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Tribeca Festival 2019

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17 Blocks 17 Blocks
17 Blocks and The Dog Doc
17 Blocks (Country: US; Year: 2019; Director: Davy Rothbart; Writer: Jennifer Tiexiera)
Using two decades of intimate home video, 17 Blocks tells the story of the Sanford family, whose struggles with addiction and gun violence eventually lead to a journey of love, loss, and acceptance.
Full Review See: Davy Rothbart on the challenges of making 17 Blocks
World premiere
The Dog Doc (Country: US; Year: 2019; Director: Cindy Meehl)
Called a maverick, a miracle-worker, and a quack, Dr Marty Goldstein is a pioneer of integrative veterinary medicine. By holistically treating animals after other vets have given up, Goldstein provides a last hope for pet owners with nothing left to lose.
Full Review
World premiere
For They Know Not What They Do (Country: US; Year: 2019; Director: Daniel G Karslake; Stars: Gene Robinson, Sarah McBride, Victor Febo, Sally McBride, Rob Robertson, David McBride, Harold Porcher, Coleen Porcher, Linda Robertson, Elliot Porcher, Annette Febo, Gene Robinson, Sarah McBride, Victor Febo, Sally McBride)
When the Supreme Court legalised marriage equality, the backlash by the religious right was swift, severe, and successful. Karslake's documentary looks at four faith-based families with LGBTQ children caught in the crosshairs of sexuality, identity, and scripture.
World premiere
Leftover Women (Country: Israel; Year: 2019; Director: Shosh Shlam, Hilla Medalia; Writer: Shosh Shlam, Hilla Medalia)
In China, single women are under immense pressure to marry young or face the stigma that comes with being “leftover.” Through marriage markets, matchmakers, and government-sponsored dating festivals, Leftover Women follows three hopeful singles seeking to define love on their own terms.
World premiere
Mystify: Michael Hutchence (Country: Australia; Year: 2019; Director: Richard Lowenstein; Writer: Richard Lowenstein; Stars: Michael Hutchence)
Michael Hutchence was flying high as the lead singer of the legendary rock band INXS until his untimely death in 1997. Richard Lowenstein’s kinetic yet intimate documentary examines Hutchence’s deeply felt life through his many loves and demons.
World premiere
Seahorse Seahorse
Seahorse and Recorder: The Marion Stokes Project
Our Time Machine (Country: China, US; Year: 2019; Director: S Leo Chiang, Yang Sun, Shuang Liang; Writer: S Leo Chiang)
Conceptual artist and puppeteer Ma Liang begins work on an ambitious performance piece about time and memory. For collaboration, he turns to his father, a former director of the Shanghai Chinese Opera, who is beginning to lose his own memories.
World premiere
Recorder: The Marion Stokes Project (Country: US; Year: 2019; Director: Matt Wolf)
Beginning in the 1970s, Marion Stokes recorded an incredible 70,000 VHS tapes of unfiltered daily television. At the time, her compulsion raised eyebrows, but revisited through the lens of today’s media landscape, Stokes’ unusual life’s work becomes an extraordinary archive of television — and American — history.
Full Review
World premiere
Rewind (Country: US; Year: 2019; Director: Sasha Joseph Neulinger)
An unflinching personal narrative that reconstructs the unthinkable story of director Sasha Joseph Neulinger’s boyhood and bravely exposes the dynamics of abuse passed through generations.
World premiere
Scheme Birds (Country: Sweden, UK; Year: 2018; Director: Ellen Fiske, Ellinor Hallin; Writer: Ellen Fiske, Ellinor Hallin)
As her childhood turns into motherhood, teenage troublemaker Gemma comes of age in her fading Scottish steel town. But in a place where “you either get knocked up or locked up,” innocent games can easily turn into serious crime.
World premiere
Seahorse (Seahorse: The Dad Who Gave Birth) (Country: UK; Year: 2019; Director: Jeanie Finlay)
Charts a transgender man’s path to parenthood after he decides to carry his child himself. The pregnancy prompts an unexpected and profound reckoning with conventions of masculinity, self-definition and biology.
Full Review See: Interview with Freddy McConnell about Seahorse: The Dad Who Gave Birth
World premiere
Rewind Rewind
Rewind and Mystify: Michael Hutchence
Watson (Country: US, Costa Rica, Tonga; Year: 2019; Director: Lesley Chilcott)
Founder of Greenpeace and Sea Shepherd, Captain Paul Watson has spent 40 years fighting to end the destruction of the ocean’s wildlife and its habitat. Part pirate, part philosopher, Watson’s methods stop at nothing to protect what lies beneath.
World premiere
A Woman's Work: The NFL's Cheerleader Problem (Country: US; Year: 2019; Director: Yu Gu; Writer: Elizabeth Ai)
Football and feminism collide in this documentary that follows former NFL cheerleaders battling the league to end wage theft and illegal employment practices that have persisted for 50 years.
World premiere
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