Created by Robert De Niro and Jane Rosenthal, the mission of the Tribeca Film Festival is to enable the international film community and the general public to experience the power of film by redefining the film festival experience. The Tribeca Film Festival was founded to celebrate New York City as a major filmmaking center and to contribute to the long-term recovery of lower Manhattan.
This year is the fifth anniversary of the festival, which runs from April 25 through May 7. The films listed below will be shown at BMCC’s Tribeca Performing Arts spaces. For information about festival films, which will be screened at other theaters throughout the city, or for advance ticket information visit http://www.tribecafilmfestival.org/
ADELANTE MUJERES: Latina Women at the Helm
Tribeca Talks Panel Series
90 min
Latina women have become prolific in American culture, ascending to the top of the pop charts, box office and the Nielsen ratings. As their influence grows and expectations increase how will Latin women balance the expectations of their ethnic culture with the demands of the marketplace? Rosie Perez (Just Like the Son, Fearless) Mia Maestro (Poseidon, Alias) Zoe Saldana (Crossroads, Pirates of the Caribbean) and America Ferrara (Real Women Have Curves, Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants) join us to discuss.
SCREENING SCHEDULE
Sat, May 4 / 7:00 pm
Tribeca Performing Arts 2
$12
Five Fingers
2006
95 min
U.S.A.
Directed By: Laurence Malkin
A startling cat-and-mouse thriller, Five Fingers is a brilliantly claustrophobic exercise in psychological intimidation and anxiety. A shattering look at the shifting morals of terrorism and covert torture, it plays like a game of chess where the wrong move leads to an excoriating checkmate. At the behest of his girlfriend, idealistic Dutch pianist Martijn heads to Morocco to start a food program for malnourished children. Shortly after meeting his British guide Gavin, the two are abducted by terrorists. They wake up blindfolded, in pain, and strapped to chairs in an abandoned warehouse. Headed by Ahmat, the abductors are skeptical of Martijn’s altruistic motives. What ensues is a match of wits, one side outfoxing the other in an interrogation that intensifies with each harsh question and stern answer. Forced to question everything, and everyone, that brought him to Morocco, Martijn has only one choice: Solve the riddle of his captivity…or die trying. The mind games in Five Fingers are sure to have you speculating until one of the players declares checkmate. Director Laurence Malkin makes precise use of his tools: paranoia and claustrophobia. he cast is exquisite, delivering powerful dialogue, and escalating the tension with every subtle look and reaction.
-David Kwok
SCREENING SCHEDULE
Mon, May 1 / 9:30 pm
Tribeca Performing Arts 1
$12
The Heart of Steel
2006
54 min
U.S.A.
Directed By: Angelo J. Guglielmo Jr.
It is invitingly simple to give the brutal 2001 attacks on the World Trade Center the catch-all moniker of “September 11,” as if by giving the disaster a date, we quite literally put it in the past. But for the thousand or so volunteers who showed up at the Jacob Javits Center immediately after the attacks, the hard reality of September 11 lasted far longer. In The Heart of Steel (produced in partnership with The September 11th Families Association), we are introduced to a group of people who thought of September 11 as an ongoing disaster rather than just a dark day. Nicknamed the Renegade Volunteers for their resilient nature and unorthodox volunteer methods, these ordinary citizens from throughout the tri-state area left their various real estate, teaching, and investment banking jobs to distribute food and supplies to the rescue workers. Initially they were given inventory jobs, but as the days passed and the Renegade Volunteers began to take shape, their involvement deepened. Within a week, they had amassed a number of army transport vehicles and a supply station the size of a Home Depot. When transport became to difficult, they decided to set up a makeshift supply house less than 2 yards away from ground zero. Despite huge shards of glass still dangling from the windows of office buildings, the motley crew dispensed water and new boots to steelworkers and firemen. Judging from their heartfelt and often tearful interviews, it is obvious that not one of them has forgotten the day of September 11, or the subsequent months that they devoted to that day.
-Rowan Riley
SCREENING SCHEDULE
Sat, May 6 / 3:00 pm
Tribeca Performing Arts 1
$12
Holiday Makers
Ucastnici zajezdu
2006
117 min
Directed By: Jiri Vejdelek
Holiday Makers tells the story of a disparate bunch of Czech vacationers thrown together on a one-week package bus holiday to an Adriatic seaside resort. The mesmerizing underwater opening sequence invites the audience to look at what lies beneath the surface of things, as magic can happen in unexpected bursts and unlikely places. The strange ensemble of characters is led by a plain-faced, witty woman who is taking her ornery middle-aged parents on holiday. Also along for the trip are a minor pop star, a gay couple, a pair of teenage sexpots, a homophobic mom and dad and their two kids, and a science-fiction-obsessed diving enthusiast who gets turned on by women swimming underwater. A fetching tour guide and a sadistic bus driver round out the motley crew. While this may seem like the perfect formula for a holiday in hell, the film is, in fact, a funny, sly, and tender look at the yearning for human connection and all the ensuing complications that such a project entails. Entanglements, adventures, and misadventures multiply as couples are made, unmade, almost made, and then broken up. And yet, against all odds, the vacation proves transformative by the week’s end.
-Dorna Khazeni
SCREENING SCHEDULE
Fri, May 5 / 3:00 pm
Tribeca Performing Arts 1
$12
Journey to the End of the Night
2006
86 min
U.S.A.
Directed By: Eric Eason
In a scene halfway into Eric Eason’s sophomore film, powerful club-owner Rosso (Scott Glenn) visits a blind fortune-teller and asks whether his wife really loves him. Before the soothsayer can respond, Rosso’s wife (Catalina Sandino Moreno) calls on his cell phone, sounding frazzled. As he rushes to leave, club bouncer Rodrigo waits outside, ready to report on Rosso’s every move. This is just a sample of the madness and paranoia that permeates Journey to the End of the Night, a gritty thriller set on the sex-for-sale streets of Sao Paolo. Rosso and his sadistic son Paul (Brendan Fraser) are plotting separately to use money from a stolen suitcase of cocaine as their ticket out of Brazil. To ensure that the deal is a success, Rosso recruits Nigerian dishwasher Wemba (Mos Def) as the drug mule. But when Wemba suddenly vanishes, Paul goes on a warpath that involves a transgender hooker and the fortune-teller’s dog. With flashback sequences, slow-motion cutaways, missed encounters, and characters weaving in and out of one another’s lives like schools of fish, the film is reminiscent of Hong Kong triad films like Johnny To’s PTU and Andy Lau’s Infernal Affairs trilogy. Eason (winner of the 2002 TFF Emerging Filmmaker Award) follows up his acclaimed feature Manito (screening in TFF’s +5 Retrospective) with this explosive second film. Also starring Oscar-nominee Catalina Sandino Moreno.
-Win-Sie Tow
SCREENING SCHEDULE
Fri, Apr 28 / 9:00 pm
Tribeca Performing Arts 1
$12
Lassie
2005
100 min
Directed By: Charles Sturridge
Charles Sturridge’s Lassie is set in a socially divided Yorkshire just before World War II. While members of the upper classes are busy tending to their mansions, Sam Carraclough (John Lynch) and his wife Sarah (Samantha Morton) are struggling to make ends meet. Their son Little Joe (Jonathan Mason) is heartbroken when they are forced to sell his beloved collie Lassie to the eccentric Duke of Rudling (Peter O’Toole). But Lassie has other ideas. During her shipment to Scotland, she escapes from her cage and sets out across the British countryside on a long journey home that is filled with thrilling adventures, including a stint with charming puppeteer Rowlie (Peter Dinklage) and his sweet mutt. Defying all the odds, Lassie finds help in unexpected places as she makes her way back to Joe just in time for Christmas. This heartwarming treat, with its superb cast and gorgeous scenery, is an unforgettable addition to the Lassie franchise.
-Sara Nodjoumi
SCREENING SCHEDULE
Sat, May 6 / Noon
Tribeca Performing Arts 1
$12
The Road To Guantanamo
2006
95 min
Directed By: Michael Winterbottom,
Mat Whitecross
In The Road to Guantanamo, codirectors Michael Winterbottom and Mat Whitecross recount the true story of four British Muslim men who go to Pakistan for a wedding and end up in Cuba as tortured prisoners of the U.S. government. This powerful docudrama masterfully combines edge-of-your-seat storytelling (the spectacular early scenes were filmed in Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Iran) with the sickening realism of torture in a military prison. At the same time, the film avoids simple sensationalism and the demonization of individual soldiers, instead leaving Bush, Blair, and Rumsfeld holding the buck for blatantly trampling all over the Geneva Conventions and denying prisoners their most fundamental human rights. In Camp -Ray, which is the first holding block for detainees, the boys are locked in open-air cells resembling dog kennels. Not allowed to talk to one another, exercise, touch the wire of their cages, or protect themselves from the hot sun, they are woken up every hour for a head count. They are interrogated by CIA, FBI, and military personnel, and beaten in order to extract confessions stating that they are al-Qaeda fighters. The most diabolical of all the tortures consists of their being tied up in stress positions to the floor of cells while they are blasted with ear-splitting music. The directors never hide their political intentions, but they have responded to critics who have called the film a work of propaganda by stating that they were not making a piece of investigative journalism, but simply wanted to tell this gripping story from the point of view of those who lived through it.
-Deborah Young
SCREENING SCHEDULE
Fri, May 5 / 9:30 pm
Tribeca Performing Arts 1
$12
TOGA, TOGA, TOGA! What the Industry Learned at Faber College
90 min
Through films such as Animal House, Caddyshack and Groundhog Day, Harold Ramis has influenced a cottage industry of subversive comedies that takes aim at the American mainstream with a cast of rebels and outsiders. Join us for a conversation with Ramis and his heirs in American comedy film as they discuss smart comedy, big ideas and sticking it to the man. The New Yorker’s Tad Friend moderates.
SCREENING SCHEDULE
Sat, Apr 29 / 7:00 pm
Tribeca Performing Arts 2
$20
Wah-Wah
2006
99 min
Directed By: Richard E. Grant
The “”pip-pip”” facade of late-colonial British society receives a gentle pricking in actor Richard E. Grant’s directorial debut. Partially based on Grant’s own experiences growing up in South Africa, Wah-Wah blends together coming-of-age melodrama and incisive character studies that are reminiscent of Evelyn Waugh. The plot unfolds against the backdrop of the handover of power in Swaziland, circa 1969. The sun has pretty much set on decades of British imperial rule, and on the marriage of imperial functionary Harry Compton (Gabriel Byrne) and his adulterous wife Lauren (Miranda Richardson). Eleven-year-old Ralph (played effectively by Zach Fox and as a teenager by Nicholas Hoult) spies his mother doing the deed and becomes our eyes and ears for all that follows-including his father’s descent into alcoholic melancholy and his remarriage to Ruby, a sassy American flight hostess (Emily Watson). Ruby and Ralph bond as he comes to understand that she too is an outsider in this hypocritical, class-obsessed society. (Interestingly enough, the film’s title refers not to the British slang term “”wah-wah,”” meaning headache, but to Ruby’s dismissal of upper-crust colonial phraseology as a load of old “”wah-wah.””) Grant coaxes fine, understated performances from his ensemble, while keeping his focus firmly fixed on the human drama, relegating politics to the background. There are some wonderful period songs, and the action builds to a surprisingly moving climax. This is a warm, humane film obviously close to its maker’s heart-and all the more effective because of it.
-Sam Dracula
SCREENING SCHEDULE
Thu, May 4 / 6:00 pm
Tribeca Performing Arts 1
$12
Walker Payne
2006
113 min
U.S.A.
Directed By: Matt Williams
Set in a small southern town in the 1950’s, Walker Payne tells the story of a man who goes to great lengths to keep his children, even though it could mean the loss of something he dearly loves. After getting laid off from his mining job, Walker Payne (Jason Patric) finds himself out of work, out of money, and unable to see his two young daughters until he gives his ex-wife (Drea de Matteo) the child support money he owes her. But work is scarce and Walker’s efforts to raise the money prove futile. Anxious to see his girls and unable even to borrow money from the bank, Walker is in a desperate and vulnerable state when he meets a smooth-talking, opportunistic hustler (Sam Shepard), who gives him the opportunity to win big money quick. Despite his desperation and the dire circumstances he is in, Walker still says no to the tempting offer. But when his ex-wife’s frustration at his inability to get any money reaches a furious high, she threatens Walker with an ultimatum: Either he comes up with $5,000 in cash in exchange for custody of the girls, or he will never see them again. The hustler’s offer is now Walker’s only way out of an impossible situation, and he is suddenly faced with a heart-wrenching dilemma.
-Lisa Hopper
SCREENING SCHEDULE
Wed, Apr 26 / 6:00 pm
Tribeca Performing Arts 1
$12
The War Tapes
2006
97 min
U.S.A.
Directed By: Deborah Scranton
Since Homer’s time, storytellers have struggled with the challenge of how to describe the experience of war. The War Tapes suggests that the best storytellers aren’t looking on from an emotional and physical detach-they’re on the battlefield. Using footage shot by three members of the National Guard deployed in Iraq, Deborah Scranton has crafted a documentary that is humorous, gut wrenching, and deeply authentic. This is war as experienced by its most intimate players. Sergeant Steve Pink is a wisecracking carpenter who aspires to be a writer. Sergeant Zack Bazzi is a Lebanese-American college student who loves to travel and is fluent in Arabic. Specialist Mike Moriarty is a father who seeks honor and redemption. Part journal, part jokebook, part witness, The War Tapes offers a view of war rarely seen-from the inside out. We are illuminated on what the soldiers are thinking every step of the way, from their views on the media’s coverage of Operation Iraqi Freedom to how they miss loved ones back home. Caught between the bravery and the hypocrisy of war, the men allow us to step into a their daily lives, which can be both beautiful and shocking to watch. Audiences will be hard-pressed to find a more objective look into the lives of U.S. soldiers in Iraq.
-Nancy Schafer
SCREENING SCHEDULE
Sat, Apr 29 / 3:00 pm
Tribeca Performing Arts 1
$12
