Cineastes will find a very different Tribeca Film Festival when the annual movie juggernaut hits New York City on April 23rd. For one thing, the programmers have put the festival on a diet, slimming down the slate to an almost-manageable 122 features. Leaner and meaner, too, is Tribeca’s starry fare. Whereas previous Fests have kicked off with the pyrotechnic bang of a
Spiderman 3 or
Poseidon, this year’s opening flick is
Baby Mama, courtesy of local-girl-made-good Tina Fey. A re-emphasis on the local also helped to drive down Tribeca’s ticket prices. At $8 a pop for daytime screenings, cheaper tickets ought to convince the Fest’s neighbors to check out a movie or two, and also to inspire dedicated attendees to chance a few under-the-radar films, as well.
Ramchad Pakistani |
And there are plenty of under-the-radar films to see at Tribeca Film Festival this year. The 2008 slate is notable especially for its emphasis on directors who are young and, if not untested, at least new to the cineplex. Ramchand Pakistani director Mehreen Jabbar, for example, spent several years directing for television in Pakistan before embarking on her big screen debut, and the experience shows. Ramchand Pakistani is a harrowing tale beautifully told: Working from a script by her father, Jabbar recounts the true story of eight year-old Ramchand, an Untouchable little boy who wandered over the Pakistan border in 2002 and found himself locked up in an Indian prison for almost five years. This tough subject matter is treated tenderly and even elegantly. The desert borderlands between India and Pakistan are ravished by the camera, but instead of looking for enemies, Jabbar feels for the humanity in Ramchand’s plight. She captures both the politics at play and the child’s world in which those politics have no meaning.
My Marlon And Brando |
Ramchand Pakistani vies against another mostly-true tale of vexed borders on this year’s competition slate: My Marlon and Brando. Directed by Huseyin Karabey, who makes his narrative debut here but who earned his stripes shooting docs, My Marlon and Brando is rough, shambling, and occasionally plain weird; for all that, it’s a joy, and a genuine heartbreak. As American bombs began falling on Baghdad in 2003, Turkish actress Ayca Damgaci headed for the Iraq border in search of her one true love, the Kurdish actor Hama Ali Khan. In My Marlon and Brando, the disarming Dagmaci plays herself, essentially reliving her road trip to the war zone. The film is an homage to Ali Khan, seen here through the actual video letters he sent to Dagmaci from Kurdistan. Surrender to the film’s unconventional rhythms, and its humor and poetry come shining through and stay with you, too.
57,000 Km Between Us |
No film in competition at Tribeca this year is more unconventional than 57,000 Km Between Us. Photographer and video artist Delphine Kreuter is France’s answer to Miranda July; 57,000 Km summons some of the same themes as July’s 2005 indie hit Me and You and Everyone We Know by pushing them to the nth degree and winding up somewhere like the opposite of quirky. Centering on one dysfunctional extended clan—wherein Dad is a well-balanced trannie and neurotic Mom has remarried a dickhead who documents every waking moment of family life for the benefit of his video blog—the film finds its heroine in 14 year-old Nat. Romance, conducted via a multiplayer video game, blooms between Nat and sweet-natured Adrien, who is dying in sterilized seclusion at a nearby hospital. Kreuter shoots on digital, and whereas most filmmakers treat the format as a cheap and easily transportable concession to necessity, Kreuter uses video conceptually, as the proper medium for our fracturing times. The movie is a revelation; it feels like the future. And that, of course, is the promise of the first-time filmmaker: Given a platform, the right one will bring the new.
