It has been one week since the 2011 Tribeca Film Festival came to a close and I wanted to share with you one last look at my festival experience. Here is the good, the bad & the ugly of Tribeca 2011.
HIGHLIGHTS
There were a lot of great films and moments at this year’s festival. Here are some of my favorites.
- RABIES – My favorite film of the festival. Smart, funny, inventive & surprising. A slasher that removes the killer from the start and toys with genre conventions.
- THE DUNGON MASTER – It won best online short, which was well deserved. My favorite short of the festival and one of the best I’ve seen in a long time. Bravo Rider & Shiloh Strong.
- JANIE JONES – This film is like most road trips in that you may know where it is gong but it is the journey that really counts. Sweet, heartwarming, well made and full of great performances.
- SAINT – This is an above average horror comedy that reaches levels of perfection at times but sadly those scenes are spread far apart.
- GRAVE ENCOUNTERS – There is nothing original about the characters or story in this flick but the fantastic execution by the Vicious Brothers makes this one of the best “found footage” films I’ve ever seen.
- THE TRIP – A very funny, mostly improvised English comedy starring Steve Coogan and Rob Brydon as themselves.
- Interviews – A big thank you to Abigail Breslin, Alessandro Nivola, Rider Strong & Shilog Strong for sitting down and talking with me during the festival. It was an honor speaking with each of them. I’d also like to thank Dick Maas for answering questions about SAINT via email.
- Parties – While most are drawn to them for the free alcohol, I actually look forward to the networking opportunities. Festival parties are a great way to meet people within the industry. Thanks to Tribeca, I got to spend some time with awesome people like Peter Gutierrez & Ben Umstead from Twitch.com and Alan LaFave from the Hell’s Half Mile Film + Music Festival. Also, at the JANIE JONES after party I got the chance to watch Abigail Breslin & Alessandro Nivola perform live.
- Tribeca (Online) Film Festival – A fantastic way for people nationwide to enjoy films from Tribeca & even vote for audience favorites. This is something all film festivals should be doing.
- Free Magnum Ice Cream And Kind Fruit & Nut Bars – Everyone loves free food, especially when it tastes good.
DISAPPOINTMENTS
When seeing films at a festival like this, there is often not much information available about them. Many of them don’t have a trailer or an official website and sometimes all you have to go by is the description in the program guide. The same goes for some of the events as well. Because of this, there is bound to be some big surprises but there will also be some disappointments. Here are a few of mine.
- DETACHMENT – I’m not sure what I was expecting but it certainly was not what I got. It almost feels like Ridley Scott made an art film about public education.
- HIGHER GROUND – A lot of times a festival darling like this one will leave people divided. I was on the other side of the line for Vera Farmiga’s debut as a director.
- RABIES – This is my favorite film of the festival. I’m just disappointed it did not win Best Online feature because it absolutely deserved it.
- Chambers Press Pass – It is the lowest level pass one can have at Tribeca and it severely limited the number of events I was able to attend.
- Online Press Screening Room – In addition to having a public screening section, there was another screening room site only open to press & industry. This is an absolutely brilliant idea that I wish more festivals would adopt. However, I was shocked to discover that this screening room was closed before the festival ended. Because I had the Chambers Pass (see above), there were no screenings I could attend on the last two days of the festival. I saved a bunch of shorts & features to watch online on those days only to find out that it was no longer available Saturday morning. Since this is meant for the press, it would be smart for it to be available when most of us have extra time due to limits on our passes. Ideally, this screening room would be available before and after the festival so that more films could be covered.
- The Filmmakers – I have said it before but I am extremely upset in how filmmakers promoted their films at the festival. It seems as if there was mostly an attitude of “my film is playing Tribeca so I don’t have to promote it” and that is just not true. There were a few exceptions, such as the Vicious Brothers and their intense online promotion of GRAVE ENCOUNTERS. They really went out of their way to spread the word about their film and it worked; people were talking about the film that did not even attend the festival. Unfortunately many of the filmmakers did absolutely nothing.
WHAT I MISSED
It is impossible to see every film and attend each panel at a festival like this. It is just too massive that you must make tough choices when creating a schedule. Talent availability, overlapping screenings and having the lowest level press pass made creating my schedule especially difficult this year. Here are some things I wish I were able to check out at this year’s festival.
- TURN ME ON, GODDAMNIT – With a title like this, your film is sure to get talked about but the buzz around this flick was insane. It left the festival with some awards / honorable mentions and nearly everyone there I spoke with could not stop raving about it.
- JESUS HENRY CHRIST – It was cute that they had the press screening on Easter but that unfortunately meant I could not see it. I’ll be honest, I heard nothing about the film from anyone at the festival but I still think it looks great.
- THE GUARD – My choice was to either cut the Rider & Shiloh Strong interview short or skip this dark comedy starring Brendan Gleeson and Don Cheadle. I made the right choice but I hope to see this soon.
- GOD BLESS OZZY OSBOURNE – It’s Ozzy open and uncensored. What more do you need?
- NEWLYWEDS – I am a huge fan of Edward Burns and was upset that there were no press screenings for his latest offering.
- TROLLHUNTER – Whoever approved the press screenings for TROLLHUNTER & GRAVE ENCOUNTERS to be at the same time sucks. I have heard some amazing things even before the festival and look forward to eventually checking out this Magnolia release.
- A GOOD OLD FASHIONED ORGY – What the hell is a film like this doing in the Tribeca lineup? I’m not sure but I am mad as hell they did not have a press screening for it. I’m also very curious as to what the after party was like.
- CHEAT – I got an email asking me to check out this short film starring Bill Burr, Colin Quinn and Rich Vos. With comedic talent like that, I was really looking forward to checking it out but this short ended up as one of the casualties of the Online Screening Room problem I mentioned above.
- YEAR ZERO – A 24 minute short zombie epic made by a fellow New Yorker. Another unfortunate casualty of the online screening room.
- PREFERABLY BLUE – A short animation about a feud between the Easter Bunny & Santa Clause that claims to be based on a real story. Yet another online screening room missed opportunity.
- Meet the Filmmaker At Apple Store SoHo – One of the really cool things Apple does with Tribeca is invite some of the filmmakers and actors from the fest to do a Q & A at the nearby Apple Store. Luckily all these events are available to download as audio podcasts. Just search for MEET THE FILMMAKER on itunes.
- Opening Night – The festival kicked off with a free outdoor screening of THE UNION by Cameron Crowe followed by a concert from the film’s subject, Sir Elton John. This is all kinds of awesomeness that I unfortunately was unable to attend.
While there was a lot that I missed and some that I wish I missed, this was still a very cool festival experience. I’d like to thank everyone at the festival for putting on a great event and letting me attend. I’d also like to thank all of you for reading my coverage throughout the festival. There will be a few more reviews coming in as I have a chance to write them but this will be my final posting about the festival itself.
Jerry Cavallaro – www.StuckLikeChuck.com
