The Tribeca Film Festival kicks off tomorrow, April 17, and will run until Sunday, April 28. The past few years have seen the festival grow, and then contract, as it focuses on a smaller set of films--presumably raising the quality of the offerings.
Tribeca always tends to yield a juicy documentary or two. Last year, Searching for Sugar Man (and its star, Rodriguez!) played at the festival. The Oscar-winning music documentary is still playing in theatres, 38 weeks later. In 2011, The Bully Project (later renamed Bully) debuted, getting picked up by the Weinstein Co. and bringing the hot topic of bullying into greater prominence. This year, I've had a chance to see a few documentaries in the preview screenings, and all are strong works.
Red Obsession, which has a bit of a celebrity imprimatur thanks to a voiceover by Russell Crowe, centers on the wine produced in France's Bordeaux region. Historic, brand-name vineyards like Lafite and Petrus command a high price, but the buyers aren't French or even Americans, but the Chinese, which speaks both to the growing affluence of the nation and the need for luxury symbols to connote success. With its Sideways-like appeal and the way it uses wine as an entry point to talk about China's dramatic economic and social changes, this doc should be snapped up by a distributor.
Tribeca also tends to offer documentaries covering smaller subjects in the developing world, like a favorite of mine from last year, High Tech, Low Life. While that documentary dealt with the emerging prominence of citizen reporters using the Internet to illuminate injustices in China, Powerless focuses on an absence of infrastructure. Forget Internet, the subjects of this doc, residents of Kampur, India, just want light and power to pump water to their apartments during the rolling power outages that are the norm. Robin Hood-like men climb utility poles to help people steal electricity (or simply connect to a working power source). The documentary also looks sympathetically at the power company's general manager, who becomes the object of everyone's anger despite her efforts to turn stealing customers into paying customers, thus giving the utility the funds it needs for improvement. New Yorkers who survived days without power during Hurricane Sandy may be amazed with the resourcefulness of its residents--and grateful that such outages are extremely rare. Although Powerless is well done, its limited focus may be an obstacle to generating wide interest.
The documentary Teenage compiles both archival 8mm and 16mm footage and recreations done in the period style. Youth movements from the jitterbug craze to the Victory Girls to the Hitler Youth are tied together by what they had in common: they were emblematic of change in society. The movements were also about teens wanting independence and recognition in that in-between stage in their life. It's all summed up by Judy Garland singing "In-Between" back in 1938, a fun interlude in the doc.
In addition to its lineup of many quality documentaries, there are plenty of films on my to-see list. That includes the opening night selection Mistaken For Strangers, a musical doc filmed by the brother of one of the members of The National. Some movies already have distributors, including The Patience Stone, Before Midnight, and At Any Price (all Sony Pictures Classics), The Reluctant Fundamentalist (IFC Films), Prince Avalanche (Magnolia) and Haute Cuisine (Weinstein Co.). That means they'll probably be worth a watch--but also will be evaluated with a less forgiving eye. Then there are a few weird options, like the Vice-produced doc Lil Bub and Friendz, which delves into the popularity of Internet cat videos. Meow.
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