By S.T. VanAirsdale

A year after it screened Tribeca in the preview stages, Albert Maysles and Antonio Ferrara's completed documentary The Gates premiered Saturday as the 2007 fest's closing-night film. It was a misnomer in a couple of ways -- the festival continues even as I write this Sunday afternoon, and the finished film actually screened privately for friends, press and other guests even a few nights before the premiere -- but I don't care if you don't, and I'm really, really betting you don't.

Gate-d community: (L-R) Editor Matthew Prinzing, Albert Maysles, Antonio Ferrera and Jeanne-Claude at Tribeca's closing-night screening of The Gates (Photo: STV)

The Gates chronicles the 25-year struggle of artists Christo and Jeanne-Claude to complete their massive installation of 23 miles of saffron fabric "gates" throughout Central Park. Maysles and his late brother David, who had previously shot docs profiling the pair's Running Fence and Valley Curtain projects, were there in 1979 to film the pair's frustrating and ultimately failed appeals to one New York civic institution after another. This early footage is easily the film's most rewarding, establishing the magnitude of the challenge beyond its baffling logisitics; several opponents invoke arguments getting to the very nature of art, while the social dynamics of the artists spending $5 million on the project stirs further skepticism among community activists.

Maysles and Ferrara returned to the Gates beat in 2004 after Mayor Michael Bloomberg reversed decades of bureaucratic stalling. "The art itself didn't change," Jeanne-Claude told the audience after the screening. (Christo, who was in town for Wednesday's preview, had flown ahead to Belgium for a gallery installation.) "But the people who were responsible for giving permission definitely changed. I know that Mr. Gordon Davis, ex-ex-ex-parks commissioner is in this room. You should remember he's the one who, a quarter-century ago and more, wrote the negative report. But today he's our friend, so don't lynch him."

Oddly, the film's narrative momentum is directly inverse to that of the project it depicts. The Gates are green-lit, the 4,000 tons of steel bases are set and the fabric is unfurled in about 15 minutes of screen time, reducing the remainder of the feature to seemingly endless shots of the art against its wintery park backdrop. The philosophical tension of the first 40 minutes attenuates to a token back-and-forth cut between snow, squirrels, cooing tourists and billowing industrial fabric; it alternately continues the Maysles/Christo & Jeanne-Claude tradition while compromising the riveting discovery of Maysles' camera eye. The Gates gives up on its curiosity to the benefit of no one but its indomitable subjects, for whom glory and vindication are clearly secondary to their art but whose sudden heroism after 25 years is as much a triumph as the work itself.

You'll eventually be able to judge for yourself: HBO has the film slated for broadcast in February '08, and Maysles said he and the producers are looking for theatrical distribution in the months ahead. Meanwhile, Christo and Jeanne-Claude are at work on their next project, Over the River -- a 40-mile-plus fabric canopy set to envelop portions of the Arkansas River in Colorado by 2011.

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(L-R) Teddy Leifer and Paul Taylor, the audience-charmers behind We Are Together (Photo: STV)

By S.T. VanAirsdale

They now call Tribeca's audience prize the Cadillac Award, and the rumor is that the trophy was as heavy as an El Dorado. But that was of little concern to filmmaker Paul Taylor and producer Teddy Leifer, whose documentary We Are Together were awarded the hardware -- and its corresponding $25,000 prize -- Saturday night prior to the closing-night premiere of The Gates. The film goes behind the scenes at South Africa's Agape Orphanage, which is both home to children of AIDS victims and the center of those children's choral work celebrated worldwide. The film showcases both their music and surrogate family; the kids have been performing throughout the festival, starting with their interlude on opening night.

A festival dispatch sent over late Saturday noted that Taylor and Leifer will pass the money along to the kids for Agape education expenses; an insider said the trophy will be recycled as a tire block for non-operational school vehicles.

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(L-R) Jake Halpern, Dr. Robert Millman, Bruce Dern and Janice Min chase fame in Tribeca(Photo: Tobi Elkin)

By Tobi Elkin

Lindsay, Angelina and J-Lo -- oh my! While none of these lovely ladies was in attendance, their auras were omnipresent during Thursday night’s Tribeca Talks event Fame! I’m Gonna Live Forever! A panel of experts dissected the “American Idolization” of culture, the obsession with crafting and maintaining fame and the rabid desire to document stars’ looks, fashions, diets/workouts, rehab stints, accidents and lovers.

The panel, consisting of Jake Halpern, journalist and author of Fame Junkies; US Weekly editor-in-chief Janice Min; actor Bruce Dern (Coming Home, the Tribeca '07 selection The Cake Eaters); and Cornell University psychiatry professor Robert Millman, M.D., was moderated by Josh Wolk of Entertainment Weekly. The good doctor is known for developing the diagnostic term “Acquired Situational Narcissism,” a label to describe the idea that one deserves fame, is somehow entitled to be paid attention to. Athletes, politicians and actors are prime candidates for developing the syndrome. “You stop noticing everyone else," Millman said. "You stop looking out and you're not interested in anyone else. Baseball players and stars, they often act very nice but they’re not interested in you; they know you’re interested in them.”

Dern related a story from his new memoir Things I’ve Said But Probably Shouldn’t Have about meeting Marilyn Monroe on his first day at The Actors Studio in 1960. The two got to talking, and Dern escorted Monroe back to her apartment on Sutton Place when they both saw a woman in a long coat and dark glasses coming around the corner. Monroe, then the biggest star in America, turned to him and began crying, “Do you know who that was?” Dern said, “Yeah, I think I do.” Monroe cried, “That was Greta Garbo.” She began sobbing harder. Dern asked her, “What’s the matter?” Monroe replied, “That was Greta Garbo, and she didn’t know who I was!”

Continue reading "Dern, Min and Co. Break Down Fame Game" »

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By Elena Marinaccio

Perhaps only a week or so shy of completely perfect timing, Wednesday night’s Tribeca Talks discussion with rapper/actor Ludacris and rock journalist/moderator Lisa Robinson subtly reflected the inconsistencies between the mainstream media and hip hop, and highlighted the underlying bias in our culture’s interpretations of music and movies. Speaking on balancing his double roles in the entertainment industry, hip hop’s Ludacris, a k a indie film’s Chris Bridges (ostensibly present to promote his return appearance as the murderous Darius Parker on the season finale of Law & Order: SVU) touched on the undercurrent of racism and practices of censorship prevalent in the music and film industries (and all without a single utterance of the name “Imus”)

Lisa Robinson and Ludacris chat in Tribeca Wednesday night (Photo: WireImage)

But it wasn’t all staunch cultural commentary as Bridges' clips from Hustle & Flow and the Oscar-winner Crash were screened and the Atlanta-based rhymester-turned-role player described his rise to fame as a hip hop artist, writing his first verse at age nine, later being discovered working as a DJ for a local radio station and working as a “rookie” in the acting game:

ON BEING RECOGNIZED FOR HIS MOVIE ROLES: “I’ve sold over 10 million records and I’m just talking over the past 10 years, and people have known me as Ludacris. It continues to blow my mind when people say they know me from my movies and not my music, which means that I’ve made some good choices and I’ve been blessed to be in some very impactful films. “

ON THE STEREOTYPING OF MUSICIANS ON A FILM SET: “That stereotype is crazy: that all rappers show up late and that we smoke weed in our trailers; that we show up with six and seven people of an entourage all the time. It took me a while to realize, of course, but they would call me to set and I would be in my trailer just sitting there for, like, three hours wondering why I was never working for three hours before they called me on. They assume that I would be late every time so they would give themselves a window of three hours so that if I was late at least they had enough time for me to be there and that was their excuse. So I’m there on time, by myself all the time, no drugs in the trailer whatsoever, killing every single stereotype that they may have. And I started gaining their appreciation.”

ON AUDITIONING FOR JOHN SINGLETON: “At the time I was on tour with Outkast... and John Singleton called on me to try out for this movie 2 Fast 2 Furious. And I was on tour, and at the time it was so crazy I had to audition behind stage, like 15 minutes before I was about to go on stage. They brought a camera behind stage, I read my lines, and I got the part.”

ON HIS ALL-TIME FAVORITE FILMS: “Meet The Parents is one of my favorite movies. I love Will Ferrell and I love Ben Stiller like no tomorrow. I love to laugh and I love comedies. I love dramas, too. But stuff like Old School and Talladega Nights and all those movies. I watch them over and over again. Coming to America is probably my favorite movie of all time. I could say every single word in it. I love it to death. I made a song called 'Coming To America' I love it so much.”

ON PROFANITY IN MUSIC AND TELEVISION: “I feel like me losing my Pepsi contract because of an individual [Bill O’Reilly] who said my name and did judge me just for what I would say on a record, took [my words] out of context. Me losing my Pepsi deal, just for the words that I said, and then the people who picked up my Pepsi deal [are] the Osbournes. How can you say it’s not OK for this man to have a contract, but it’s OK for a man who bit the head off an animal, a man who has an MTV show which you have to bleep out every other word? And you’re talking about words that I’m saying in my music? It’s OK for him to have a contract with this corporation, but it’s not OK for me to have?"

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By S.T. VanAirsdale

So it's May 4, and the festival ends May 6, and the party occurred in Chinatown, but Thursday night's Tribeca Awards Show wasn't necessarily about rhyme or reason -- it was about hardware and oversize fortune cookies with winners' names tucked inside and Tribeca getting the whole awards thing over with a few days early so as to move onto its last weekend with as much momentum as possible. (And maybe the massive Jing Fong restaurant costs more to rent on Saturdays? I don't know.) At any rate, the fest offered up a slew of prizes, including the top narrative award to My Father My Lord (reviewed by Eric Kohn here on The Reeler) and the top documentary prize to the grim torture expose Taxi to the Dark Side (also reviewed by Kohn).

Class of '07: The Tribeca prize winners in attendance at Thursday's awards show and party (Photo: STV)

"The note was struck earlier about the origins of this festival," Gibney said during his acceptance speech. "I can remember being here in the days after 9/11 as the caissons rolled by St. Patrick's Cathedral, thinking that out of the wreckage downtown, there was a sense of hope. There was a tremendous sense of solidarity and determination, and people all over the world looked around and said, 'We're all New Yorkers.' There was that sense. And yet I feared along the way that sense of purpose and that sense of hope for a better world was hijacked by some people who played on our fears and in a way took us on a journey to the dark side, as Dick Cheney reminded us in the days after 9/11. So it's my hope that this film will be something of a prod to have us change drivers in our national taxi -- turn the taxi around and take us back in the other direction that was originally part of the hope and determination that this festival represents and that New York is very much a part of."

Meanwhile, the New York awards went to The Education of Charlie Banks for narrative and A Walk Into the Sea for documentary. The Reeler hears that a distribution deal is imminent for the latter film; Charlie Banks director Fred Durst fled town before he could pick up his prize or distribution (his star, the gregarious Jesse Eisenberg, accepted in Durst's stead). For more with Durst and Walk Into the Sea director Esther Robinson, visit our ReelerTV and Director Spotlight sections respectively.

The full list of winners follows the jump; all of them screen at least once more in the days ahead, so check the Tribeca schedule for dates and times.

Continue reading "My Father, Dark Side Finish on Top at Tribeca" »

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Pass the hat for Roger Friedman, $11 poorer and stranded in Chinatown

Some of today's news and notes from around the Tribeca Film Festival:

--Both Jaman and New York Magazine are offering a limited-time offer to check out some of this year's Tribeca selections online for free. Believe it or not, this includes shorts and features, including the acclaimed Between Heaven and Earth, The Optimists and Ken Jacobs' RAZZLE DAZZLE The Lost World. Meanwhile at NYM, Logan Hill and Bilge Ebiri have selected a fistful of their favorite short films as well; Lord knows you're not working anyway, so have a look.

--Following his star turn this week on ReelerTV, West 32nd director Michael Kang had a few words with Gothamist's Karen Wilson about his sophomore directing effort and that troubling philosophical puzzler: "Would that be considered a hate crime if I knocked a European out for giving chinkie eyes?"

--Also upset was Fox gossip-tard Roger Friedman, who went all the way down to "the very Lower East Side" for a Tribeca-related event purportedly honoring Chops' spiritual benefactor Wynton Marsalis. To his dismay, none of the A-listers promised on the tip sheet arrrived, and -- gasp! -- all the old pushcarts had been replaced by Jaguars. Moreover, he wants the publicist to reimburse him for his $11 cab ride. The red ink just gets deeper.

--Will the paparazzi make Brett Ratner monogamous? Not at Tribeca, anyhow.

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Word just trickled over the Reeler HQ transom that First Run/Icarus Films snagged North American rights to Camila Guzmán Urzúa's debut The Sugar Curtain, which premiered April 27 in Tribeca's world doc competition.

In his Screening Room review of the film, Reeler critic Vadim Rizov offered shrugging approval: "Urzua -- who moved with her family to Cuba in the '70s from Chile and then left in 1990 -- finds person after person who compares the good old days to the current state of things, and concludes that an economy based around tourism and money sent from abroad by relatives might not be in the best shape to create a socialist utopia. Snark aside, Urzua's impulse to create a lyrical elegy for the past clashes mightily with attempts at cogent political analysis: the result is a film that hamhandedly focuses on images of decaying playground to symbolize all that's been lost. Footage of schoolchildren yelling 'We shall be like Che!' to start off their school day almost makes up for it, but not quite."

A just-arrived press release also notes that Curtain will screen at the San Francisco Film Festival as planned starting May 6 before moving on to a theatrical release this summer.

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One of Wazhmah Osman and Kelly Dolak's Postcards From Tora Bora

By Tobi Elkin

Postcards from Tora Bora, Wazhmah Osman’s story recounting her childhood in Afghanistan at the time of the Soviet invasion (1979) and subsequent occupation of that country, almost didn’t get made. The documentary, which had its Tribeca premiere last week, chronicles Osman’s return to Afghanistan 20 years after emigrating to the United States and her reunion with her father, a physician, who, save for a few visits to his family, stayed behind to help establish clinics and orphanages in his war-ravaged country.

“Originally, we were planning a documentary on Afghan women -– teachers and doctors -– we wanted to see if the situation had improved due to the U.S. and foreign presence post-9/11," said Osman's co-director Kelly Dolak in an interview. The project gradually morphed as Osman’s family became the more compelling story.

Postcards is a colorful, sobering and emotional portrait of a family’s estrangement from the life it once knew and a society and culture that no longer exist. It is also deeply personal, as Osman explores her anger and sadness over a childhood disrupted, her father’s 14-month imprisonment and torture (eight months of which he was in solitary confinement) and the chasm that exists to this day over his remaining in Afghanistan after the family emigrated.

Osman’s father Abdullah, who is featured in the film, attended the premiere and sat next to his wife. Osman said that up until the late 1990s, her father seldom visited her mother, herself and two younger sisters in New Jersey. “Nothing was ever talked about,” she said when asked how her father’s absence was explained to her and her sisters.

One of the earliest scenes in the film shows Osman discovering dozens of old photographs in a chest in her paternal grandparents’ house. “I felt so much," she said. "So happy and so sad. That room felt like it had ghosts.” In a particularly poignant scene, Osman visits the arid, dusty remains of what had been her grandfather’s farm and orchards. She identifies a dry hole in the ground that used to be the swimming pool: “It was a metaphor for a place of nothing but happiness. And to see it as just a hole in the ground was sad.” Graffiti of tanks appears on the side of the pool’s cracked wall. The film also includes an unusual series of visual effects that appear hand-drawn, as if by a child. The animated images cast Osman as a mini-Rambo superhero and serve as a metaphor for her anger over a lost childhood and country, she explained.

Dolak and Osman shot the film in 2004 with two mini-DV cameras borrowed from Ramapo College in Mahwah, N.J., where Dolak teaches. Over the course of three months, they spent time in Kabul, where Osman was born; the Tora Bora region to which she, her mother and sisters fled and lived for four years; and Peshawar and Policharki Prison, where Abdullah Osman was jailed and where members of the Taliban and al-Qaeda are held. Through a series of connections, Dr. Osman arranged for the filmmakers to visit to the prison but ultimately decided not to accompany them; the filmmakers were prohibited from shooting at the prison but worked around the restriction to show the dismal conditions there. On camera, her father tells Osman that torture methods in the prison included pipe beatings and electrocution.

“Doing the film helped me see why it was so important that he was there,” Osman said. Beyond her personal reflections, however, Afghanistan remains in turmoil: The Taliban have returned and while the U.S. and other countries committed funds to rebuilding Afghanistan, Dolak noted there are no more than “five skyscrapers being built” in Kabul.

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(Photo: WillEisner.com)

Following the success of last week's fun Julie Delpy panel giveaway, we're following up today with an opportunity for a few lucky (i.e. smart and quick) readers to grab a pair of tickets to the upcoming Heroes For Hire discussion in Tribeca. From the catalog:

Here I come to save the… oh, just forget it. For a genre of entertainment originally devised with children in mind, superhero movies have found real success among bigger babies -- adults, to be specific. We unleash the power of some superhero creators to explore why the vulnerable, conflicted, reluctant and more... well... human superhero is a sure-fire way to a colossal opening weekend. Featuring a sneak peek at original illustrations from the highly anticipated Amazing Spider-Man: One More Day comic book storyline.

Zak Penn (X-Men: The Last Stand, Elektra), Andrew D. Cooke (Director: Will Eisner: Portrait of a Sequential Artist) and Joe Quesada (Illustrator, Writer, EIC of Marvel), Thomas Haden Church (Spiderman 3), Kevin Smith (Clerks, Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back). Lev Grossman (Time Magazine) moderates.

The event goes down at 4 p.m. this Thursday, May 3, at the Tribeca Performing Arts Center. I have a pair of tickets for the first two readers who can correctly answer a fairly ridiculous trivia question:

Comic book icon Will Eisner was born and raised in New York City. In what high school's newspaper was his work first published?

The first two correct respondents to reelercontests [at] gmail.com each get a pair of tickets. Please provide a contact phone number where you can be reached; we'll need to get in touch with you later today or tomorrow to arrange delivery. Good luck!

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(Photo: Rahav Segev/NYT)

Some of today's news and notes from around the Tribeca Film Festival:

--NY Times gadabout Mickey Rapkin went strolling through the minutiae of Fred Durst's recent night at Soho House, revealing a still-active pick-up game, more sensitivity you may not have gotten from his splendid recent turn on ReelerTV and the one degree of separation between Bill Clinton and Durst's mother's beef jerky. Eww! Not that! Sicko.

--At the Post, Lou Lumenick mixed a backhanded compliment in among the jabs and uppercuts he's been lobbing at the festival of late. Evidently, he likes Passio, the transcendent atrocity clip show screening to revolted audiences and over-the-moon critics since last week; this is the silver lining to a much darker, denser Tribeca cloud, Lumenick writes, noting, "I personally think Passio was the sort of artsy and somewhat pretentious oddity that would have been more at home at Anthology Film Archives, but it at least it was more adventurous than most of this year's Tribeca program. So you have to give Bob and Jane credit for that." I'm sure their hearts race with gratitude.

--Incidentally, while Lumenick filters and reprints reader sympathies for his blistering anti-Tribeca screed last week, I have a correction to request: That part about, "And so far, no New York filmmaker has had a true breakout film at Tribeca"? You might double-check that with Rachel Grady and Heidi Ewing.

--As per usual, Hollywood Reporter know-it-all Gregg Goldstein has the latest on Tribeca acquisitions through the weekend, including 9 Star Hotel, Vivere and Fraulein.

--Finally, if you haven't gotten enough viewing recommendations from my brilliant colleagues in The Screening Room, Andrew Grant has a typically tasteful, well-qualified list of should-sees (and maybe one must-see) at Like Anna Karina's Sweater.

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