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Tribeca Festival · 2015

Tribeca Festival 2015

Spotlight

Programme

41 films · 17 reviews

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Aferim!

Review preview for Aferim!

Jude and Lazarescu also show how the structure of society has a habit of making you conform to it, whatever your intentions - a barbed idea intended to stick in the minds of those who live in today's Europe where the Roma still face wide-spread prejudice

Amber Wilkinson · 3.5 out of 5
A policeman and his son hunt a runaway gypsy slave.

(Country: Romania, Bulgaria, Czech Republic, France; Year: 2015; Director: Radu Jude; Writer: Radu Jude; Stars: Teodor Corban, Mihai Comanoiu, Toma Cuzin, Alexandru Dabija, Luminita Gheorghiu, Victor Rebengiuc, Alberto Dinache, Alexandru Bindea, Mihaela Sirbu, Adina Cristescu, Serban Pavlu, Gabriel Spahiu, Puiu Mircea Lascus, Daniel Visan)

Full review See: Radu Jude on language, prejudice and seeing the past in the present.

North American premiere. Narrative.

Aloft

Review preview for Aloft

There's no shying away from the fact that the New Age, twig-built mumbo-jumbo peddled here is no match from the otherworldly ancient belief systems of Peru that flow through Llosa's earlier works.

Amber Wilkinson · 2 out of 5
A son goes in search of his estranged mother.

(Country: US, Spain, France; Year: 2014; Director: Claudia Llosa; Writer: Claudia Llosa; Stars: Jennifer Connelly, Mélanie Laurent, Cillian Murphy, William Shimell, Zen McGrath, Nancy Drake, Winta McGrath, Allan Wallace Dunkeld, Carson Nattrass, Cam Gates, Erika Marxx, Marjorie Roden, Karen Tusa)

Full review

New York premiere. Narrative.

Among The Believers

Review preview for Among The Believers

Naqvi and Trivedi achieve a fine balancing act, giving no ground either to the fundamentalists or to the Islamophobes.

Jennie Kermode · 4 out of 5
An exploration into the spread of the radical Islamic school Red Mosque, which trains children to devote their lives to holy war, from a very young age.

(Country: US, Pakistan; Year: 2015; Director: Mohammed Naqvi, Hemal Trivedi; Writer: Jonathan Goodman Levitt)

Full review

World premiere. Documentary.

Anesthesia

On a snowy night in New York City, a Columbia professor is brutally mugged on the doorsteps of an apartment building. This drama traces the chain of events that precipitate the attack, examining the inextricable and unforeseen forces that bring a group of disparate individuals together.

(Country: US; Year: 2015; Director: Tim Blake Nelson; Writer: Tim Blake Nelson; Stars: Kristen Stewart, Corey Stoll, Glenn Close, Michael Kenneth Williams, Gretchen Mol, Scott Cohen, Jessica Hecht, Sam Waterston, Tim Blake Nelson, Gloria Reuben, Hannah Marks, Natasha Gregson Wagner, Katie Chang, Mickey Sumner, Yul Vazquez)

World premiere. Narrative.

Angry Sky

In the 1960s, truck-driver Nick Piantanida discovered skydiving, and set out to break the world record for highest parachute jump by taking a helium balloon to the edge of space. Over the course of a year, his dream to launch the first civilian space program drove him to obsession.

(Year: 2015; Director: Jeff Tremaine)

World premiere. Documentary.

The Armor Of Light (The Armour Of Light)

Review preview for The Armor Of Light

In the current climate, the film suggests, taking up a gun seems to be much easier than wielding words against them.

Amber Wilkinson · 4 out of 5
Documentary tracks an evangelical minister as he tries to advocate better gun control.

(Country: US; Year: 2015; Director: Abigail Disney; Writer: Abigail Disney; Stars: Andrew Fredericks, Lucy McBath)

Full review See: Interview with Abigail Disney, Reverend Rob Schenck and Lucy McBath about The Armor Of Light

World premiere. Documentary.

Ashby

Awkward Ed Wallis needs help fitting in and turns to his neighbour Ashby Holt for help. Ashby’s unforgiving brand of tough love soon tests their friendship, and it hardly helps when Ed learns that Ashby is a former CIA assassin.

(Country: US; Year: 2015; Director: Tony McNamara; Writer: Tony McNamara; Stars: Mickey Rourke, Nat Wolff, Emma Roberts, Sarah Silverman, Adam Aalderks, Seth Dousman, Kevin Dunn, Zachary Knighton, Michael Lerner, John Enos III, Audrey Reid Couch, Steve Coulter, Paul Rolfes, Max Lesser, Jason Davis)

World premiere. Narrative.

As I AM: the Life And Times of DJ AM

Adam Goldstein, better known as DJ AM, was a man with deep passions and aggressive demons. As I AM is an insider’s look into the life of the late, famed mash-up pioneer: his professional successes that made him the first million-dollar DJ in the US and his incredibly complex personal life that was lived under the spectre of drug addiction.

(Country: US; Year: 2015; Director: Kevin Kerslake; Writer: Kevin Kerslake; Stars: Jon Favreau, Mark Ronson, Jeffrey A. Townes, Samantha Ronson, Travis Barker, Stefan Gordy, Adam Goldstein, Drew Pinsky, Steve Aoki, Ethan Browne, Diplo, Paul Oakenfold, Seth Binzer, Pasquale Rotella, Nadia Angelini)

World premiere. Documentary.

Backtrack

Review preview for Backtrack

Brody invests his character with much more depth than is there on the page.

Jennie Kermode · 3 out of 5
A psychotherapist discovers a horrifying secret about his patients that leads him on a journey to confront his past.

(Country: Australia; Year: 2015; Director: Michael Petroni; Writer: Michael Petroni; Stars: Adrien Brody, Sam Neill, Robin McLeavy, Bruce Spence, Anna Lise Phillips, Jenni Baird, Chloe Bayliss, Malcolm Kennard, Michael Whalley, Olga Miller, Milan Pulvermacher, Suzie Steen, Jeanette Cronin, Matthew Sunderland, George Shevtsov)

Full review

World premiere. Narrative.

Bleeding Heart

Reserved yoga instructor May's peaceful, clean-living life is thrown out of balance by the arrival of her long-lost sister Shiva, a street-smart yet naive young woman trapped in an abusive relationship. May feels compelled to rescue the hapless Shiva, but she finds herself increasingly drawn out of her sedate world and deeper into Shiva's chaotic one.

(Country: US; Year: 2015; Director: Diane Bell; Writer: Diane Bell; Stars: Zosia Mamet, Jessica Biel, Joe Anderson, Kate Burton, Edi Gathegi, Exie Booker, Kat Purgal, Sherina Mikasa, LaToya Gulley, Michelle Brew, Unati Mangaliso, Espie Randolph, Deepak Ramapriyan, Nandini Bapat, Lori Jean Wilson)

World premiere. Narrative.

Cartel Land

Review preview for Cartel Land

One person's armed vigilante is another person's guardian angel and the border between these two ideas is wafer thin and easily crossed as Matthew Heineman's beautifully shot and probing documentary shows.

Amber Wilkinson · 4.5 out of 5
Vigilantes on both sides of the Mexican Border with the US take on the drug cartels.

(Country: US, Mexico; Year: 2015; Director: Matthew Heineman)

Full review

New York premiere. Documentary.

The Cut

A man survives the Armenian genocide and goes in search of his lost daughters.

(Country: Germany; Year: 2014; Director: Fatih Akin; Writer: Fatih Akin, Mardik Martin; Stars: Tahar Rahim, George Georgiou, Makram Khoury, Akin Gazi, Lara Heller, Numan Acar, Alejandro Rae, Dustin MacDougall, Shubham Saraf, Joel Jackshaw, Anna Savva, Korkmaz Arslan, Sesede Terziyan, Aida Adele Golghazi, Arevik Martirosyan)

North American premiere. Narrative.

Dirty Weekend

Matthew Broderick and Alice Eve play colleagues with secrets who come to depend on each other for understanding as they go to find a spark of excitement in Albuquerque, after dark.

(Country: US; Year: 2015; Director: Neil LaBute; Writer: Neil LaBute; Stars: Matthew Broderick, Alice Eve, Phil Burke, Gia Crovatin, Kristen Rakes, Matthew Page, Brenden Wedner, Rob Tode, Fredrick Lopez, Charles Duran, Ronald Mizrahi, Rodney Nagel, Martin Palmer, Jaime Powers, Damon Somers)

World premiere. Narrative.

Down In The Valley

How far would you go to save your hometown team? For many Sacramento residents, faced with the nearly certain relocation of their beloved Kings, no boardroom was too distant. One native son proved it. Follow former NBA superstar turned Sacramento mayor Kevin Johnson as he battles owners and executives to keep the Kings at home, in this a roaring testament to the passion and power of the small-market fan.

(Year: 2015; Director: Jason Hehir)

World premiere. Documentary.

The Driftless Area

Pierre, a bartender with unyielding optimism, returns to his tiny hometown after his parents’ death. When he falls for the enigmatic Stella, Pierre is unknowingly pulled into a cat-and-mouse game that involves a duffel bag full of cash, a haphazard yet determined criminal and a mystery that will determine all of their fates.

(Country: Canada, US; Year: 2015; Director: Zachary Sluser; Writer: Tom Drury, Zachary Sluser; Stars: Anton Yelchin, Zooey Deschanel, John Hawkes, Alia Shawkat, Frank Langella, Ciarán Hinds, Aubrey Plaza, Benjamin Rogers, Primo Allon, Gary Hetherington, Lucia Frangione, Elika Portnoy, Amitai Marmorstein, Philip Granger, Duncan Ollerenshaw)

World premiere. Narrative.

Drunk Stoned Brilliant Dead: The Story Of The National Lampoon

Three Harvard graduates start the first national humour magazine for adults, launching the careers of some of Hollywood’s most legendary talent. But success and excess among its brilliant and subversive contributors begins to challenge its existence.

(Country: US; Year: 2015; Director: Douglas Tirola; Writer: Mark Monroe, Mark Monroe, Douglas Tirola, Douglas Tirola; Stars: Judd Apatow, Kevin Bacon, John Belushi, Richard Belzer, Chevy Chase, Beverly D'Angelo, John Goodman, Al Jean, John Landis, Tim Matheson, Bill Murray, P.J. O'Rourke, Gilda Radner, Ivan Reitman, Matty Simmons)

New York premiere. Documentary.

The Emperor's New Clothes

Polemical expose about inequality and the financial crisis. From London to New York the film combines documentary style, archive footage and comedy to explore how the crisis has gravely affected the 99 per cent and only benefited the one per cent.

(Country: UK; Year: 2015; Director: Michael Winterbottom; Stars: Russell Brand)

International premiere. Documentary.

Far From Men (Loin des hommes)

Two men batle to survive against the backdrop of the Algerian War.

(Country: France; Year: 2014; Director: David Oelhoffen; Writer: David Oelhoffen; Stars: Viggo Mortensen, Reda Kateb, Jérémie Vigot)

US premiere. Narrative.

Fastball

Since 1912, baseball has been a game obsessed with statistics and speed. Thrown at upwards of 100 miles per hour, a fastball moves too quickly for human cognition and accelerates into the realm of intuition. Fastball is a look at how the game at its highest levels of achievement transcends logic and even skill, becoming the primal struggle for man to control the uncontrollable.

(Year: 2015; Director: Jonathan Hock; Writer: Jonathan Hock)

World premiere. Documentary.

Good Kill

Major Tommy Egan is fighting a war from the safety of a Nevada trailer, but commitment to the mission comes at a price.

(Country: US; Year: 2014; Director: Andrew Niccol; Writer: Andrew Niccol; Stars: January Jones, Ethan Hawke, Zoë Kravitz, Bruce Greenwood, Jake Abel, Alma Sisneros, Rich Chavez, Kristen Rakes, Dylan Kenin, Michael Sheets, Bill Seward, Stafford Douglas, Sachie Capitani, Jahan Khalili, Jessica Stotz Harrell)

US premiere. Narrative.

Grandma

Review preview for Grandma

Weitz wisely has no time for fluff - these are clever women charting tricky territory and spending 78 minutes in their company is an easy choice to make.

Amber Wilkinson · 3.5 out of 5
A woman tries to help her granddaughter raise funds for an abortion.

(Country: US; Year: 2015; Director: Paul Weitz; Writer: Paul Weitz; Stars: Lily Tomlin, Julia Garner, Marcia Gay Harden, Judy Greer, Laverne Cox, Elizabeth Peña, Nat Wolff, Sarah Burns, John Cho, Sam Elliott, Mo Aboul-Zelof, Colleen Camp, Skya Chanadet, Frank Collison, Meg Crosbie)

Full review

New York premiere. Narrative.

Hungry Hearts

Review preview for Hungry Hearts

A thriller, a deep hard stare into the nature of escape, a comedy of metaphors and an alluringly photographed glimpse into the abyss.

Anne-Katrin Titze · 5 out of 5
New York-set drama about a young couple who tear each other apart over the care of their child.

(Country: Italy; Year: 2014; Director: Saverio Costanzo; Writer: Marco Franzoso, Saverio Costanzo; Stars: Adam Driver, Alba Rohrwacher, Roberta Maxwell, David Aaron Baker, Dennis Rees, Victoria Cartagena, Ginger Kearns, Natalie Gold, Cristina J. Huie, Katherine O'Sullivan, Toshiko Onizawa, Jason Selvig, Jake Weber, Victor Williams)

Full review See: Alba Rohrwacher in conversation on Adam Driver in Saverio Costanzo’s Hungry Hearts, Arnaud Desplechin, Isabelle Huppert on shoes and Sworn Virgin , Saverio Costanzo in conversation on Hungry Hearts , Alba Rohrwacher in conversation on Hungry Hearts

US premiere. Narrative.

Jimmy's Hall

Review preview for Jimmy's Hall

Loach gives voice with eloquence to the disenfranchised and celebrates the spirit of working people.

Richard Mowe · 4 out of 5
The story of political activist Jimmy Gralton, deported from Ireland during the country's Red Scare in the 1930s.

(Country: UK, Ireland, France; Year: 2014; Director: Ken Loach; Writer: Paul Laverty; Stars: Barry Ward, Simone Kirby, Andrew Scott, Jim Norton, Brían F O'Byrne)

Full review

North American premiere. Narrative.

Maggie

Review preview for Maggie

The pleasantly surprising performance of Schwarzenegger grounds the film with an emotional heft.

Robert Munro · 3 out of 5
A father struggles to do the right thing by his daughter, who is gradually turning into a zombie.

(Country: US, Switzerland; Year: 2015; Director: Henry Hobson; Writer: John Scott 3; Stars: Abigail Breslin, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Joely Richardson, Laura Cayouette, Raeden Greer, J.D. Evermore, Dana Gourrier, Denise Williamson, Aiden Flowers, Amy Brassette, Taylor Murphy, Wayne Pére, John L. Armijo, Christine Tonry, Rachel Whitman Groves)

Full review

World premiere. Narrative.

Man Up

Review preview for Man Up

Excruciating first date dialogue

Angus Wolfe Murray · 2 out of 5
A blind-date mix-up could lead to love... Or not.

(Country: UK, France; Year: 2015; Director: Ben Palmer; Writer: Tess Morris; Stars: Simon Pegg, Lake Bell, Ophelia Lovibond, Rory Kinnear, Olivia Williams, Dean-Charles Chapman, Henry Lloyd-Hughes, Ken Stott, Stephen Campbell Moore, Harriet Walter, Sharon Horgan, Shina Shihoko Nagai, Phoebe Waller-Bridge, Paulina Boneva, Simona Brown)

Full review

World premiere. Narrative.

Mojave

Armed with little more than a knife and two handles of vodka, an on-edge Hollywood director sets out to the Mojave Desert, where he finds a drifter brandishing a rifle and claiming to be the Devil.

(Country: US; Year: 2015; Director: William Monahan; Writer: William Monahan; Stars: Mark Wahlberg, Oscar Isaac, Garrett Hedlund, Walton Goggins, Dania Ramirez, Matt Jones, Fran Kranz, Christopher Neiman, Louise Bourgoin, Maria Olsen, Kylie Rogers, Anna Margaret Hollyman, Vivis Colombetti, Del Zamora, Hayley Magnus)

World premiere. Narrative.

My Nazi Legacy (A Nazi Legacy: What Our Fathers Did)

Review preview for My Nazi Legacy

Serves as a timely reminder of how keeping the memory of the Holocaust alive, and preventing another one from happening again, will require constant vigilance.

Owen Van Spall · 4 out of 5
A lawyer becomes fascinated with two men: both sons of famous Nazi Generals, and both with polar opposite views of their fathers’ hand in the war.

(Country: UK; Year: 2015; Director: David Evans; Writer: Philippe Sands)

Full review See: David Evans and Philippe Sands in conversation on My Nazi Legacy

World premiere. Documentary.

The Overnight

Review preview for The Overnight

Resembles the first 15 minutes of a porn flick

Angus Wolfe Murray · 1 out of 5
Young couple, new to L.A, are seduced by cool couple who enjoy sexual experimentation

(Country: US; Year: 2015; Director: Patrick Brice; Writer: Patrick Brice; Stars: Adam Scott, Taylor Schilling, Jason Schwartzman, Judith Godrèche)

Full review

New York premiere. Narrative.

Peggy Guggenheim: Art Addict

Review preview for Peggy Guggenheim: Art Addict

Clips from Man Ray's L'étoile de mer with Kiki de Montparnasse and the famous Salvador Dali dream sequence from Alfred Hitchcock's Spellbound illuminate her passion.

Anne-Katrin Titze · 3.5 out of 5
Portrait of the art collector.

(Country: US, UK, Italy; Year: 2015; Director: Lisa Immordino Vreeland; Stars: Peggy Guggenheim, Marina Abramovic)

Full review See: At a Guggenheim Museum preview of Peggy Guggenheim: Art Addict

World premiere. Documentary.

Prescription Thugs

Review preview for Prescription Thugs

His film may be a little cluttered and unwieldy but its personal slant has an intensity.

Amber Wilkinson · 3.5 out of 5
A personal consideration of the impact of prescription drugs on US society.

(Country: US; Year: 2015; Director: Chris Bell; Writer: Josh Alexander)

Full review

World premiere. Documentary.

Requiem For The American Dream

Anchored by a series of interviews with Noam Chomsky, this documentary of the “Two Americas” is an unvarnished account of how policies have helped concentrate wealth in the hands of a few at expense of everyone else.

(Country: US; Year: 2015; Director: Peter D Hutchison, Kelly Nyks, Jared P. Scott; Writer: Peter D Hutchison, Kelly Nyks, Kelly Nyks, Jared P. Scott)

World premiere. Documentary.

Roseanne for President!

Comedian Roseanne Barr always went against the odds, first as an assertive housewife struggling to pay the bills on her sitcom. Now she tests the limits of the two-party system, vying for candidacy on the 2012 ballot.

(Country: US; Year: 2015; Director: Eric Weinrib; Stars: Roseanne Barr)

World premiere. Documentary.

Sleeping With Other People

Review preview for Sleeping With Other People

If this is romance, it's dead.

Amber Wilkinson · 1.5 out of 5
A couple who lost their virginity to each other meet 12 years later and try to help one another find a lasting relationship.

(Country: US; Year: 2015; Director: Leslye Headland; Writer: Leslye Headland; Stars: Alison Brie, Jason Sudeikis, Amanda Peet, Natasha Lyonne, Adam Scott, Marc Blucas, Jason Mantzoukas, Andrea Savage, Daniella Pineda, Remy Nozik, Anna Margaret Hollyman, Megan Guinan, Sawyer Shipman, Jordan Carlos, Jamil Mena) , Trailer

Full review

New York premiere. Narrative.

Slow West

Review preview for Slow West

Maclean shows a land where loss of innocence is ever-present.

Amber Wilkinson · 3.5 out of 5
A Scotsman heads to the american West in search of his lost love.

(Country: New Zealand; Year: 2015; Director: John Maclean; Writer: John Maclean; Stars: Michael Fassbender, Kodi Smit-McPhee, Ben Mendelsohn, Rory McCann, Jeffrey Thomas, Brooke Williams, Stuart Martin, Madeleine Sami, Caren Pistorius, Kalani Queypo, Michael Whalley, Erroll Shand, Tawanda Manyimo, Stuart Bowman, Edwin Wright) , Trailer

Full review See: Slow West director John Maclean in conversation , Kodi Smit-McPhee in conversation on Slow West , Ben Mendelsohn in conversation on Slow West

New York premiere. Narrative.

Steak (R)evolution

Gourmet road trip looking for the best steaks in the world.

(Country: France, UK, US, Sweden, Spain, Japan, Italy, Canada, Brazil, Belgium, Argentina; Year: 2014; Director: Franck Ribière)

International premiere. Documentary.

Thought Crimes

Convicted yet then acquitted of conspiring to kidnap, rape, kill, and eat several women, NYPD officer Gilberto Valle quickly rose to infamy as New York's own "Cannibal Cop". With exclusive access to Valle, Erin Lee Carr's documentary asks can you be guilty of a crime you only thought about committing?

(Country: US; Year: 2015; Director: Erin Lee Carr; Writer: Erin Lee Carr)

World premiere. Documentary.

Tumbledown

Years after the accidental death of her folk-singer husband, Hannah has yet to fully accept her small-town life without him. Then she is approached by a charming New York writer intent on penning a biography of her late husband’s life, and Hannah finds herself opening up again.

(Country: US; Year: 2015; Director: Sean Mewshaw; Writer: Sean Mewshaw, Desiree Van Til; Stars: Dianna Agron, Joe Manganiello, Jason Sudeikis, Rebecca Hall, Blythe Danner, Griffin Dunne, Richard Masur, Maggie Castle, Meredith Prunty, Pepper Binkley, Alex Quijano, Edmund Resendes, Steven Dougherty, Graham King, Haley Pine)

World premiere. Narrative.

The Wannabe

Gotti-obsessed and hopelessly in love, Tommy and Rose are New York nobodies who get their moment in the sun when they begin robbing New York’s mafia elite in this real-life crime story of mob culture and amour fou. Based on true events surrounding the 1992 trial of John Gotti.

(Country: US; Year: 2015; Director: Nick Sandow; Writer: Nick Sandow; Stars: Patricia Arquette, Michael Imperioli, David Zayas, Vincent Piazza, Domenick Lombardozzi, Mike Starr, Nick Sandow, Doug E. Doug, Slaine, Vincenzo Amato, Mark Lotito, Joseph Siravo, Neal Huff, Daniel Sauli, Adriana DeMeo)

World premiere. Narrative.

When I Live My Life Over Again

Jude is a would-be singer-songwriter still struggling to make her mark. Cash-strapped and homeless, she begrudgingly returns to the Hamptons home of her father, an over-the-hill crooner desperately charting his musical comeback.

(Country: US; Year: 2015; Director: Robert Edwards; Writer: Robert Edwards; Stars: Christopher Walken, Amber Heard, Kelli Garner, Hamish Linklater, Ann Magnuson, Oliver Platt, Henry Kelemen, Sandra Berrios, Gavin McInnes, John Ellison Conlee, Danny Fischer, Rosharra Francis, Bree Sharp, Julia Garrison, Veronika Dominczyk)

World premiere. Narrative.

Wondrous Boccaccio (Maraviglioso Boccaccio)

Set against the backdrop of a black plague-stricken Florence, ten young men and women escape to a country estate where they spend their days telling different stories of love, fate, and resurrection.

(Country: Italy, France; Year: 2015; Director: Paolo Taviani, Vittorio Taviani; Writer: Giovanni Boccaccio, Paolo Taviani, Vittorio Taviani; Stars: Lello Arena, Paola Cortellesi, Carolina Crescentini, Flavio Parenti, Vittoria Puccini, Michele Riondino, Kim Rossi Stuart, Riccardo Scamarcio, Kasia Smutniak, Jasmine Trinca, Josafat Vagni, Eugenia Costantini, Miriam Dalmazio, Fabrizio Falco, Melissa Bartolini)

International premiere. Narrative.