The organisers said: "The films in the World Documentary Competition tackle issues from around the globe-from the illegal Palestinian workforce in Israel to the torture practices of the United States abroad. Alongside more personal accounts - from the story of the first Miss Universe to the friendship between two circus-workers in Uzbekistan - the filmmakers in this section explore universal themes - 9/11 widows travel to Afghanistan to help that country's war widows, Israelis and Palestinians unite to join a weight-loss group and both graffiti and break-dancing are presented as urban cultures that cross geographical, political and racial boundaries." Below is what they say about the films. Read our news story on this year's Tribeca Festival.
The Best Documentary Feature award went to Taxi To The Darkside, while We Are Together received a special jury mention and also scooped the Audience Award.
lipping through the pre-dawn darkness over highways, through traffic and across the border, Palestinian construction workers go to work clandestinely in Israel everyday. Harr's raw, handheld photography follows workers who build their own border shanty community to enter Israel more easily, with no choice but to risk their lives simply to earn a living.
(Country: Israel; Year: 2007; Director: Ido Haar)
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Official site
US Premiere
Between Heaven And Earth
(Tussen Hemel En Aarde)
In the heart of the Eurasian continent, the ancient center of the world where the Silk Road connected China to Europe, the circus is a deeply rooted cultural phenomenon. This film focuses on two circus artists, whose lifelong friendship under the dictatorship in Uzbekistan is affected by the different political choices they make.
(Country: Netherlands; Year: 2007; Director: Mascha Novikova, Frank van den Engel)
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Official site
North American Premiere
Beyond Belief
Inspired by compassion for others whose loss they recognize as mirroring their own, two courageous women whose husbands died in the Twin Towers on 9/11 turn their grief into a catalyst for action. They travel to Kabul to help other widows, soon recognizing that the plight of the Afghan women leaves them feeling almost blessed.
(Country: US; Year: 2007; Director: Beth Murphy)
World Premiere
Bomb It
The story of contemporary graffiti, tracing its roots in ancient rock paintings through Picasso to its place in hip-hop culture in 1970's New York City. This kinetic documentary looks at graffiti on five continents, using guerilla footage of graffiti-writers in action. You'll never look at public space the same way again.
(Country: US; Year: 2007; Director: John Reiss)
World Premiere
Forging A Nation
(Hacer Patria)
Accompanied by his mother, cousins, aunts and uncles, the director retraces the steps of his Jewish ancestors, who fled Europe in the 1920s hoping to find in Argentina the land of their dreams. This poignant film journey uses the documentary as a singular tool to explore the multifaceted ways in which the Argentine nation was built.
(Country: Argentina; Year: 2007; Director: David Blaustein; Writer: Luisa Irene Ickowicz)
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Official site
North American Premiere
I Am an American Soldier: One Year in Iraq with the 101st Airborne
This unflinching examination of the war in Iraq follows soldiers from the elite 101st Airborne Division for 14 months, from stateside preparations to their deployment in Iraq and back home again. Throughout, soldiers speak candidly about their experience in the military and demonstrate the powerful bond established as they struggle to stay alive.
(Country: UK, USA; Year: 2007; Director: John Laurence)
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Official site
World Premiere
Miss Universe 1929
(Miss Universe 1929 - Lisl Goldarbeiter. A Queen in Wien)
Amateur filmmaker Marci Tenczer was smitten with his cousin, Liesl Goldarbeiter and chronicled her rise from a modest childhood in Vienna to the Texas competition where she was crowned the first Miss Universe. Then Hitler upended everyone's universe. Péter Forgács (Best Documentary El Perro Negro, 2005 Tribeca Film Festival) continues his fascinating exploration of Europe's private history through home movies.
(Country: Austria, Netherlands, Hungary, Germany, Finland; Year: 2006; Director: Péter Forgács; Writer: Péter Forgács; Stars: Péter Forgács, Lisl Goldarbeiter, Duncan Shiels, Eszter Szász, Marci Tenczer)
In 1992, João Moreira Salles started making a film about Santiago, the butler who had been working for his parents since his childhood. 13 years later, Salles looked back at the unused material on the now deceased flamboyant servant. Through Santiago's detailed memories and erudite contemplations and the director's voice-over, the film reflects deftly on identity, memory and the nature of documentaries
(Country: Brazil; Year: 2007; Director: João Moreira Salles)
North American Premiere
A Slim Peace
When 14 women-Israelis, Palestinians, Bedouin Arabs, and American settlers-in the West Bank are brought together with the shared goal of losing weight, they find out they have far more in common than they ever would have imagined. A Slim Peace takes a revealing look at the universal struggle for acceptance, understanding and personal transformation in a land of intractable conflict.
(Country: UK; Year: 2007; Director: Yael Luttwak)
World Premiere
A Story Of People In War And Peace
(Mardkayin patmutyun paterazmi yev khaghaghutyan orerits)
A deeply personal meditation on the horrors of war and its effects is shown through the eyes of Armenian journalist Vardan Hovhannisyan. Weaving together footage he shot during his country's 1994 conflict with neighboring Azerbaijan over the Nagorno Karabakh region, Hovhannisyan creates a devastating portrait of lasting damage inflicted by the battlefield.
Guzman Urzua makes her feature documentary debut with The Sugar Curtain, an intimate portrayal of the singular experience shared by people of her generation - those living Cuba's utopian dream during the golden era of the revolution. It is also a lament for the end of that dream, which began to fizzle after the fall of the Berlin Wall.
An angry powder-keg of a film, exploding the reactionary myth that under certain circumstances torture can be acceptable, serviceable or even necessary.
An unflinching look at the Bush administration's policy on torture.
(Country: US; Year: 2007; Director: Alex Gibney; Writer: Alex Gibney; Stars: Alex Gibney, Brian Keith Allen, Moazzam Begg, Willie Brand, George W Bush, Dick Cheney, Jack Cloonan, Damien Corsetti, Thomas Curtis, Greg D'Agostino, Carlotta Gall)
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Official site
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Trailer
Returning to his childhood home, filmmaker Gustavo Fontán documents his parents' deliberations over a tree planted the day he was born. Simple questions that pass between them - Is the tree dead? Should we cut it down? - become meditations on history, memory, knowledge and the sensory symphony of daily life.
(Country: Argentina; Year: 2006; Director: Gustavo Fontán; Writer: Gustavo Fontán; Stars: Federico Fontán, Gustavo Fontán, Julio Fontán, María Merlino)
There are moments of joy, so sublime you feel your heart swell with the sound of the children’s voices and segments of sadness as sharp as a scalpel.
Life in an African orphanage where the children are united by a love of singing.
(Country: UK; Year: 2006; Director: Paul Taylor; Writer: Slindile Moya, Paul Taylor; Stars: Children of Agape, 'Grandma' Zodwa Mqadi, Zwai, Paul Simon, Alicia Keys)
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