Tribeca is here, the annual film fest has started here in NYC which lots of movies all over the city. Tribeca has never been a favorite fest of mine, I personally find it to be overpriced when considering the quality of the theaters and the films, but nonetheless there are always a few films that peak my interest..

I’ve put my Tribeca picks below so check them out and be sure to and learn about how Tribeca is working to give young filmmakers a voice with their youth programs!

Theater of War (Directed by: John Walter)

As evidenced with his film How to Draw a Bunny, director John Walter is no stranger to examining the work of artists. With Theater of War, he moves from the pop artistry of Ray Johnson to the epic theater of Bertolt Brecht. Unending war and those who profit from it are among the chief concerns of Brecht’s timeless Mother Courage and Her Children, so it is perhaps unsurprising that Manhattan’s Public Theater chose to stage an outdoor production of this famously bleak epic play during the summer of 2006.

Boasting a new translation by American playwright Tony Kushner, the project attracted the likes of Meryl Streep, Kevin Kline, and famed theater director George C. Wolfe, all of whom are featured in this exclusive look at the staging of this provocative work. For all his unfettered backstage access, Walter is not merely invested in capturing the preparations for the show. Themes of Marxism, consumerism, and war mix seamlessly with Brecht’s tumultuous life and career throughout the film, and particularly poignant moments involve Brecht’s daughter, his friend and collaborator Carl Weber, and in one particularly memorable scene, extended footage of Brecht’s testimony before the House Un-American Activities Committee. Segments showcasing Streep’s searing performance as Mother Courage provide a never-before-seen glimpse into her in process and culminate in a powerful statement that speaks volumes about the age we live in today. Walter gives us an intimate look at the creative process, but Theater of War is much more than a trip behind the curtain: It’s an engaging and comprehensive look at war, capitalism, and their brutal necessity for one another.

–Genna Terranova

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The Secret of Grain (Directed by: Abdellatif Kechich):

The grain is couscous and the recipe is the secret in Abdellatif Kechiche’s warm and expansive family drama, set in a community of first- and second-generation Maghrebi immigrants in a depressed port town in the south of France. Allowing his story to unfold at a leisurely pace, Tunisian-born Kechiche (Games of Love and Chance) envelops the audience in the internecine squabbles of an extended family for whom food provides more than sustenance. When 61-year-old Slimane Beiji (Habib Boufares) is laid off after 35 years at the shipyard, he decides to use his severance pay to buy a rundown boat that will house a restaurant to serve his ex-wife’s beloved fish couscous. By his side in this venture is his current girlfriend’s daughter, Rym (Hafsia Herzi), who helps him navigate the government bureaucracy and subtle prejudices that stand in his way, and on opening night his children and boardinghouse compatriots rally to his aid. Played out primarily with nonprofessional actors who have been encouraged to improvise, Kechiche’s film reminds us of earlier landmark films from the south of France, including Jean Renoir’s 1934 film Toni, that often overlooked precursor of Italian neorealism; and the expressively voluble characters of Marcel Pagnol’s Fanny trilogy, whose lives were similarly centered on the family table and the café. Cinematographer Lubomir Bakchev’s camera darts vérité-style from one face to another to keep up with the chatter, while Boufares’ quiet performance balances those of the volatile women around him. Now that Kechiche has won France’s top César honors for two films in a row, we may be forgiven for dreaming that he perhaps represents a future path for a French cinema-at once naturalistic, multiculural, and shorn of pretense.

–– Peter Scarlet

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Quiet Chaos (Directed by: Antonello Grimaldi):

Capturing the feeling of frustration and immobility at the heart of Italian life today is something of a national mission for many writers and filmmakers. In Quiet Chaos, based on Sandro Veronesi’s widely read and translated 2007 novel, director Antonello Grimaldi offers one of the most compelling descriptions of this state of malaise afflicting an entire country. He teams with cult actor/director Nanni Moretti, who coauthored the screenplay, to create a memorable, metaphoric drama about career-minded TV executive Pietro (Moretti), who suddenly finds himself a widower with a young daughter to raise. Emotionally unable to come to grips with his wife’s death, he drops out of the office rat race and spends his days waiting for his daughter outside her school, where he observes his own life in relation to a narrowly circumscribed universe. This is the “quiet chaos” of the title, reflecting Pietro’s personal withdrawal and inability to connect with his emotions and mourn the loss of his wife. At the same time, it extends to the people around him-his unstable sister (Valeria Golino), a woman he saves from drowning(Isabella Ferrari), his brother (Alessandro Gassman), and his anxietydriven coworkers (Charles Berling, Hippolyte Girardot, Denis Podalydés),who suspect he has secret reasons for not coming to the office while the company is going through a brutal merger. Lightly directing a top-notch cast in some of the peak performances of their careers, Grimaldi creates a world of convincingly problematic characters around Pietro, played with charismatic naturalness by Moretti. Also of note is the film’s finely balanced music track, incorporating songs by Radiohead, Rufus Wainwright, and Stars with Paolo Buonvino’s subtle original score. The film earned a massive 18 nominations for Italy’s David di Donatello film prizes.

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My Winnipeg (Directed by Guy Maddin) :

With his latest work, Guy Maddin renders irrelevant the hoary debate about whether documentary or fiction is “more real.” Ostensibly, he’s offering a portrait of the frigid Manitoba city where he grew up-and, indeed, at the Tribeca Film Festival’s first screening he appears in person to speak the narration live, as though offering further attestation that this is all true. But although there may well be a birth certificate confirming that Maddin was born in the actual Canadian metropolis of Winnipeg, My Winnipeg offers little in the way of proof that anything described in the film actually happened in Winnipeg, or happened to Guy Maddin in Winnipeg, or happened anywhere for that matter.

In fact, viewing the film may make you pause to wonder whether Winnipeg actually exists, or Guy Maddin actually exists, or you actually exist. You may find yourself clutching your ticket stub in a pathetic attempt to hold on to reality. For example, let’s take Maddin’s mother. (One imagines Maddin doing stand-up in a Winnipeg nightclub, if such a place exists, joking: “Take my mother please!”) Although the real Guy Maddin’s mother is reportedly still alive, the filmmaker has chosen to have her portrayed by an actress, quite a no-no for a documentary. And the actress he’s cast in the role is none other than Ann Savage, who in 1945 (!) appeared unforgettably as the most unrelenting shrew ever depicted in any American film in Edgar G. Ulmer’s Detour. So what exactly is My Winnipeg? Well, it ain’t a doc, it ain’t fiction, and it certainly ain’t no Hallmark card.

–– Peter Scarlett

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Guests of Cindy Sherman (Directed by: Paul H-O and Tom Donahue):

In the early 1990s, Paul H-O became a fixture of the New York art scene with his public access show GalleryBeat. Armed with a video camera, he made his way around art openings and exhibitions, alienating some with his candid, witty assessments of their work but winning many fans in the process. Among the latter was Cindy Sherman, the press-shy art superstar, who later-to Paul’s surprise-invited him to her downtown studio for a series of exclusive interviews, which form the basis of Guest of Cindy Sherman. During the course of these sessions, he not only gains unprecedented insight into her artistic process, but also develops a deep-seated romantic attachment to her. Cindy returns the sentiment, and a relationship blossoms between the two. Their bliss is somewhat short-lived, however, as Paul finds himself wracked with anxiety about his own personality becoming subsumed by his role as Cindy’s “plus one” at the celebrity-studded art openings and dinners she regularly attends. Filmed over the course of 15 years and including interviews with a veritable who’s who of the art and entertainment world (including Roberta Smith, Ingrid Sischy, John Waters, Robert Longo, Carol Kane, David Furnish, Danny DeVito, Molly Ringwald, and Eric Fischl), Guest of Cindy Sherman paints a vivid picture of a New York art scene increasingly driven by money and fame. H-O also tackles-with more than a bit of humor-the role his own fragile ego plays in his relationship with Sherman. The end result is a witty, illuminating look at celebrity, male anxiety, and art.

–David Kwok

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Everywhere at Once (directed by Holly Fisher):

In Everywhere at Once, renowned photographer Peter Lindbergh and experimental filmmaker Holly Fisher collaborate to weave together a tapestry of images, incorporating Lindbergh’s still pictures with clips from the Tony Richardson film Mademoiselle (1966), starring Jeanne Moreau. The photographs are animated through a re-filming process to create a flow of moving images that are intercut with passages from the movie.

Iconic actress Jeanne Moreau, using a text by American poet Kimiko Hahn, narrates the diary-like fragments of memories and recollections in the first person. The haunting music by Lois V Vierk accentuates the fleeting quality of these fragments of dreams and memories. As with Fisher’s other experimental feature films, Everywhere at Once exists on the dividing line between fiction and documentary. Rather than offering a linear narrative, threads of the story move forward and are interrupted, bending back upon themselves in space and time, resolving into a series of subjective associations. The film might be read as a biography of Moreau’s own life, as a fictional discourse on the protagonist’s emerging sense of selfhood, or as a humanist meditation about childhood, youth, and old age. Whatever the viewer’s interpretation may be, the film functions most deeply on the level of an intensely subjective rumination on perception. This positions Everywhere at Once squarely in the tradition of such avant-garde French New Wave classics as Hiroshima, Mon Amour (1959), Last Year at Marienbad (1961), and La Jetée (1962).

–Jon Gartenberg

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Charly ( Directed by: Isild Le Besco):

At 14, Nicolas stumbles through life in a listless haze until a chance meeting leaves him with a pair of objects that will prompt what may be the first inspired step of his life. The first is a postcard depicting an oceanfront scene in Belle-ÃŽle, a remote Breton island off the French coast. It’s tucked into a copy of Spring Awakening, the Frank Wedekind play that caused a scandal when it was published in 1891 for its frank depiction of that agonizing moment when adolescents first discover the disordering power of sex. (It’s the same Wedekind play that, outfitted with a rock score and choreography by Bill T. Jones, has been playing on Broadway for more than a year.) Armed only with these, Nicolas sets off for Brittany-until he crosses paths with Charly (the magnetic Julie-Marie Parmentier), a red-headed beauty who appears to ply her trade in the same no-nonsense way she clears the breakfast dishes. She seems to find something endearing about Nicolas’ mussed hair and dopey face, so she puts him up in the teeny trailer home that she maintains with such hilarious fussiness. As their unusual domestic arrangement evolves, each stumbles vulnerably into new emotional territory. As she did in her brilliant directorial debut 1/2 Price, which played at the Tribeca Film Festival in 2004, the multitalented Isild Le Besco (barely 25, she’s already acted major roles in nearly two dozen films as well) sets her characters into a world almost devoid of adults. She seems to be shooting on the fly, using available light and organic sound to create an effectively voyeuristic feel, and her handheld camera and cloistered quarters afford Charly the kind of tender intimacy that no million dollar budget could buy.

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Boy A ( Directed by: John Crowley):

Sweet and polite Jack Burridge is not who he claims to be. Recently released from a British prison, where he served a 14-year sentence for a crime he committed while still a child, he has adopted a new identity and new life in a new town. But reentering society proves to be a labyrinthine journey for the 24-year-old whose last social interactions with his peers occurred when he was a bullied, friendless boy of 10. Guided by his dedicated counselor and father figure, portrayed by Peter Mullan (Trainspotting, My name is Joe), Jack proves again and again that he has become a new person. But as relationships with new friends blossom, he is haunted by his real identity. The film, which won a jury prize at the Berlin International Film Festival for its sensitive portrayal of social issues, flashes back in time to explore the relationship between the vulnerable young Jack and his best friend, the troubled but loyal Phillip. Prize-winning director of both stage and film John Crowley (Intermission) and his actors superbly handle this rich, controversial material. Mullan is first-rate as the counselor who has turned Jack’s life around only to find that his own is desperately in need of attention. Lauded newcomer Andrew Garfield’s (The Other Boylen Girl) nuanced performance as the hesitant and childlike Jack is hauntingly memorable. The chord struck by the two actors resonates powerfully in the film’s most sensitive moments. This vital story also sheds light on the vast difference between the American and British criminal justice systems: Whereas the American system tries children as adults and locks them away, the British system rehabilitates-and even protects-them.

–Genna Terranova