: “In our 15th year we wanted to deepen our support of American narrative filmmakers and have opened our competition to separately showcase the US and international films. We are very impressed by the films this year and inspired to see new voices transcending traditions and taking risks by telling their stories their own way. We are excited to share with audiences how the world of independent documentary and narrative filmmaking is thriving.”

Artistic director Frederic Boyer added: “With our new International Narrative Competition we are reinforcing our faith in cinema from around the world and belief that Tribeca is a fantastic platform for filmmakers to share their vision. Over the ten days of the festival these films will take our audiences on a cinematic adventure, and offer a wide range of perspective in both the stories they tell and the methods through which they're told."

Films in the competition slate include portmanteau movie Madly - which will open the International Competition - and which features short films about love stories directed by starry list of names including Gael García Bernal, Sebastián Silva and Mia Wasikowska. Directors making their debut in the US narrative section, which opens with Justin Tipping's Kicks, include comic Demetri Martin, who also stars in his film Dean. The section also features The Ticket, directed by Ido Fluk, which we recently spoke to composers Danny Bensi and Saunder Jurriaans about.

One third of this year's films are by women directors - a record number for the festival and there are 77 world premieres, with 42 filmmakers making feature directorial debuts.

There's British interest in the World Competition section courtesy of UK/Hungarian co-production Keep Quiet, which tells the story of a right-wing anti-Semite who undergoes an unlikely conversion when he discovers his family's own Jewish links. The section will open with concert film Contemporary Color, directed by Bill Ross IV and Turner Ross.

The festival also announced its Viewpoints sidebar, which features Ben Wheatley's High-Rise and the feature debut of British editor-turned-director Rachel Tunnard, Adult Life Skills, starring Jodie Whittaker. The section will open with Chris Prynoski's Nerdland - an adult animation about celebrity and excess, featuring the voices of Paul Rudd and Patton Oswalt.

View the titles by section:

Share this with others on...
News

Underrepresented stories Laura Green and Anna Moot-Levin on Matter of Mind: My Parkinson’s

Between strangers Anthony Chen in capturing emotion in Drift

Art of observation Matthäus Wörle on his collaborative approach to debut documentary Where We Used To Sleep

Gateway between worlds Anu Valia on expectations, reality and We Strangers

The little things Inside the 2024 Glasgow Short Film Festival

Choosing her colours Joe Lawlor and Christine Malloy on Rose Dugdale and Baltimore

Filmhouse gets £1.5m funding boost Edinburgh cultural hub set to reopen this year

More news and features

Interact

More competitions coming soon.