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Home Archives for tribeca film festival 2016

May 12, 2016 By iluvcinema Leave a Comment

TFF 2016 Short Subject Feature: The Carousel

The Carousel is a short film essentially centered on one episode of one of my favorite television series, The Twilight Zone. In TTZ creator Rod Serling‘s hometown of Binghamton, New York there stands a carousel, a carousel which inspired one of Serling’s most personal episodes, “Walking Distance,” starring Gig Young.

Cortlandt Hull’s finished piece of Rod Serling and other works inspired by The Twilight Zone. Photo by Jonathan Napolitano
Cortlandt Hull’s finished piece of Rod Serling and other works inspired by The Twilight Zone. Photo by Jonathan Napolitano

In the episode, Young more or less plays a stand-in for Mr. Serling, a middle-aged man who returns to his idyllic hometown and soon discovers (because yeah, … The Twilight Zone) that he has returned on a random summer night of his childhood – literally. The realization is punctuated when he soon encounters a younger version of himself, who he proceeds to follow home. As the episode is discussed in the film, we gain a new insight into what this journey likely meant to the man (Serling) who brought the tale to life.

The short, which runs 12 minutes in length, also jumps ahead to the present day, showing the restoration of the original carousel. Filmmaker Jonathan Napoiltano interviews with the restorers of the carousel, who are using this and other popular episodes of Serling’s work as inspiration, in addition to Rod Serling’s daughter, Anne, who offers an illuminating perspective about her father for the audience.

 

And with this, I conclude my Tribeca 2016 coverage. Until next year …

tribeca film festival 2016

Filed Under: film festival Tagged With: short documentary, tribeca Film Festival, tribeca film festival 2016, twilight zone

May 10, 2016 By iluvcinema Leave a Comment

Tribeca ’16 Recap: Let’s Start with Docs

This year, I think I accomplished my mission of balancing out the features I screened between documentaries and narrative. I even managed to squeeze in a short film as the Festival was winding down. In the coming days, I will focus on the films that I felt were of note; much like I did my briefs in the lead up to #Tribeca2016, I will break separate each post by content category – documentary, narrative and short. As the title indicates, I’ll start with the documentaries.

 

The Last Laugh

Mel Brooks in THE LAST LAUGH "Anything I could do to deflate Germans... ANYTHING... I did!... Hitler was always funny!" Photographer: Ferne Pearlstein
Mel Brooks in THE LAST LAUGH “Anything I could do to deflate Germans… ANYTHING… I did!… Hitler was always funny!” Photographer: Ferne Pearlstein

The central questions being asked by this film include:

  • Can the Holocaust ever be funny? 
  • When do stabs at humor cross the line of decency?
  • What is the role of free speech in this whole process?

The journey of The Last Laugh is seen through the lens of Renee Firestone, a 91-year old Auschwitz survivor and anti-genocide activist whose life story serves as a living example of the rewards and risks of using humor in the face of unspeakable tragedy – in Firestone’s case – the events of the Shoah.

Interviews with Firestone and other survivors and their families are intertwined with clips featuring talent including Mel Brooks, Chris Rock, Sarah Silverman and Carl and Rob Reiner as they attempt to tackle these questions as they pertain to Holocaust and other eyebrow-raising topics that may or may not enter a comedian’s oeuvre. These are run along side some really poignant, rarely seen footage of cabarets inside the actual concentration camps. Also among the rarely seen is some newly discovered footage of Jerry Lewis’ never-released, but widely judged to be “ill-conceived” film, the Holocaust comedy The Day the Clown Cried (eek!).

All said and done, you might be wondering if any of the above-listed questions actually led this viewer (ME) to any concrete answers …

.. well, if I were to come down on a side, I think I am in league with Mel Brooks on this one (watch and see what that exactly means).

This film also reiterated for me an already held belief that making fun of something is separate and apart from using humor as a coping mechanism in dealing with the unfathomable.

As for the other “questions” – sure, there is a line that can be crossed in the name of humor; however, where that line is does feel like it is constantly in flux as our society moves further away from one human disaster/tragedy and barrel towards the next one.

 

My Scientology Movie

Louis Filming being Filmed at Gold Base. © BBC/BBCWorldwide
Louis Filming being Filmed at Gold Base. © BBC/BBCWorldwide

Directed by John Dower, My Scientology Movie (BBC Films) stars provocative British documentarian/writer Justin Theroux as he seeks to unmask the world of Scientology. By combining an earnest approach to the subject matter while maintaining a disarming level of levity, I felt I could easily engage with and be entertained and informed by this documentary in a way that I had not experienced in another headline-grabbing Scientology “expose” I recently saw.

While this story is composed of some first hand accounts from former members of the Church, Theroux and company frame this documentary also as a “film within a film;” the interviews are inter-cut with Theroux “auditioning” actors to portray key Scientology figures. Their assignment is to act out what can only be described as some harrowing accounts of life as a Scientologist from many of the very ex-members featured in the film.

As you can imagine, this leads to some interesting encounters.

My Scientology Movie premiered at the 2015 London Film Festival and made its North American debut at Tribeca.

 

Bad Rap

Awkwafina (Nora Lum)'s fans surround her before her show in Washington, D.C. Cinematographer: Salima Koroma
Awkwafina (Nora Lum)’s fans surround her before her show in Washington, D.C. Cinematographer: Salima Koroma

As a child of hip hop, I was fascinated by this film once I saw it on my film festival program – a history and account of Asian hip hop artists.  We are taken on a journey with four performers (Dumbfounded, Awkwafina, Rekstizzy, Lyricks) at varying stages of their respective careers. The Indiegogo-funded Bad Rap (directed by Salima Koroma) chronicles the obstacles these individuals have encountered in trying to break out onto the rap music scene, a scene that is traditionally dominated by Black and Latino artists.

My initial reaction was a feeling of discomfort with some of the actions and behaviors on display by a few of the performers (looking at you, Rekstizzy). My mind immediately jumped to thoughts of cultural appropriation to the point of making a mockery of the cultural phenomenon which is hip hop.

And while that feeling did not entirely go away by the time the end credits rolled, I was left thinking that Bad Rap was a rather interesting piece if for no other reason than it can inspire conversations about the “ownership” of culture culture or who is “permitted” to use a particular medium as a means to express themselves, particularly when that medium is not generally perceived to include members of certain communities.

Next up: Tribeca ’16 Recap of Narratives

 

 

Filed Under: film festival Tagged With: documentaries, tribeca Film Festival, tribeca film festival 2016

April 14, 2016 By iluvcinema Leave a Comment

Tribeca 2016 Preview (Short Film Programs)

I round out my prep for Tribeca 2016 with a look at some of the Shorts Programs playing. For the duration of a feature film you can see a few pieces, threaded together by a common theme. Here are a few programming blocks and a feature (or two) I think are of interest (N=Narrative D=Documentary):

 

New York Now Home-grown New York shorts

You Can Go (N):  A high school administrator talks down a troubled student.

The Mulberry Bush (N): Two men sit next to each other on an autumn day in Central Park. They make small talk about the weather and the joys of summer. When the conversation turns personal, however, it becomes clear that this is no random encounter, and they are headed toward a startling confrontation.

Wannabe (N): NYC, 1991. During a time of tremendous racial strife, a neurotic Jewish boy must win over his crush by first impressing her skeptical Jamaican family.

S. Epatha Merkerson as Mrs. Bryant in YOU CAN GO directed by Christine Turner. Photo credit: Marshall Stief
S. Epatha Merkerson as Mrs. Bryant in YOU CAN GO directed by
Christine Turner.
Photo credit: Marshall Stief

 

New York Then Human stories and New York’s past

Taylor and Ultra on the 60s, The Factory and Being a Warhol Superstar (D): Warhol superstar Ultra Violet (Isabelle Colin Dufresne) and Lower East Side icon Taylor Mead (poet/actor/artist) share their stories of Manhattan in the 1960s.

Dead Ringer (D): There are only four outdoor phone booths left in all of New York City—this is a late night conversation with one of them.

Mulberry (D): This cinematic portrait of Little Italy explores how a working class neighborhood of tenement buildings transformed into the third most expensive zip code in the United States. Part funny, part sad, the film investigates how gentrification and rent control are affecting the neighborhood’s long-term residents.

Starring Austin Pendleton (D): The most famous actor you’ve never heard of; Austin Pendleton reflects on his life and craft while his A-list peers discuss his vast influence and what it means to be an original in a celebrity-obsessed world. Includes interviews with Philip Seymour Hoffman, Meryl Streep, Natalie Portman, Olympia Dukakis, and Maggie Gyllenhaal.

The Carousel (D): In the small town of Binghamton, New York, there spins a 1925 carousel that once inspired Rod Serling and has since become a portal into the Twilight Zone.

Cortlandt Hull’s finished piece of Rod Serling and other works inspired by The Twilight Zone. Photo by Jonathan Napolitano
Cortlandt Hull’s finished piece of Rod Serling and other works inspired by The Twilight Zone. Photo by Jonathan Napolitano

 

Rock and a Hard Place Music-driven documentary shorts program

Let’s Dance: Bowie Down Under (D): The remarkable, forgotten story behind ‘Let’s Dance,’ David Bowie’s biggest hit record.

David Bowie and crew filming the music video for Let’s Dance in the Carinda Hotel, in remote, outback Australia. Photo credit: Smoking Bear Productions.
David Bowie and crew filming the music video for Let’s Dance in the Carinda Hotel, in remote, outback Australia. Photo credit: Smoking Bear Productions.

 

That’s it for now. Stay tuned for updates, tweets and some reviews!

 

 

Filed Under: film festival Tagged With: tribeca Film Festival, tribeca film festival 2016

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