Recently in Tribeca Category

Oh yeah! Some more pics have been uploaded to my Flickr site, including those from a rather spirited BBQ held one rainy Saturday not too long ago. Not only that, there's some pix from the Tribeca Film Festival as well as other random shots. If your name is Tom Hall, Holly Herrick, Ry Russo-Young, Ryan Harrington, Paul Lovelace, Elizabeth Hanley, Todd Rohal, David Call, Jessica Wolfson, Jessica Smith, Brian Brooks, Basil Tsiokos, Harris Dew, Colin Brown, Nicole Guillemet, Laura Macdonald, Craig Zobel, Greta Gerwig, Joe Swanberg, Peter Bjorn & John or Au Revoir Simone, among many others, you might wanna check it out.

Adam Schartoff interviews Kieran Fitzgerald, director of the compelling 2007 Tribeca Film Festival world premiere documentary The Ballad of Esequiel Hernandez. Fitzgerald discusses the difficulties in bringing the story to the screen and working with his narrator, actor/director Tommy Lee Jones, among other things.

Read a review of the film, here.

The Education of Charlie Banks, 100 min.
Directed by Fred Durst; Produced by Marisa Polvino

To be honest when I heard that Fred Durst, front man for "Nu Metal" band Limp Bizkit, had won the Made in NY Award at the 2007 Tribeca Film Festival for his directorial debut The Education of Charlie Banks, I scoffed. This is the guy whose wrote all those sophomoric songs about... well, I don't really know what his songs are about since I never read his lyrics but I assumed they were just about getting laid and smoking blunts. What could he possibly have to say in a feature length movie? Well, you know what happens when you assume... In short, I was wrong. Charlie Banks is a solid film. Not perfect but several notches above your standard festival fare. It's a well made movie that I found thoroughly entertaining and engaging and I'll admit, I seriously prejudged Durst.

The Workshop director Jamie Morgan talks with Adam Schartoff about the process of making a film in the unique atmosphere of a sex workshop. Morgan discusses his experiences --both scary and exhilarating-- in making an intensely personal documentary in which he ends up playing an essential role.

NOTE: Due to technical difficulties, the interview starts abruptly in the middle of a question. We apologize for this glitch. Also, Firefox for the Mac doesn't support one of the tags our host uses, but they're promising me a fix, soon.

Click here for a review of The Workshop by Adam Schartoff.

The Workshop, 93 min.
Directed by Jamie Morgan; Produced by: Peter Martin, Cyril Megret, Piers Tempest

Meet Paul Lowe. British, silver haired and charismatic, he's the founder and spiritual guru of The Workshop. There's Ryan, yoga instructor to the stars, who seems to be the serial Workshop stud. Besides appearing in the buff for most of the film, he spends a great deal of time navigating between love interests. Later we learn he also happens to be Paul Lowe's son-in-law. Then there's the lovely Laurel and just as lovely Maddy. Both seem to be in love with Ryan and trying to come to terms with their feelings of jealousy and inadequacy. They're naked too. Here comes Brian, a reserved British bloke who, while usually clothed, is in love with Laurel. Or was that Maddy he was in love with? Oh, who can remember?

I'll admit, this was not my most party-intensive Tribeca Film Festival. First of all, it's been two years now since Showtime's legendary all you can eat sushi party at Nobu and the fest just isn't the same without it! Secondly, I don't recover as well from parties as I used to. That said, I did attend a few (what would a film festival be without the Rabbi hitting the parties, I ask you?) and one of the better fêtes was held on May 1st for IFC Films upcoming release of Patrice Leconte's My Best Friend which stars one of my favorite Gallic actors Daniel Auteuil (Le Huitième Jour). The event was sponsored by ROC which, interestingly enough was celebrating their 50th anniversary on that very day! Well, Bonne Anniversaire, ROC!

The party was attended by a few celebs, including Kevin Pollack, Rachel Dratch, Sherri Saun (Rescue Me), Colin Egglesfield (All My Children), Jane Krakowski, socialite Alex Adame and of course the indie world's roster of up-and-coming bold-faced names, including directors Joe Swanberg (Hannah Takes the Stairs) & Aaron Katz (Quiet City) and Hannah herself, Greta Gerwig.

The goody bags were quite good, and considering that hosts seem to be cutting back on that particular perk (for shame!) quite welcome. After the bash ended (some of us stayed right up until "get out" time) there were goody bags left over, so if you need any puffy eye cream, let me know, as I'm up to my tits in retinol!

A couple of pix from the event after the jump!

The Ballad of Esequiel Hernandez, 90 mins.
Directed by Kieran Fitzgerald
Produced by Brendan Fitzgerald

On May 4th, 1970 four students were shot dead and nine more wounded at Kent State by poorly trained Ohio National Guard soldiers who clearly over reacted to a relatively small protest against the Nixon administration's recent bombings in Cambodia. The response to the tragedy took the nation by storm and, one could argue, that event turned the tide of American involvement in Viet Nam.

It would be twenty seven years until another American citizen is shot by the U.S. military, on U.S. soil, May 20, 1997. Only this time, the nation's reaction was far less severe. Perhaps that's because hardly anyone heard about it. An explanation for this may be found in the new documentary, The Ballad of Esequiel Hernandez, which I was fortunate enough to catch at this year's Tribeca Film Festival. Ballad is the first feature-length film by director Kieran Fitzgerald and his brother, producer Brendan Fitzgerald. Kieran was 17 years old when Esequiel, a young Mexican-American was shot by the team leader of a four-man US Marine unit that was patrolling the border in search of drug traffickers. The 18 year-old Esequiel was herding goats close to his home when he was mistakenly taken for a hostile. The director heard about the incident for the first time in the fall of 2004 from actor & director Tommy Lee Jones who himself was preparing to shoot The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada. Jones's narrative film was inspired by a number of real life border tragedies including the Hernandez shooting and Jones ended up providing the voice-over for the Fitzgeralds' documentary.

Ok, so I have finally gotten around to switching from Buzznet (they are so '05) to Flickr and am in the process of posting pix, some with witty bon mots, even! So far, it starts at the indieWIRE anniversary party in late November 2006 up to Berlin, 2007. Keep checking back, as by the end of next week I hope to have a few years worth of pix loaded, most of which have never been in this blog before and many of which include you. Yes, you!

So come on by and check them out and comment, comment, comment!
Even better, join Flickr, put your own pix up and be my friend!

Thanks.

Last Thursday marked the annual Apple Filmmaker Party at the Apple store, SoHo and it featured special guest DJ Jazzy Jeff and, erm, Gumby?

It was attended by many TFF filmmakers as well as much of the NYC indie crowd, including the following four reprobates:

L to R: NewFest director Basil Tsiokos, producer Jessica Wolfson, A&E's Ryan Harrington and indieWIRE's Brian Brooks.

Oh, and a glass exploded in my hand.

Oh yes, I am an idiot....

I don't usually post personal, erm, shortcomings on this blog, but once in a while, I do something so stupid as to warrant disclosure. As a result, I am naming myself a Stupid Bastard and giving myself a Bernie Award.

Last night I went to the party for upcoming IFC release and Tribeca Film Festival selection You Kill Me, directed by John Dahl and starring Ben Kingsley, Téa Leoni and Luke Wilson. While it was a decent party (not too crowded, some nice vittles, good crowd) the DJ lost the plot about 1/3 of the way through the party, moving from a pretty hip selection of Smiths/Fratellis/Stroks/Perter Bjorn & John and the like to, well , crap. However, that's not my point. My point is, I am an idiot. Why? This is why:

This is Diana, the beautiful young Portuguese woman I met at the party. As you can see in the above photo, she is quite fetching and looks lovely in my fedora. Now, why am I stupid? Well, Diana and her friends (including her cousin who rather off the cuff decided I should marry Diana) went on after the party to a local club, asking me to go with them. But me? I went home.

Oh yes, I am an idiot.

Film writers, much like groups in any other profession, rarely agree on things. For example to some folks, Marie Antoinette is actually a good film. Recently one issue seems to have united scribes in a way I haven't seen since the Bahamas International Film Festival debacle of aught five. The recent decision by the Tribeca Film Festival to raise their ticket prices 50% from $12 to a whopping $18 is, as David Poland writes, an absolute "jaw dropper" that begs the question: Who do they think they are?

For a festival that is produced by a not-for-profit entity and professes to have been "conceived to foster the economic and cultural revitalization of Lower Manhattan through an annual celebration of film, music and culture," and whose mission is "to promote New York City as a major filmmaking center and allow its filmmakers to reach the broadest possible audience," this move is at best, shortsighted and at worst it redefines the word "hubris." Do they really think they deserve to charge as much as or more than any other festival in the world?