Tribeca Cinemas Presents Docs on the Shortlist

If you’re in New York on January 8^th and 9th and you haven’t yet seen any of the feature documentaries on the Academy Award® Shortlist, you will have the chance to see six of them when “Tribeca Cinemas Presents: Docs on the Shortlist” hosted by Tribeca Film Institute’s Gucci Tribeca Documentary Fund. Of the six films screenings, I have seen “Which Way Home,” a beautiful and heartbreaking film by Rebecca Cammisa that premiered at the 2009 Tribeca Film Festival. Rebecca will be doing a Q&A after the screening. And you may recall A.M. Peters’ notes from the “Under Our Skin” screening and panel discussion during the 2008 Tribeca Film Festival. It was one of our most popular posts of that year, and is also one of the six films showing in the Shortlist series. Please take the opportunity to go see all of these films if you can. You’ll be in the “know” come Oscar time. For more information on this series, see below press release.

"Which Way Home" - Photo Courtesy of Tribeca Film Festival.

December 16, 2009 – New York, NY - Tribeca Cinemas announces the return of the two-day series “Tribeca Cinemas Presents: Docs on the Shortlist.” Curated by the Tribeca Film Festival programming team, the series offers filmgoers the opportunity to see a selection of the documentary contenders shortlisted for the nomination for Best Feature Documentary for the 82nd Academy Awards®. Docs on the Shortlist is hosted by the Tribeca Film Institute’s Gucci Tribeca Documentary Fund, which offers finishing funds to documentaries of social significance.

Launching on Friday, January 8, and continuing Saturday, January 9, the two-day series brings together filmmakers who have been involved with previous editions of the Tribeca Film Festival to screen their new documentary films, which are currently being recognized by the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences. Six of the 15 documentaries under consideration for nomination will be screened; the films in the series are: The Cove, Food, Inc., Living in Emergency, Soundtrack for a Revolution, Under Our Skin, and Which Way Home.

“We are always looking for ways Tribeca can further support our filmmakers and this series highlights our commitment to documentary film,” said Nancy Schafer of Tribeca Enterprises. “We are looking forward to bringing some of the documentaries the Academy has recognized to our neighborhood.”

Submissions for the Gucci Tribeca Documentary Fund, offering finishing funds of $100,000 for 2010, close on January 11, 2010. www.tribecafilminstitute.org/documentary

Tickets: Tickets go on sale December 16, 2009. Admission for each film screening is $10 for regular tickets; $8 for members of the Guilds (PGA, DGA, WGA and SAG), members of BAFTA East Coast, DocuClub, IDA, IFP, and/or Shooting People with a valid membership card and full-time students with current I.D.; free for Academy Members.

Public Information:

Tribeca Cinemas, 54 Varick Street (corner of Laight), New York, NY 10013

The public may call 212/941.2001 for further information. Visit us on the Web at www.tribecafilm.com/docseries

Subway: A, C, E – Canal Street/6 Avenue; 1 – Canal Street/Varick Street

SCREENING SCHEDULE

Friday January 8

6:30pm

Which Way Home, directed by Rebecca Cammisa

Running time: 82 minutes

Director Rebecca Cammisa will be in attendance for a post-screening discussion.

As the United States continues to build a wall between itself and Mexico, Which Way Home shows the personal side of immigration through the eyes of children who face harrowing dangers with enormous courage and resourcefulness as they endeavor to make it to the United States.

The film follows several unaccompanied child migrants as they journey through Mexico en route to the U.S. on a freight train they call “The Beast .“ Director Rebecca Cammisa (Sister Helen) tracks the stories of children like Olga and Freddy, nine-year old Hondurans who are desperately trying to reach their families in Minnesota, and Jose, a ten-year-old El Salvadoran who has been abandoned by smugglers and ends up alone in a Mexican detention center; and focuses on Kevin, a canny, streetwise 14-year-old Honduran whose mother hopes that he will reach New York City and send money back to his family. These are stories of hope and courage, disappointment and sorrow. They are the ones you never hear about – the invisible ones.

Courtesy of HBO. World Premiered at Tribeca Film Festival.

9:00pm

Food, Inc., directed by Robert Kenner

Running time: 93 minutes

In Food, Inc., filmmaker Robert Kenner lifts the veil on our nation's food industry, exposing the highly mechanized underbelly that's been hidden from the American consumer with the consent of our government's regulatory agencies, USDA and FDA. Our nation's food supply is now controlled by a handful of corporations that often put profit ahead of consumer health, the livelihood of the American farmer, the safety of workers, and our own environment. We have bigger-breasted chickens, the perfect pork chop, insecticide-resistant soybean seeds, even tomatoes that won't go bad, but we also have new strains of e coli – the harmful bacteria that causes illness for an estimated 73,000 Americans annually. We are riddled with widespread obesity, particularly among children, and an epidemic level of diabetes among adults.

Featuring interviews with such experts as Eric Schlosser (Fast Food Nation), Michael Pollan (The Omnivore's Dilemma) along with forward thinking social entrepreneurs like Stonyfield Farms' Gary Hirshberg and Polyface Farms' Joe Salatin, Food, Inc. reveals surprising – and often shocking – truths about what we eat, how it's produced, who we have become as a nation, and where we are going from here.

Courtesy of Magnolia Pictures. World Premiered at Toronto International Film Festival.

Saturday January 9

1:00pm

Living in Emergency, directed by Mark Hopkins

Running time: 93 minutes

Bosnia. Rwanda. Kosovo. Sierra Leone. Pakistan. Just a few of the world’s humanitarian and political crises in the past years. Whether the result of war or nature, these disasters devastate populations and cripple health systems. Despite the immense dangers and difficulties of the work, one organization, Doctors Without Borders, has continuously intervened at these frontlines of overwhelming human need.

Set in war-torn Congo and post-conflict Liberia, Living in Emergency interweaves the stories of four volunteers with Doctors Without Borders as they struggle to provide emergency medical care under the most extreme conditions.

Two volunteers are new recruits: a 26 year-old Australian doctor stranded in a remote bush clinic and an American surgeon struggling to cope under the load of emergency cases in a shattered capital city. Two others are experienced field hands: a dynamic Head of Mission, valiantly trying to keep morale high and tensions under control, and an exhausted veteran, who has seen too much horror and wants out.

Amidst the chaos, each volunteer must confront the severe challenges of the work, the tough choices, and the limits of their own idealism.

World Premiered at Venice Film Festival.

3:30pm

Soundtrack for a Revolution, directed Bill Guttentag and Dan Sturman

Running time: 81 minutes

SOUNDTRACK FOR A REVOLUTION tells the story of the American civil rights movement through its powerful music -the freedom songs protesters sang on picket lines, in mass meetings, in paddy wagons, and in jail cells as they fought for justice and equality.

The film features new performances of the freedom songs by top artists, including John Legend, Joss Stone, Wyclef Jean, and The Roots; riveting archival footage; and interviews with civil rights foot soldiers and leaders, including Congressman John Lewis, Harry Belafonte, Julian Bond, and Ambassador Andrew Young.

The freedom songs evolved from slave chants, from the labor movement, and especially from the black church. The music enabled blacks to sing words they could not say, and it was crucial in helping the protesters as they faced down brutal aggression with dignity and non-violence. The infectious energy of the songs swept people up and empowered them to fight for their rights.

SOUNDTRACK FOR A REVOLUTION celebrates the vitality of this music. Directed by Bill Guttentag and Dan Sturman (Nanking), and executive produced by Danny Glover, SOUNDTRACK FOR A REVOLUTION is a vibrant blend of heart-wrenching interviews, dramatic images, and thrilling contemporary performances -- a film of significance, energy, and power.

World Premiered at Tribeca Film Festival.

6:00pm

The Cove, directed by Louie Psihoyos

Running time: 92 minutes

Director Louie Psihoyos will be in attendance for a post-screening discussion.

In the 1960's, Richard O'Barry was the world’s leading authority on dolphin training, working on the set of the popular television program Flipper. Day in and day out, O'Barry kept the dolphins working and television audiences smiling. But one day, that all came to an end. The Cove, directed by Louie Psihoyos, tells the amazing true story of how Psihoyos, O'Barry and an elite team of activists, filmmakers and freedivers embarked on a covert mission to penetrate a hidden cove in Japan, shining light on a dark and deadly secret. The mysteries they uncovered were only the tip of the iceberg.

Courtesy of Roadside Attractions. World Premiered at Sundance Film Festival.

8:30pm

Under Our Skin, directed by Andy Abrahams Wilson

Running time: 103 minutes

A gripping tale of microbes, medicine and money, Under Our Skin exposes the hidden story of Lyme disease, one of the most controversial and fastest growing epidemics of our time.

Each year thousands go undiagnosed or misdiagnosed, told that their symptoms are "all in their head." Following the stories of patients and physicians fighting for their lives and livelihoods, the film brings into focus a haunting picture of the healthcare system and a medical establishment all too willing to put profits ahead of patients.

World Premiered at Tribeca Film Festival.

2009 Tribeca Film Festival - 30 Years of Sports Filmmaking - April 24, 2009

The Big Time to the Big Screen: 30 Years of Sports Filmmaking
2009 Tribeca Film Festival
April 24, 2009

Moderator:
ESPN's Chris Connelly

Panelists:
Barbara Kopple (episode: The Steinbrenner Family Business)
Albert Maysles (episode: Muhammad and Larry)
Barry Levinson (episode: And the Band Marched On: The Colts Sneak Out of Baltimore)
Dan Klores (episode: King of the New York Streets)

Synopsis:
Whether played out on the field, in the ring, or on the court, every great sports drama is ultimately a human tale—of conflict, determination, passion, triumph, and loss. In honor of ESPN’s 30th anniversary, ESPN Films launches 30 for 30, an unprecedented documentary film series featuring 30 of today’s finest directors bringing to life 30 of the most remarkable sports stories from 1979 to 2009—the ESPN era. These films represent an extraordinary and diverse mosaic of the impact of sports on America and world culture.

Connelly began by getting a sense of what each of the filmmakers contributed to 30 for 30 starting with Kopple, who said she was really fortunate to do her film pointing out a woman in the audience named Nicole Renna who struggled to make this all possible as a friend of the Steinbrenner family to try get Kopple to interview them and get as much access as possible. Kopple said the Yankees are about heroes, traditions, and now the changing of the guard with the closing of the old stadium and the opening of the new. “For me, it was some of the best filming I’ve ever done in my life,” she said.

In contrast, Connelly joked with Levinson about being a long-time Baltimore Orioles fan. “I’ll tell you how terrible I was in Baltimore,” Levinson said. “I hated the Yankees.” But he did recollect a story of one time when the Yankees came to town, and he would not even get Mickey Mantle’s autograph. Levinson, who’s mostly known for his narrative fiction films such as Rain Man, Good Morning Vietnam, and Avalon, was asked by Connelly what his documentary piece is all about. He said he was fascinated when the Colts left town back in 1983 and to see that the band that used to march for the team continued to march for 12 years without the team, always in hopes of getting another team. The fanaticism of sports and sense of community and belonging would make for an interesting story to tell, he said.

Connelly next moved onto Maysles film about Muhammad Ali and Larry Holmes, commenting that it has a genesis going back many years, “a kind of documentary archaeology.” Maysles said the film goes back more than the 30 years since it was made when he and his brother David film the two of them preparing for their fights. When someone is at his or her best in making a documentary, Maysles said something personal hearkens back to your childhood. When he was a kid growing up in a Jewish family in Boston surrounded by Irish anti-Semitists, there wasn’t hardly a day where a kid wouldn’t come up to him and tell him he’d meet him outside to fight. He recollected one particular fight when after there was a little boy five years younger standing there crying and he walked him home. It was his brother. Fighting was the only way he could get close to the Irish as a young kid, but many years later he fulfilled his dream of becoming friends with the Irish when he and his brother made the film Salesman.

And finally, Connelly went to Klores about his film. While Maysles film takes in so many years of history, Klores’ film is focused on only “18 unbelievable seconds,” Connelly said. Klores said the film is on Reggie Miller who purchased the New York Knicks in 1994/95. What captured his interest was when he received a photo of Miller taking a big shot in Madison Square Garden. But it wasn’t the shot that interested him most, but the horror on everyone’s faces in the background. Connelly asked how he took a historical event that happened on TV and brought new life to it in a way that heightens the moment and makes us take notice again. Klores said the 30 or 35 people he interviewed all have different interpretations of the same exact thing.

30 for 30 is slated to air on ESPN this fall.

2009 Tribeca Film Festival - The Burning Season - April 27, 2009

2009 Tribeca Film Festival

Behind the Screens: The Burning Season
Monday, April 27

Moderator:
Ira Flatow, host of NPR’s Talk of the Nation: Science Friday

Panelists:
Cathy Henkel, filmmaker
Elizabeth Rosenthal, NY Times international correspondent
Dorjee Sun, CEO of the Carbon Conservation and star of the film

The Burning Season was a charming film, following the main character, ambitious entrepreneur Dorjee Sun, as opposed to preaching about rain forests and the horrors that orangutans face. I know someone who saw a prior cut of the film that said it had shots of a running orangutan’s butt on fire. In this cut they instead use these human-like primates as more of a mascot. They personify a message. Four to 5,000 orangutans are killed a year—a rate that will cause early extinction. This paints a depressing picture for a theme: orangutans are so close to us as humans, if they go, how long will it take for us to go along with them?

The film was fairly sprinkled with commentary from policy makers and small farmers. It outlines Sun’s vision for a Carbon Trading system. You see that he is really just trying to solve a problem more than tell you trading carbon credits is the be all, end all solution and the filmmaker seems to treat that fairly. There were moments with animation that were very stylized, which was cool, but just didn’t seem to organically fit the overall feel of the film.

The idea for a film related to global warming was conceived when Cathy Henkel when she first saw An Inconvenient Truth in 2006. The burning season is when Indonesian farmers burn the land for palm oil and have no regard for the pollution or their contributions to global warming. As an Aussie, the filmmaker knew of the plumes of smoke and researched it.

Henkel met Sun at a film finance party. He was the solution for making the film. He called her to ask how to save orangutans, she pitched the idea to these broadcasters from Sydney and they gave her development money. Sun felt the world lost someone doing good when we lost Steve Irwin so he wanted to connect with his wife and his memory when executing this idea.

Sun says that it’s not easy to say “stop cutting and burning.” We also need to solve the issues with employment, etc. The small farmer needs income and should not be blamed for the world’s problems. The film illustrates this well with a guy who just wants to feed his family send his daughter to a good school. They end his story arch with his grasping of the effect his work has on the planet. Even though he is not one of the corporate farms who do it on a large scale, he broke down when he realized his contributions.

China invited the film to play in their country. Representatives said that it was perfect for young Chinese entrepreneurial students at universities who want to be motivated by environmental films made for a wide audiences—not an environmentalists niche. Henkel has a 16 year old daughter and does not want her to be despondent.

One of Sun's investors, Merrill Lynch, has to date, put money in London Commodity fund—a holding account. When transparency is covered by due diligence and written off by legal, then the brokerage will officially have bought carbon credits to kick-start Sun's vision. A state government in Indonesia will finally get paid back as they have been fronting the money in the mean time.

Carbon Trading happens to be a debated issue—opponents claim the message is dangerous. Sun’s view is that he wants to place value on standing forests. The film gets across his idea for compensating Indonesia for keeping the rain forests alive as opposed to burning it for the palm oil revenues. Hecklers in the audience stood to challenge Sun who was not only undaunted but quite pleasant in explaining how he wants to be an entrepreneur stepping up as environmentalists always have, yet with the language that makes the world go around—with money.

The bottom line is that we have to try something. Sun seems adamant that even though it’s possible for his proposed solution to fail, it’s better than doing nothing. He’s a kid who woke up one morning and wanted to save the world, and is doing the best he can.

2009 Tribeca Film Festival - "Guy and Madeline on a Park Bench" - April 23, 2009

2009 Tribeca Film Festival
Guy and Madeline on a Park Bench
April 23, 2009

Guy and Madeline on a Park Bench is Damien Chazelle’s very impressive debut narrative feature that made its World Premiere at the 2009 Tribeca Film Festival. Shot in black and white 16 mm film, Guy and Madeline tells the story of Guy played by Jason Palmer, a Boston jazz trumpeter who juggles a relationship with two woman, one Madeline, a waitress with bigger aspirations to move to New York City, and the other Elena, a girl looking for more of a commitment. The simple narrative is interwoven with high-energy musical numbers and tap dancing in the old MGM musical style.

Palmer, a trumpeter not only in the film but also in real life, played a few bars from the theme before the discussion began, and had to leave early to go to a gig. After the screening, the moderator drew comparisons to Guy and Madeline to the movies of Cassavetes, Godard and MGM musicals, asking Damien what inspired him to make his film. Damien said the project began as his senior thesis in college and he knew from the beginning he wanted to do a musical, but he questioned doing it with the resources he had. He just learned how to make documentaries shooting 16mm going on the street with a camera over his shoulder. “The idea was to wed those two things together to try to make a musical that was still a full-fledged musical but paid as much attention to real life as much as possible,” he said.

Opening the floor to the audience for questions, the first question asked was aimed at the composer Justin Hurwitz, what was the process of writing the music and lyrics in the film? Was it written beforehand or in the process of making the film? Justin said the songs and music were written and recorded before, but some of the score was written concurrently with the shooting. For some of the score, he needed to know what the material was written for the scene. Chazelle added that he had asked Justin to write the music, and without Justin, the movie wouldn’t have happened.

How did Damien come up with the idea of the two woman? He wanted to do a classic archetypal musical plot…"the guy and the girl who break up for whatever reasons and they find their way back to each other,” he said. He wanted to spend as much time with both of the characters, not just making one the home wrecker, trying to flesh both of them out as much as he could. “We never met till today,” said Desiree Garcia who plays Madeline, referring to her co-star Sandha Khin, who plays Elena, since they don’t share screen time together.

A question was then thrown out to Damien asking him what his favorite scene in the movie was, and then later on everyone else from the composer to the actors were also asked which scenes they liked the most. (FYI, when I later saw Damien and company at the Narrative Filmmaker Press Meet & Greet, I too was asked what my favorite scene was.) Damien’s favorite…the first big musical number at the jazz party, partly because of how difficult it was to pull off. It was the first scene they shot and they spent so much time on it and when it came back from the lab, all of the footage was accidentally destroyed when they put the B&W film in the color vat (doh!). After a while, they decided to shoot it again, which he actually thought turned out better than the first time through (phew!). Justin…"I like the ones with the music in them" (LOL!). Desiree…liked the last scene in the film because it’s drawn out and creates tension (I won’t say what happens). Sandha...the tap dance scene because she was jealous that she didn’t get to sing or dance. And my favorite scene…I liked when Madeline was walking in the park alone, as I often like to take walks in the park by myself.

2009 Tribeca Film Festival - Documentary Press Meet & Greet - April 26, 2009

Documentary Filmmaker Press Meet & Greet
2009 Tribeca Film Festival
April 26, 2009

When I arrived at the Doc Press Meet & Greet, I was scanning the room for documentary filmmakers, but seemed to keep bumping into a couple of the narrative filmmakers I met at the Narrative Press Meet & Greet two days earlier, so I enlisted the help of some of the trusty press folks in the lounge to use their ‘Doc-dar’ and reel me in some nonfiction notables. I got some pretty good catches. Sadly, I dropped and broke my digital camera, so I was unable to get any snapshots, but here’s a list of all the documentary filmmakers I saw with their screening dates and times, so please make plans to go see these great films at the festival.

Borderline
(Part of Tribeca All Access)
Shirli Michalevicz – Director
Claudia Levin – Producer

Team Qatar
(Feature)
Liz Mermin – Director
Mon, Apr 27, 7:15PM , AMC Village VII 7
Thu, Apr 30, 5:00PM, AMC Village VII 6
Sat, May 02, 11:00AM, Tribeca Cinemas Theater 1

Partly Private
(Feature)
Danae Elon – Director
Mon, Apr 27, 10:15PM, AMC Village VII 7
Wed, Apr 29, 4:30PM, AMC Village VII 5
Fri, May 01, 8:30PM, AMC Village VII 2

First Steps
(Short)
Jason DaSilva – Director
Mon, Apr 27, 6:45PM, AMC Village VII 4
Thu, Apr 30, 1:15PM, AMC Village VII 7
Fri, May 01, 8:45PM, AMC Village VII 5
Sun, May 03, 3:30PM, Tribeca Cinemas

Mustang - Journey of Transformation
(Short)
Will Parrinello - Director
Mon, Apr 27, 6:45PM, AMC Village VII 4
Thu, Apr 30, 1:15PM AMC Village VII 7
Fri, May 01, 8:45PM AMC Village VII 5
Sun, May 03, 3:30PM, Tribeca Cinemas Theater 2

Antoine

(Feature)

Laura Bari - Director

Mon, Apr 27, 8:00PM, AMC Village VII 6
Tue, Apr 28, 6:45PM, AMC Village VII 4

Fri, May 01, 11:00AM, AMC Village VII 6

Con Artist
(Feature)
Michael Sladek – Director
Tue, Apr 28, 4:45PM, AMC Village VII 1
Sat, May 02, 9:00PM AMC Village VII 1

Defamation
(Feature)
Yoav Shamir – Director
Mon, Apr 27, 10:00PM, AMC Village VII 2
Fri, May 01, 11:30AM, AMC Village VII 2

2009 Tribeca Film Festival - Fixer: The Taking of Ajmal Naqshbandi Q & A

Fixer: The Taking of Ajmal Naqshbandi Q & A
2009 Tribeca Film Festival
April 26, 2009

As a journalist and documentary filmmaker, I was profoundly moved by Fixer, an exploration of the relationships between Western journalists and the Afghani counterparts or “fixers,” who facilitate their reporting on the ground. In this particular story, one such relationship had brutally fatal consequences for a young Afghani man.

The film raises, but doesn’t necessarily answer, many ethical questions about topics ranging from journalistic integrity to negotiating with terrorists, which is part of what made the Q & A following the film so fascinating. The panelists were:

Moderator Bob Dietz, Committee to Protect Journalists (BD)
George Packer, journalist (GP)
Naqeeb Sherzad, former Afghan fixer featured in the film (NS)
Christian Parenti, The Nation reporter featured in the film (CP)
Ian Olds, Director (IO)

BD: Can all of the panelists give a brief introduction?

IO: I’ll talk about how we started making the film. I received a grant to make a film about a Special Forces camp with Garrett Scott but, sadly, he died unexpectedly of a heart attack so I decided not to move on with the project. I proposed to the grantor that I use the money instead for a fiction film, but Christian Parenti suggested that I come to Afghanistan for a month to do some research about fixers. I took him up on it, and thought that there was a film to be made about journalists, fixers and the stories that they are trying to tell, as a way to show a bigger picture about what’s happening in Afghanistan. When I came back to the U.S. to get funding to make that film, Ajmal [the fixer who Christian had been working with] was murdered, and so then I felt an obligation to use the footage we already had of him from the research trip to tell his story.

CP: Some of the footage used in the film was just home video footage from when we interviewed members of the Taliban. It wasn’t meant to be part of a film.

NS: I used to be a fixer, and a great friend of Ajmal’s. We worked together for four years. The movie takes me back to those memories.

GP: This movie fleshes out the strange relationship that journalists have with their fixers. You and your fixer talk about all of the things that you can’t talk about in an interview. The relationship is a balance of power. We depend on them utterly. When things got really bad in Iraq, we had to ask our fixers if it was safe to cross the street! But there is always somewhat of a distrust because you have different motivations.

IO: Yes. Daniele [Italian journalist who was kidnapped with Ajmal] only needed an “important name” to include in his newspaper article, which is ultimately what led to their kidnapping.

GP: I wonder if the trip to the Taliban [made by Ajmal and Christian Parenti] was necessary. Sometimes it’s not worth it.

CP: Writers are always under pressure from their editors to get a new angle. But fixers are doing that, too. Ajmal was always pitching me stories using the relationships he had. He’d say if I had the money, we could do this or that. There are market dynamics at play.

IO: Now that the Taliban are creating their own media, they don’t need Western journalists to get their story out, so it may be more dangerous for journalists than it used to be.

NS: The Taliban makes these films to discourage people from working with Westerners as much as to encourage new recruits.

CP: Also to terrorize urban populations. There are several conflicts going on, including urban vs. rural.

BD (To Naqeeb): What are you doing now?

NS: I am living in Sweden. I got asylum in January 2008. It was not because Ajmal was killed. I received life threats before he was killed.

Audience Question: Can you explain the timing of the exchange of the Italian journalist for the Taliban's requested prisoners, and how Ajmal got left behind?

IO: We spent a long time trying to unpack all of the details. We showed the simplest possible version in the film that we believe to be true but it’s actually very complicated. No one knows all of the details.

CP: What is seems happened is that the Taliban required five prisoners and 2 million dollars in exchange for the return of the journalists. The American government won’t negotiate with terrorists, so the Italian government was doing this deal behind their backs. In the chaos of the negotiation, the Italians didn’t realize that one of the requested prisoners had actually flipped and was a spy for the Americans, so they substituted him for Dedullah’s little brother [Dedullah was the leader of the local faction responsible for the kidnapping.] But that was not the person who the Taliban requested, so they held Ajmal behind instead of giving him up. All of the attention helped them realize that Ajmal may be worth more dead than alive because his death would create tension between the Afghani people and their government. The people questioned how the Italian journalist could be released but not the Afghani one.

BD: The Center for Protection of Journalists discourages paying ransom for journalists. We’re also guilty of initially focusing on the Italian journalist, but when their Afghani driver and fellow prisoner was killed, we swung into high gear for Ajmal. We even wrote a letter directly to the Taliban pleading his case but in the end it’s pointless. We always have to weigh the risk of giving too much publicity to a case because it can raise the price for an individual captive, or the Taliban can use the fact that a prisoner becomes high profile to “prove” that they are spies.

Audience Question: Tell us more about the court scene. [A scene in which a local Afghan judge tries to prove how well the justice system is working by having the filmmakers shoot a staged trial, unbeknownst to them.]

IO: We shot that scene during my research trip and that was when I started to realize, “Oh. There is a movie here.”

CP: It became clear to us that it couldn’t be real about 30 minutes into the trial, because everyone seemed to be reciting lines from a script. It turns out that they were re-enacting a famous trial from the 70’s.

Audience Question: I don’t know if I buy into the morals and ethics of “not negotiating for terror.” Who are we to decide that someone’s life is not worth fighting for? Could you all speak about that?

BD: For us, it’s a practical approach, not a moral approach. It puts others at a heightened risk in the future if demands are met for release of prisoners. We’d prefer to encourage journalists to be more careful.

GP: I think that the Italian government does not look good in this film by not making the release of Ajmal part of their original negotiation. The same thing just happened in Iraq where two Italian women working for an NGO were kidnapped for ransom. The Italian government met their demands and the next day, an Irish journalist, Margaret Hasan, was kidnapped.

NS: The Afghanis were really angered by this. They think that the Afghani government is not actually there for them—that it is ruled from the outside.

CP: There’s a trajectory. There was a wave of kidnappings after Ajmal, and people stopped doing Taliban interviews, but criminal gangs also get involved. The kidnappings are not always initiated by the Taliban.

Audience Question: Do Western journalists really look at fixers as equals in the journalism field?

CP: Not all fixers are journalists themselves, but Ajmal was a reporter for a Japanese wire service and sometimes sold raw video. Arranging these interviews for us is not like arranging for a sandwich—it is serious journalistic work that involves research and investigation.

GP: Many of these countries didn’t even have journalism before. Westerners came in and instituted a journalistic standard. Educated Afghanis and Iraqis saw being a fixer as an opportunity to learn about the field. However, there was a time when some Americans were taking all the credit for their fixers’ work. Now, newspapers will credit local fixers by name if the person wants them to.

2009 Tribeca Film Festival - Narrative Filmmaker Press Meet & Greet

Narrative Filmmaker Press Meet & Greet
2009 Tribeca Film Festival
April 24, 2009

It was a beautiful sunny day in New York. Quite a nice way to start off the Tribeca Film Festival. Actually, I attended my first screening the night before. I saw Guy and Madeline on a Park Bench, a very impressive debut narrative feature from young director Damien Chazelle, who was one of the many filmmakers in attendance at the Narrative Filmmaker Press Meet & Greet held at the Union Square Ballroom. Below are some snapshots I took of some of the filmmakers and their entourages along with the screening dates and times of their films. Be sure to put them on your festival calendar.

(L to R: My Last Five Girlfriends director Julian Kemp with star Brendan Patricks and Heeb Magazine writer Michael Liss)

My Last Five Girlfriends
Sat, Apr 25, 5:45PM, AMC Village VII 5
Sun, Apr 26, 11:00PM, SVA Theater 2
Mon, Apr 27, 9:15PM, AMC Village VII 3

(Here and There director Darko Lungulov)

Here and There
Sun, Apr 26, 1:00PM, AMC Village VII 2
Fri, May 01, 12:00PM, AMC Village VII 1
Sat, May 02, 8:45PM, AMC Village VII 5

(Fish Eyes producer Jun Seong)

Fish Eyes
Wed, Apr 29, 6:45PM, AMC Village VII 4
Thu, Apr 30, 6:45PM, AMC Village VII 4
Fri, May 01, 2:00PM, AMC Village VII 6

(L to R: Guy and Madeline on a Park Bench director Damien Chazelle, friend Richard Kagan, executive producer Adam "W.W." Parker and composer Justin Hurwitz)

Guy and Madeline on a Park Bench
Sun, Apr 26, 11:00PM, AMC Village VII 6
Wed, Apr 29, 9:45PM, AMC Village VII 4
Sun, May 03, 10:30AM, AMC Village VII 5

2009 Tribeca Film Festival - "Inherit the Wind" - April 25, 2009

Tribeca Talks: After the Movie
Inherit the Wind
Saturday, April 25 at 1pm (SVA Theatre 2)

Inherit the Wind was a 1960 film that covered the “monkey trial” in 1923—a real life case about teaching evolution in public schools. It centers around the teacher, played by Dick York, who broke the law by teaching kids evolution in his science class. Spencer Tracy swoops in to be his Chicago-based lawyer just trying to fight for a human’s right to think, who is then opposed by Matthew Brady played by Frederic March.

Fascinatingly, we, as a country, haven’t seemed to have changed much since 1923.

Jon Amiel felt Stanley Kramer’s point of view was apparent in this film as the selected shots. As the filmmaker on the panel, he felt that Kramer did one of the worst mistakes in story telling which is undermining the opposition. He made a bombastic idiot of Brady. With that Kramer undermined the potency of the moral victory.

In the scene in the preachers meeting, where Brady spoke passionately of humanity- that was one of the few moments where you saw the man’s principles for what they were. They were not shrouded in his own crisis of faith. In reality, the Brady character was in fact very pro-working people, as for women's' suffrage, child labor laws and other progressive ideas. The wife in the mo vie was also a descent reflection of what he was capable of, yet in this movie the focus was on picking apart his take on the Bible.

The film seems to more reflect the culture in 1960 than in 1923 when the trail took place. It was a period of McCarthyism. The Crucible was a hit play. Kramer himself was directly subjected to the Nuremberg trials. Secularism was taking hold. Also, in retrospect, people’s take on the trial was shaped by the movie over the decades. And since then, it’s been warfare between creationism and secularism.

Apparently, the actual trial was even more riveting.

Amiel continues that the film works now because of the strong characters. I know when I was watching the film, I found it seamless how it went between the character’s inner conflicts (the fiancé’s pull between father and husband-to-be, the school teacher’s back and forth about if it’s worth taking a stand- and further illustrated his dilemma with the innocent boy damned to hell, and finally with Spencer Tracy almost giving up on the town folks’ ignorance). It seemed so organic from one scene to the next—modern movies just seem so cliché when attempting to pull off what this 50 year old movie did. It may have even invented the cliché all the others were based on yet still pulled it off with me.

The panelists agreed that one of the most moving scenes was the last one where the conflict shows on Tracy’s face as he puts the origin of species on his bible, put them in the brief case and then left.

One of my favorite panelists was Dr. Eugenie Scott. She’s an expert on this issue as she specializes on science education in the US. I learned a lot from her.

First, it seems that creationists like to paint the picture as right or wrong and forces a situation of choosing sides. It is not a good/bad dichotomy in reality. But can evolution and faith coexist? Of course they can. Imperialistically, they can.

This is where I started to learn a little something about education in this country. In present day America, the ideas of our culture being susceptible to corruption by outsiders, and the media elite— is also the total rejection of reason, research and rationale. This in-your-face-you’re-not-gonna-tell-me-what to do attitude is hysterically ridiculous when choosing the fate of our culture… common sense should not even be debatable! The fearful insularity is a problem. It’s a factorial problem.

The politicalization of educational system, decentralized history and culture comes from 15,000 school districts. It turns out that only highly motivated people vote for the school board. Motivated people tend to be religious and conservative. In Kansas, there was a two year stretch of very extreme people in power who did not represent the people. This is a 50 year war and it is an education issue. It’s also not just an American issue.

The main thing people have to understand when pondering creationism versus evolution: Science is defined as testable information. Super-natural/faith-based stuff is not testable. Therefore, anything based in faith should not be taught in a science class. It can be discussed in religion class or something, but not biology.

Science isn’t something you “believe in.” It just is.

The author of The Beak of a Finch, Jonathan Weiner, said that the book’s subjects, Rosemary and Peter Grant were always asked if they were “for” or “against” evolution. As he followed their story, despite the repeated testing of evolution, it is still questioned as valid.

Darwin too was conflicted. He went to theological school, was a deist, and waited 20 years to publish his book knowing what it meant. He decided that the love of deity is a product of the human mind. It would be a betrayal of god’s given mind to not share his views. He realized that they could be considered disrespectable and that was something Darwin took very seriously.

Ironically, the creationist argument today is the opposite as in the trail of the movie. In it, the creationists were trying to ban the teacher’s freedom to teach something and nowadays they want the freedom to teach intelligent design.

After saying all this, a creationist columnist for NJ Voices still manages to get up and say that he thinks kids should be given a choice and should be taught both origination stories in schools. Obscenely, he seemed steadfast in this belief even though obviously we shouldn’t give kids the choice in what they learn. Otherwise, they wouldn’t go to school at all.

The moral of the story is that if you get flu shots, have domesticated pets, consume agricultural products or would get treated for cancer—shut up. The modern world utilizes concepts rooted in evolutionary theory and unless you riot against its boon as well, can it. Keep church and state separate. It’s like that for a reason.

Tribeca Film Festival - Lou Reed's Berlin - May 4, 2008

Tribeca Film Festival
Conversations in Cinema – Celebrating Berlin
Directors Guild Theater
May 4, 2008

Sunday marked the last day of the 2008 Tribeca Film Festival and my final Conversation in Cinema I attended, Celebrating Berlin – a discussion lead by Vanity Fair’s Lisa Robinson with rock musician Lou Reed and Academy-Award nominated director Julian Schnabel (The Diving Bell and the Butterfly) whose documentary, Lou Reed’s Berlin, made its New York premiere. The film opens in limited release at New York’s Film Forum and NuArt Theatre in Los Angeles on July 18. Tribeca Film Festival Co-Founder Jane Rosenthal introduced the film saying, “This has been a really long 13 days, but what a better way to end our festival.” This was my first true foray into the music of Reed. I was only familiar with his song “Walk on the Wild Side,” and many friends over the years have mentioned how brilliant a song writer and performer he is, but for some reason I never really had the chance to sit down and listen to an album or watch one of his performances until Sunday. I found the music to be absolutely riveting and the lyrics profound, though he seems to have more of a spoken-word component to his vocals, rather than just pure singing, which I understand because the lyrics are very poetic in nature, but just took me a bit to get used to hearing up against such a vibrant sound.

After the film, which was met with much applause from the audience, Robinson asked Reed and Schnabel how they came to collaborate on this film. Schnabel responded that he felt a responsibility to do it. He had heard the record back in 1973 when it came out and it made a huge impact on him before he ever knew Reed. When making The Diving Bell and the Butterfly, Susan Feldman asked him if he would direct a staging of Berlin at St. Ann’s Warehouse in Brooklyn. But since he was busy directing another film, she asked him if he would at least design the sets. Schnabel had some 18th century Chinese prints and blew them up and also some photos of a hotel with greenish walls. There was no money for the art. The budget was $16,000. He couldn’t stretch the canvas for that. But Schnabel acknowledged two people sitting in the audience who contributed their own film work to Berlin – the first being his daughter Lola, who he said shot all the good stuff in the film (with actress Emmanuelle Seigner as the character Caroline whom Reed’s songs in Berlin follow the story of), and the second being his brother-in-law, who shot the sequence with stuff flying around in a fish tank.

Robinson noted the great sound heard in the film and asked how they achieved it. Giving props to John Harris for the sound, Reed said he had never heard rock sound so good in a movie before. It usually sounds disjointed and he didn’t want to get volume dependent. He just wanted to get the tone.

When asked by Robinson why Reed chose Schnabel to direct this film, Reed responded that he asked Schnabel to at least do the sets, but Schnabel told him how could he do the sets without directing it, too? Schnabel brought in cinematographer Ellen Kuras, who Reed called fantastic. Schnabel said he didn’t want there to be any fancy filming with cranes. He invited an audience and told them there would be a camera person on stage who would be shooting the performance.

Robinson mentioned that Susan Robinson had brought Berlin to St. Ann’s Warehouse. Reed commented that Robinson had always wanted him to stage Berlin there. Schnabel elaborated saying that he thought Reed had a really bad experience with Berlin a long time ago and he was absolutely sure if people hear this anytime, it would be relevant. Reed hadn’t played this ever before in public.

Robinson asked Reed if there was a luxury in doing this more than 30 years after the album was released. Reed said he wasn’t even going to do this and that Schnabel knew the record better than him. Schnabel added that what’s in the film is the first time Reed played Berlin, which he eventually went on to play other performances of throughout Europe. What’s interesting about the first time he played it, it was like watching Christopher Walken performing open-heart surgery on himself, he said. Schnabel noted that Reed lives across the street from him and asked Reed to come look at his daughter’s and brother-in-law’s films. Reed said it was serendipity the way these films matched his music. The sensitivities were just so similar, he said.

One song performed toward the end of Berlin was “Rock Minuet,” that’s not in the original record. Robinson asked Reed if he felt he could have made that song back then. Reed said he could have done it then, but Schnabel said he asked Reed to do it for the film. Reed said Schnabel really loved that song, which is kind of visual and Schnabel thought it was kind of an anthem like “Walk in the Wild Side” was.

Robinson opened the discussion to the audience. One audience member asked Reed what he thought about music critic Lester Banks’ original comments on the Berlin record back in 1973 that it was “the most depressed record ever made,” to which Reed replied, “I don’t have any thoughts on Lester Banks’ comments.”

Reed was also asked by another audience member if there was anything in the film that surprised him about his performance when he saw it. Reed said in the old days, he used to wear sunglasses on stage, but now he can’t wear them or he’ll trip over the cables. He said the performance is what it is and that he wanted to write these monologues for himself because he likes acting. Schnabel also said there’s a level of trust that Reed has had to endure. Things have happened to him in his life that have probably been dissatisfying to him.

When asked what the production and rehearsal process was like, Reed said they didn’t have very much time. “We were on the seat of our pants,” Schnabel said. The concert footage was shot in three days. Lola’s film was shot in four days. The editing took approximately four months.

Schnabel called his film sort of a hybrid. It’s not just a concert movie. To him, it was making a portrait of Reed whom he loved. That was his intention. Reed concluded by saying for him it was "an amalgam of when a woman does a certain thing to you, you end up with Berlin.”

Tribeca Film Festival - Behind the Screens - "Confessionsofa Ex-Doofus-ItchyFooted Mutha" - May 1, 2008

Tribeca Film Festival
Behind the Screens – Confessionsofa Ex-Doofus-ItchyFooted Mutha
Directors Guild Theater
May 1, 2008

Legendary independent filmmaker Melvin Van Peebles (Sweet Sweetback's Baadasssss Song) participated in a discussion lead by film producer and DVRepublic Founder Warrington Hudlin during the 2008 Tribeca Film Festival after a screening of Confessionsofa Ex-Doofus-ItchyFooted Mutha, written and directed by Van Peebles. Confessionsofa “chronicles the adventures of a man who, armed only with a can of contingency cash, swims his way to New York, joins the merchant marine, romances women of all ages (and an amorous gorilla), and dances for his life in the court of Zampoughi.”

Before the screening of Confessionsofa, Tribeca programmer Aaron Dobbs welcomed Van Peebles to the stage. The always humorous and candid Van Peebles laid out some ground rules to the audience saying “laugh a lot” and “white folks don’t have to be scared or nothing.”

Confessionsofa has been my favorite film I've seen so far at Tribeca. It's hard to put a finger on exactly how to describe this film. It's sort of an epic low-budget experimental comedy musical filled with Van Peebles's trademark charm and bravado, but with less of a political message than previous works.

At the conclusion of the film, festival volunteers collected ballots from the audience for the Cadillac Award. Dobbs then welcomed back Van Peebles to the stage along with Hudlin. This is the second time this year I’ve been to a discussion that Hudlin moderated. The first was back in February at a Tribute to St. Clair Bourne at the Museum of the Moving Image, which Van Peebles also attended. Hudlin’s moderating style remained the same, that being of a more participatory nature by allowing members of the audience to jump in anytime.

Hudlin: Other black filmmakers stand on the shoulders of Van Peebles who literally founded black cinema. You paved the way, but how did you find your own way?

Van Peebles: I’m known somewhat as a fighter. People ask me, how did you know you could beat this guy? I didn’t know. A courageous person is never without arms.

Hudlin: You went ahead and did it your way. What is your creative process?

Van Peebles: In an old Mad Magazine, there was a section called “Things you’d like to see in the movies.” I just make the things I’d like to see. I don’t try to be clever about it. I just try to say what I have in mind. If something’s funny to me, how can I put that funniness in cinema?

Hudlin: In both Sweetback and Confessionsofa, there seems to be this character off camera. What resonates with you in having this character?

Van Peebles: This makes me think of a funny situation. [Before Van Peebles continued to answer, he asks his cast & crew to stand.] Momma told me to praise the bridge you stood on. Paul, my second assistant editor, a young white man from Minnesota who doesn’t have a lot of ‘hood in him, called me the other day. I told him to add in a lot of “um hmm” into the film. I just put in what I’m thinking. This movie was on a constraint with finances. I thought it would be easier to do the music first. Music is an integral part of the story. I find it interesting to let people see the trajectory and evolution of it. My choice is not me, but clarity for the subject.

Hudlin: A lot of your film’s titles allude to the anatomy. Is this a coincidence?

Van Peebles: The title explains the story. The memoirs of a wanderlust…let’s translate that to Confessionsofa Ex-Doofus-ItchyFooted Mutha. I like the iambic pentameter and the cadence of it. A question I often get is what is the message? There are a lot of subliminal messages. People will pick them up at different levels in their life.

Audience Question: Why does the opening title sequence give credit to the Diaspora?

Van Peebles: A zillion people helped me make this movie and they’re not all on camera. I wanted to do a shout out to those folks. I had a huge amount of assistance all over the world.

Audience Question: Where are we now in terms of black cinema?

Van Peebles: I am pretty much a loner and a maverick. What I wanted to do was no just open the door for black cinema, but for all independent cinema.

Audience Question: Was the sex scene with you and the character Rita uncomfortable?

Van Peebles: I liked it. When you shoot sex scenes, there are always problems like; I have to make sure the lighting is right. When I made Sweetback, I caught the clap, but that’s beside the point.

Audience Question: How long did it take you to do this project?

Van Peebles: 75 years, duh!

Audience Question: How did you use technology to paint this film?

Van Peebles: The credits at the end say “edited and painted by.” It’s like a painting to me. I started as a painter and sculptor. The texture, color and shading tell the story subliminally. All these tools are there. Why fight a battle with one hand? You have a zillion hands. People don’t use them.

Audience Question: What were some of the challenges in making Confessionsofa versus Sweetback?

Van Peebles: This technically was much more ambitious than Sweetback. This time I didn’t have to carry a gun. Everything was a challenge.

Audience Question: How did you go about casting? Has your process changed since Sweetback?

Van Peebles: No, sometimes you cast people for their experience and sometimes for plasticity. Sometimes you take a person who doesn’t have acting experience, but they can play for the character.

Audience Question: Why did you premiere Confessionsofa at Tribeca?

Van Peebles: Tribeca is in New York and I’m lazy. Tribeca is a great vessel. Jane Rosenthal and Robert De Niro funded Panther when no one else would.

Hudlin: Tribeca has a sense of mission of international diversity that’s distinct from other festivals. Peter Scarlet (Artistic Director) really gets that we’re a world community. As Tribeca continues to grow and mature, it will be a premiere festival.

Audience Question: When will you make your next film?

Van Peebles: That’s dangerous. I open the door and all these ideas come out, so I slam the door shut. I’m hoping to make my novel The True American as a film next. I’m harnessed by the finances. Confessionsofa had no financers or distributors. I wanted this film to be made this way. When I sell it, then I’ll do another one.

Audience Question: Have you developed a strategy to get past constraints?

Van Peebles: My strategy is not a single way. I started off writing. The great advantage of writing is it’s not that expensive. As a writer, I didn’t know why people were so difficult with me when I pitched it to them. Learn your craft so you can do what you have to do and how to manipulate your media, then make it within the confines of your budget.

Hudlin: If you watch what he does, there’s a DNA in his work. He takes people that are off camera and takes them on a journey. He lets black people win. Sweetback is a perfect example. He fights the power and prevails. That’s the lesson we as filmmakers have to take.

Tribeca Film Festival- Behind the Screens - "Under Our Skin"- April 27, 2008

Tribeca Film Festival
Behind the Screens - Under Our Skin
DGA Theater
New York, NY
April 27, 2008

Under Our Skin according to imdb :

Arguably the most overlooked and misdiagnosed ailment currently verging on epidemic throughout the United States, Lyme disease and the controversies surrounding its identification and treatment are the focus of this documentary.

Panelists:
Dr. Richard Horowitz., specialist in treatment of Lyme disease
Amy Tan, bestselling author, Lyme Disease sufferer
Andy Abrahams Wilson, Director - Under Our Skin

Moderator:
Robert Bazell

Aaron Dobbs, a programmer for Tribeca Film Festival, is responsible for finding the film Under Our Skin directed by Andy Abrahams Wilson. The director introduced the film by saying that he took quantum leaps along the road of making the film. He couldn’t imagine at the onset of how badly the film really “needed” to be made.

He cited a few tremendous individuals who had contributed to making the film happen.

Kris Newby, the producer, was responsible for researching and finding funding for the project. She also made an appearance in the film, and if he had not mentioned her beforehand, I still would have sensed her passion for the subject from onscreen.

Mandy Hughes and her husband Sean, major characters in the doc, were in attendance. When Andy was putting his feelers out for sufferers to be interviewed, Mandy called the office with the disease’s characteristic slurred speech and expressed that she found it important to record her experience. Despite her husband’s misgivings, her four year-arc from diagnosis to treatment to managing the disease with anti-biotics spanned the course of the film. I admired her bravery and ability to be so vulnerable on film to help us see and learn about not only the affliction itself, but illustrate the long road to recovery in the midst of cultural and academic denial of her condition.

He also acknowledged the editor, Eva Ilona Brzeski, who happened to move to town at just the right time. He also mentioned the non-profit Turn the Corner Foundation, a group in NYC whose mission is Lyme disease awareness. Then finally, the director of course praised Aaron Dobbs, who had singled out and championed the film from the beginning.

I went into this film super curious about what the heck I would need to know about Lyme disease. I knew about the ticks and the New England infections. I thought it wasn’t necessarily that huge of a problem… People could identify the bulls-eye rash, get the pills and get over it, right?

The film started with gorgeous imagery and introduced me to sufferers who all said in one way or another that they went to many doctors, were considered crazy or attention-starved, dropped from their insurance, misdiagnosed and misunderstood. We met some victims, heard from doctors and medical researchers, and the sad state of the health care system in the United States was reinforced. Then we, the audience, were left feeling appalled and disturbed that we aren’t more aggressive about this little Spirochaete costing people their lives.

The discussion afterwards was moderated by Robert Bazell. I know him from NBC Nightly News with Brian Williams and I really wanted to know if he thought all the biotech advertising during his program had any affect on the reporting on such topics.

Four years ago the director didn’t know much about Lyme disease. After many diagnosis, MLS, ALS and finally Lyme, his sister and also a friend in California both got sick, which planted a seed of curiosity about it.

He had no idea how the film would go or what Lyme disease was. To be honest, what drew him in initially was the conspiratorial characteristics of an escaped microbe infiltrating the population. So he put the word out on the Lyme blogosphere where they had clearly tapped into a real need. That’s when Mandy Hughes contacted the office and from there the film gained momentum.

Amy Tan went to 10 doctors for a rash, headache, and neuropathy. She was the one who thought she had psychological problems and that she wasn’t sick. But four and a half years after the infection she was diagnosed with Lyme disease. She went from despair of a future in a wheelchair to back to being a productive individual after treatment.

Dr. Horowitz said that the commonly used test for Lyme has not much more than 50 percent chance of detecting only one particular strain, though many exist. We are in a society of managed care medicine where doctors have less time to spend with their patients to identify the proper patient histories required to nail down the complex organism known to cause Lyme.

Andy said Lyme came at a time in the 70s when medicine was deregulated and politicized. Instead of sharing research; the specifications of Lyme disease became patent protected and the race for the vaccine was on. The surface protein of the micro-organisms had been patented which is just plain nuts.

The Doctor said that the vaccines didn’t even work, people lost their mind, patients got sicker. He refused to give the vaccine to his patients and demanded further research.

The director made a point to not address the psychological symptoms as much as the others since he didn’t want to buy into the stereotype that people with Lyme are experiencing it psychosomatically.

Andy pointed out that the people refusing to acknowledge Lyme’s chronic infection potential did not know or think they were being bad people. They simply had a special interest in Lyme’s economic value, and any time people are doing something in their self-interest, they think they are doing the right thing.

The Doctor reiterated that Lyme is complex as he found that many of his patients were co-infected so he’s developing a format to get a measure of other bacteria, mold and supplemental ailments possibly complicating it further. The population and medical people would want to gloss over and ignore it because it’s too much to absorb.

Amy says none of nature’s interactions are simple. Lyme is this thing that has been unleashed and we can’t go back to a time before it was so rampant. It’s not simple and feels much like Invasion of the Body Snatchers when it happens to you.

The director was driven by the wonder and fascination of the puzzle and hope the film is the beginning of the conversation.

--amp

Tribeca Film Festival - Int'l Press Meet & Greet - April 28, 2008

Tribeca Film Festival
International Press Meet & Greet
Tribeca Target Filmmaker Lounge
April 28, 2008

I met several international filmmakers with shorts and feature length narratives and documentaries from such countries as Israel, Mexico, Australia and more Monday night during a press meet & greet at the Tribeca Target Filmmaker Lounge. The list below are the filmmakers I met with schedules of their films for the remainder of the festival. To view their pictures, please click here.

In addition to meeting all these great filmmakers, I also met Wei Ling Chang, a 2006 Tribeca All Access alumn whose screenplay The FixPoint, a time travel paradox, will be presented as a staged reading as part of TAA On Track, platform for selected festival alums to pitch their feature projects. There will be a screening of Chang's short reel (including award winning shorts that screened in Cannes, Sitges, Buenos Aires, Beijing, etc.) followed by a stage reading of excerpts from THE FIXPOINT on Tues, April 29 at 3PM at City Cinemas Village East, 181 2nd Ave, Theatre 5. The event is open to all industry badge holders.

Being Human
Short Student Competition/World Premiere
In Picture:
Director Mike Palermo, Producer Marco Palermo & Cinematographer Dan Palermo
Screenings:
Thu, May 01, 2:00PM
AMC Village VII 6
Fri, May 02, 10:30PM
AMC Village VII 1
Sun, May 04, 11:00AM
Village East Cinema 2
Film Website: http://www.dvisionentertainment.com/

God Only Knows
Short Narrative Competition/New York Premiere
In Picture:
Director Mark V. Reyes, Producer Manjula Nadkarni and Screenwriter Julie Oxendale
Screenings:
Thu, May 01, 2:00PM
AMC Village VII 6
Fri, May 02, 10:30PM
AMC Village VII 1
Film Website: http://web.mac.com/markvreyes/Site/Home.html

Roads
Short Student Competition/North American Premiere
In Picture:
Director Lior Geller and Director of Photography Nadav Hekselman
Screenings:
Thu, May 01, 2:00PM
AMC Village VII 6
Fri, May 02, 10:30PM
AMC Village VII 1
Sun, May 04, 11:00AM
Village East Cinema 2
Film Website: http://vids.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=vids.individual&videoid=2096098565

Moon Mermaid
Short Narrative Competition/International Premiere
In Picture:
Director Psyché Piras and Actor Elie Lison
Screenings:
Wed, Apr 30, 4:30PM
AMC Village VII 5
Sat, May 03, 6:00PM
Village East Cinema 2
Sun, May 04, 4:30PM
Village East Cinema 4
Film Website: http://pbcpictures.com/bin/htdoc.cgi?id=0004361_pbc_home

Newcastle
World Narrative Feature Competition/World Premiere
In Picture:
Director Dan Castle
Screenings:
Tue, Apr 29, 9:45PM
AMC Village VII 7
Thu, May 01, 4:30PM
AMC Village VII 5
Sat, May 03, 1:30PM
AMC Village VII 2
Film Website: http://www.newcastlemovie.com/

Dying Breed
Feature Narrative/World Premiere
In Picture:
Director Jody Dwyer
Screenings:
Fri, May 02, 11:59PM
AMC 19th St. East 1
Sat, May 03, 12:30AM
AMC Village VII 4
Film Website: http://www.dyingbreed.com.au/

Dusk
Short Narrative Competition/New York Premiere
In Picture:
Dusk Producer Lucas Akoskin, Paraiso Travel Director Simon Brand and others.
Screenings:
Thu, May 01, 2:00PM
AMC Village VII 6
Fri, May 02, 10:30PM
AMC Village VII 1
Sun, May 04, 11:00AM
Village East Cinema 2
Film Website: http://www.terra.com/cine/terrashorts/shorts_es/

Paraiso Travel
Feature Narrative/International Premiere
In Picture:
Paraiso Travel Director Simon Brand, Dusk Producer Lucas Akoskin and others.
Screenings:
Thu, May 01, 6:45PM
Village East Cinema 4
Fri, May 02, 6:30PM
AMC Village VII 6
Sat, May 03, 2:15PM
Village East Cinema 3
Film Website: http://www.paraisotravelmovie.com/

My Life Inside
World Documentary Feature Competition/North American Premiere
In Picture:
Director Lucía Gajá and Sound Designer Pablo Fulgueria
Screenings:
Tue, Apr 29, 8:30PM
Village East Cinema 6
Fri, May 02, 2:15PM
Village East Cinema 3
Sat, May 03, 5:15PM
Village East Cinema 3
Film Website: http://www.mividadentro.com/

Donkey in Lahore
World Documentary Feature Competition/North American Premiere
In Picture:
Director Faramarz K-Rahber
Screenings:
Tue, Apr 29, 2:00PM
AMC Village VII 6
Thu, May 01, 3:45PM
Village East Cinema 4
Fri, May 02, 9:15PM
Village East Cinema 6
Film Website: http://www.donkeyinlahore.com/Home.html

Sita Sings the Blues
Feature Narrative/North American Premiere
In Picture:
Director Nina Paley
Screenings:
Thu, May 01, 1:45PM
Village East Cinema 2
Fri, May 02, 3:00PM
AMC Village VII 3
Film Website: http://www.sitasingstheblues.com/

Tribeca Film Festival- Behind the Screens - "Lake City" - April 26, 2008

Tribeca Film Festival
Behind the Screens – Lake City
Directors Guild Theater
April 26, 2008

Acclaimed film actress Sissy Spacek (Carrie, Coal Miner’s Daughter) participated in a discussion lead by Variety's Dade Hayes during the 2008 Tribeca Film Festival after a screening of her latest film, Lake City, written and directed by Perry Moore and Hunter Hill. Lake City is a dramatic narrative feature about a family threatened by violent criminals and a mother and son who must reconcile the past in order to save their home. Troy Garity, Dave Matthews and Rebecca Romijn also star in the film. While much of the audience seemed to sing the praises of the film, I couldn’t help but feel disappointed by it. I felt it was fraught with clichéd dialogue and plotting devices, but Spacek and Garity seemed to pull in compelling enough performances for me to give it a hesitantly half-way recommendation.

Hayes began the conversation reflecting on several private moments that take place within Lake City and asked Spacek how much work she did in terms of filling in those moments for her character for which she responded that she tries to fill them up with her own personal experiences, not so much with her characters’. As a young artist, she studied at the Strasberg Insitute, though she never got past the exercise classes. When she has those moments, she thinks about things in her own life. “Your life is a deep well of research and fodder in your work,” she said.

Hayes further delved into Spacek’s process by asking how she connected with the material. She said she lives in a rural area, like that in the film, now far from where the film was shot. She’s also seen people lose their farms and she has her own family.

The film’s climax has Spacek running through a corn field being chased after in a car by drug lords. Hayes asked Spacek how long it took to shoot that scene. She said it felt like forever. She heard the engines behind her just as she got a charley horse and saw her whole career before her. She prepared for that moment for 30 years. “It was my last hurrah,” she said.

The farm house where Spacek’s character lives seemed to be a character on its own. Hayes asked how the filmmaker’s found that house. Spacek said that co-director Perry Moore is from Virginia and the Virginia Film Office helped them find it. It hadn’t been lived in for 10-15 years. Spacek reminisced that it used to be many films used to always shoot on location. Now it’s rare to get to do that. Often times, films set in Texas or Oklahoma are shot in Canada. She said she had no qualms about Canada, but would prefer to shoot a film set in Canada in Canada.

Hayes asked Spacek what the rehearsal process was. She said there was about a week of rehearsal in the farmhouse, but they could have used a few more days. She said that’s always a complain actors have.

Hayes mentioned to Spacek that at one point in her career, she took some time off. Spacek said at the time she was trying to raise her children. She said there’s a time in Hollywood when an actress turns 40, there’s a hump, but when you get a little older, there’s more parts.

Hayes then opened the discussion up to the audience. Spacek was asked to reflect on a turning point in the film where her character gets annoyed with her son coming back home and how she handled that transition. They definitely have enormous problems in their relationship, but when things turn around, she realized he really needs her, so she gets involved.

Spacek was asked what it was like working for two directors. She said it was good and bad. Usually, they split it up. One was at the camera and the other at the monitor. She said it was really wonderful, but she teases them.

An audience member mentioned that there were some parallels in Lake City to Todd Field’s 2001 film In the Bedroom, for which Spacek was nominated for an Oscar. Spacek compared and contrasted the roles saying that her In the Bedroom character was a mother that convinces her husband to commit murder to avenge her son’s death, while her character as the mother in Lake City is one who re-connects with her family. Different families grieve in different ways. The power of the story is that they’re finally able to understand each other and begin to heal their wounds.

Another audience member asked Spacek how she’s kept going all these years. Spacek said she loves film. She has fun doing this. She realizes how fortunate she is to be working all these years. She had just come from a screening of Terrence Malick’s 1973 film Badlands, her first starring screen role. She couldn’t believe that she was that young once.

One final person asked a question to Spacek that seemed to irk most of the audience. He recalled the scene in which Spacek’s character goes to get a bottle of Coke at a gas station and that he resents product placement. He asked Spacek if she got paid to say that. She responded, “I just wanted a Coke.”

Hayes also broke in with one final thought of his own by asking Spacek to talk a little about her experience moving to New York City when she was really young. Spacek said that she had live in NYC for about five years in the late 60s/early 70s. She loved it. When she moved to California, because she didn’t go their first, she was considered a New York actress.