Out of Focus

Go Behind the Screens (and Under Our Skin) at Tribeca

That's right ... I disappear for two months and then come back with what some might think is a slightly self-serving post promoing the work gig. But really, this is not self-serving; this is you-serving. Or something. But I want to share with you a really special program that we're introducing this year at Tribeca -- two actually that are a bit similar called Conversations in Cinema and Behind the Screens.

Obviously, Tribeca has once again taken over my days, nights, and every moment in between. First there was all the programming, then all the scheduling, then all the managing of various areas, and now here we are, late at night finishing my final preparations for our first full day of movie magic. Like the rest of the programmers here, I'm really excited about this year's lineup, and one film in particular is a personal fave because I am wholly responsible for it being in the festival

I saw a work-in-progress presentation of Under Our Skin at last year's IFP Market. The film is a documentary about Lyme disease, and I don't believe I'm exaggerating when I say that it is one of the most important films you could see this year, not just because of the hidden near-epidemic that is Lyme disease in this country, but because of all the health industry implications and machinations explored in the film. There are plenty of opportunities to see the film at Tribeca, but there is only one Behind the Screens screening.

In an effort to allow festival-goers to have an even deeper experience with some of our films, we've created this new series. It may not be utterly revolutionary, but it is brand new to Tribeca. Following a film screening, rather than our usual 10-15 minute informal Q&A session, we will present a longer, more in-depth moderated conversation with the filmmakers. In the case of Under Our Skin, its Behind the Screens event will be on Sun 4/27 at 6:30 PM at the DGA Theater on 57th Street between 6th and 7th Avenues. The discussion after the screening will be moderated by Robert Bazell, the Chief Health and Science correspondent for NBC news. He will be talking to the film's director Andy Abraham Wilson; a medical and Lyme disease expert who appears in the film, Dr. Richard Horowitz; and noted author and former Lyme patient Amy Tan. Tickets are still available, and I encourage you to check out this event. It should be a fascinating, informative and educational evening, and the film itself is really great

Another Behind the Screens event which should be interesting for very different reasons is the May 1 screening of Confessionsofa Ex-Doofus-ItchyFooted Mutha, the latest work from indie film icon Melvin Van Peebles. Van Peebles and producer/director/actor Warrington Hudlin will talk after that screening, and it should prove to be an illuminating look into the creative mind of one of independent cinema's most influential figures.

Also tonight, the day before it's opening, we're showing Errol Morris' new documentary about Abu Ghraib, Standard Operating Procedure. As part of our other new film and discussion series, after this screening (tonight at 6:30 PM at the DGA), "Jarhead" author Tony Swofford will talk with Morris about the film.

We have a lot of great films showing at Tribeca this year, and I hope you'll check some out. When my schedule slows down in a couple weeks, I look forward to returning to this space and talking about some of my favorite films from the festival, and, as always, I'd love to hear from people about the films they saw or even just the experience they had. Tribeca continues to grow, and I think this year we've actually made some great strides, especially ones that have been beneficial for our general audiences and the nearly 3000 people who donate their time to volunteer. Hopefully you've noticed. Either way, please feel free to reach out and let me know.

Meanwhile ... it's back to work for me .....

NOTES FROM TRIBECA: IT SEEMS LIKE JUST YESTERDAY I WATCHED KING OF KONG AS A SUBMISSION

Wow, how a week as jusdt flown by. Now I'm way behind again with posts backing up just waiting to be written. But I have a relatively decent excuse. If you've happened to swing by here and paid any attention to my Twitterisms in the column to the left, you would have noticed a few mentions of a certain apartment that I was hoping to get. I hate apartment hunting (as I've mentioned here before), and as usual, this one was causing me my fair share of agita. Thankfully, the search is over: I saw a nice one bedroom in a part of Prospect Heights (for you non-New Yorkers, that's still in Brooklyn) which I categorize as "Aaron's preferred neighborhood"-adjacent. I can't afford to live exactly where I want to live, but I got damn close this time, and in a surprisingly nice and relatively good-size apartment all for a relatively inexpensive (thanks rent stabilization) price.

Anyway, that's why I've falled behind, so now I need to get back on the ball. And since today is Thursday, that also means the Tribeca email newsletter was released, this week making one very important announcement: The 2008 Tribeca Film Festival will be held April 23 through May 4, and we start accepting submissions on Sept. 10. That means, I start watching submissions not long after, I'm sure. The various deadlines start in November, and last year, November was when I started viewing. If you're prepping a film you'd like to submit to the festival, while it doesn't hurt you by any means to get it in right at the deadline, there is something to be said for the early bird. Although, with that said, if you're submitting a film to the festival, make it the best you can and use the time you have to do it.

One of the very first films I received and watched last year was The King of Kong. I fell in love with it instantly, going in to the office after the weekend saying that we had to show it and how it would be perfect as part of the Tribeca/ESPN program we were developing. Not so long after, it was announced that the film would make its world premiere at Slamdance. Then it was also accepted at SXSW. But I was very happy when we were able to offer it a slot too.

I'm going to write a separate post about the movie itself: Picturehoues bought the rights to it out of Slamdance, and it opens tomorrow in New York and LA. The Picturehouse distribution deal was part of a larger deal so that New Line and HBO Films could make a dramatized version of thie documentary. The director Seth Gordon (who talks to Elvis Mitchell in a pretty interesting episode of "The Treatment") will also be making the new narrative version. It should be a challenge because had this film not been a documentary, it would have seemed impossible to believe. But instead, The King of Kong is one of the most fun, fascinating and entertaining films you'll see this year, and it's much more than simply two guys playing arcade games. (It's also much better than the Sundance entry Chasing Ghosts which, personally, I found fairly dull.) We have our own video interview with Seth on the Tribeca website.

And by the way, if a feature or short for the festival seems like too much work, and if even putting a seven-minute film for [email protected] seemed like too much work so you missed last week's deadline, we have another contest that just opened, and there's a good chance you already own all the equipment you already need. Nokia is sponsoring a "Slice of Life" competition in which people can shoot 30-second clips of virtually anything as long as they use their mobile phones. Click here for more info, details, rules, and all that other specific and important stuff.

NOTES FROM TRIBECA: FOLLOW MY VOICE ON DVD AND SCARLET ON CINEMA'S LOSS

I realize this is probably unnecessary since as you all have already likely signed up for the Tribeca email newsletter, but Ithought I'd mention a couple things just in case it got forwarded into that nasty Junk Mail folder of yours.

First, Follow My Voice: With the Music of Hedwig was one of my favorite documentaries we showed in 2006. I had the honor and privilege to write the film note that appeared in the catalog and still lives on the web site. The fact that the film synthesizes so well with the themes from John Cameron Mitchell's Hedwig and the Angry Inch adds to some truly moving stories of inspirational teenagers and a tremendous soundtrack that had me clicking "Buy now" at iTunes immediately after finishing the DVD. Anyway, that's just a long preamble to the fact that Follow My Voice comes out on DVD on Tuesday. We have an interview with the film's director Katherine Linton up on the site, and we're giving away five free copies of the disc as well in the Tribeca SWAG Bag.

Also, if you have yet to go see The Devil Came on Horseback or This Is England at IFC Center, printing out the SWAG Bag page will get you a free popcorn when you do the right thing, i.e., go see the damn movies already!

Finally, TFF Artistic Director Peter Scarlet took a few minutes to sit down and say some words about Ingmar Bergman and Michelangelo Antonioni. The video is opsted here, and in just two-and-a-half minutes, Peter eloquently explains why the both of these men were (and still are) so important and vital to the ever-evolving world of cinema.

NOTES FROM TRIBECA: THREE 2007 FILMS ASK IF YOU PREFER SODA OR POPCORN?

This week's Tribeca Film Festival email was sent out yesterday. Did you get it? If not, you're missing out on all the freebies! This week, three film's from this year's festival open theatrically (at least in New York). I wrote about The Sugar Curtain (now playing at the Two Boots Pioneer) on Wednesday, but also opening this week are the Darfur documentary The Devil Came on Horseback and Shane Meadow's latest feature This Is England. I actually haven't seen either yet, but I've heard they're both incredible.

If you did get the Tribeca emailed newsletter, you would already know that just by printing it out, you can get yourself a free popcorn at the IFC Center when you buy a ticket to either Devil or England and, with a little bit of additional, easily IMDbed info, the Pioneer will give you a free soda when you go to see The Sugar Curtain. And we're giving away some other things in this week's Tribeca SWAG Bag as well, so check-it-out, and sign-up.

NOTES FROM TRIBECA: INTRODUCING THE SWAG BAG

So it was just under a week ago that I sort of reintroduced this blog to the world and mentioned that I did not want to use this blog to pimp my employer. But the truth is, I don't mind pimping Tribeca as long as it's only one small part of what I'm doing here. So if I'm not posting much in the way of commentary, reviews or other nonsense, I don't want to focus on Tribeca. But if I am (like I have been) ... why the hell not?

With that in mind, I'd like to again encourage everyone to visit the Tribeca website and sign-up for our weekly email newsletter which arrives in your inbox on Thursdays. Why should you care and want to do that? Because we've got some cool stuff going online, and we're trying to ramp up our giveaways. We've created a new page called the "Tribeca SWAG Bag" and it's bursting at the seems this week with everything from free Film Forum passes to the upcoming No End in Sight, to free tickets to Mondays Tribeca Cinema Series advance screening of No Reservations to free DVDs of the 2006 Best Narrative Film winner Blessed by Fire and more. Check it out, and again, if you have any suggestions about the site, please feel free to send them my way.

JESUS CAMP AND TRIBECA SHARE AN OSCAR FIRST

About a month ago I think I mentioned that I've been helping out a bit on the Tribeca web site. If you didn't know, the Tribeca site has continuously changing content, highlighted by a now-weekly email newsletter. For the past couple months, I've been writing said newsletter and the associated website copy, a job I won't be handling too much longer -- except on a consulting basis -- because with my other duties, I simply don't have the time.

I call attention to this fact now only because the latest edition of the newsletter was sent on Friday, and personally, I think it's one of the best ones we've done yet. The highlight happens to be a conversation I had with Jesus Camp directors Rachel Grady and Heidi Ewing on Wednesday to talk about their Academy Award nomination for Best Documentary Feature. Jesus Camp made my "Next Best" list, and although I only wrote a very brief comment in that post, I could talk about it for hours. It's a tremendous documentary about a very important subject, and I was personally excited to see it receive a nomination.

The Tribeca side of me was even more excited though to see Jesus Camp create Tribeca Film Festival history: it became the first film to world premiere and find theatrical distribution at the festival before going on to an Oscar nomination. That's a big deal, and I don't think, on behalf of Tribeca, a better film could have earned that distinction and signify what kinds of movies the festival tries to show.

More importantly, though, I don't know that this could have happened to cooler filmmakers. I met Heidi and Rachel briefly at the festival when I introduced their final public screening, which like the others was pretty damn packed if not completely sold out. These are two very smart and talented women who also happen to be fun and friendly. You can see so for yourself by reading the interview over at the Tribeca web site.

And as just another quick aside, I encourage you to sign-up for the Tribeca newsletter. We only send emails once a week (daily during the festival) without other solicitations or anything, and some really interesting and exciting things are on tap for the site in the not too distant future as we countdown with less than three months to go until opening night!

THE WORK FRONT

... is busy! In case you missed it, there was some pretty big news this week on the Tribeca front: the establishment of the Tribeca/ESPN Sport Film Festival as a part of this spring's TFF. This should actually be a really exciting addition to this year's festival, and the key word there is "addition." The TESFF isn't taking sports films that wouldn't otherwise make Tribeca and it's not going to be comprised of solely big-budget, TV-produced documentaries. It's just going to be a sidebar event that will bring a little more focus, during the regular festival, to sports and competition-oriented films. And you know what? The sports films Tribeca has shown the past few years deserve that. Last year, one of my favorite films in the festival was The Heart of the Game, a phenomenal doc about a girls' high school basketball team in Seattle and the journey of its female star. Personally, I thought this movie was as fascinating as Hoop Dreams, and yet Miramax gave it a very limited and not-well-publicized release. (If you missed it, that's what Netflix is for.) It's also will certainly not be all documentaries, nor will the films necessarily be focused on traditional major sports. Spellbound and Wordplay both could have fit; and if I have any influence (which I don't, necessarily), I've already seen a film which I hope gets into the festival and the TESFF.

Meanwhile, as I mentioned a few weeks (but only two posts) back, things at the job have been picking-up, and the release of the above news is only a small part of it. In addition to my regular duties, for the past month I've been a sort of managing editor of the TFF newsletter and contributor to the website as well as its redevelopment. Today is, in fact, the "official" deadline for submissions to the 2007 festival. Why is "official" in quotes? Because it's not the final deadline; it's just a less expensive deadline. If your film is postmarked today, the submission fees are $70 for a feature and $50 for a short. The drop-dead-no-submissions-accepted-beyond-this-point date is a month away -- Jan. 5 -- and if your submission is postmarked on that date, the fees are $90 and $70. A film isn't penalized in any way by coming in at the later deadline other than the slightly higher submission fee, so if you've been rushing to make it by today but could really use another couple weeks, you should take it.

I've been screening submissions recently ... a lot of them. A few things have been great, many have been kind of meh and then there's the usual large contingent of, "Oh my god! What were they thinking? Money has so many better uses." I have noticed one fascinating trend this year, however: several films with very elaborate, creative and well-produced title sequences followed by basically nothing else. And I'm not talking about even "big" budget, mainstream indie films. I mean small, lower- and low- budget truly independent pictures. It's actually quite fascinating. There are a few movies where I am absolutely convinced that more thought, time and care (and I suppose maybe money) went into conceiving, creating and producing the title sequence than in writing the script. Part of me wants to gather them all up at the end, edit together the title sequences and show a program of those, but without the rest of the movies.

Anyway, that's where I've been. I hope to get myself and my schedule a little more into balance and under control soon. In fact, I've been so relatively busy with work and a few other things, that I still haven't seen Casino Royale! I know ... for shame. I'm even disappointed in myself.