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March 2007
2007 TRIBECA FILM FESTIVAL news

THE 2007 TRIBECA FILM FESTIVAL ANNOUNCES SELECTIONS FOR ITS COMPETITION AND SPOTLIGHT SECTIONS

 

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 http://www.tribecafilmfestival.org/filguide.html


New York, NY [March 12, 2007]  The 2007 Tribeca Film Festival, presented by American Express, today announced the line-ups for its World Narrative and World Documentary Feature Film Competitions as well as its selections in the Spotlight category for the sixth annual festival, taking place April 25 - May 6, 2007. 


The 2007 Tribeca Film Festival will present a total of 159 feature films and 85 shorts selected from 4,550 film submissions, of which 2,250 were feature film submissions. These selections include 75 World Premieres, four International Premieres, 32 North American Premieres, 18 U.S. Premieres and 20 New York City Premieres. This year’s festival includes films from 41 countries including Argentina, Armenia, Austria, Belgium, Bosnia & Herzegovina, Brazil, Canada, Chile, China, Colombia, Croatia, Cuba, France, Germany, Hong Kong, Hungary, India, Iran, Iraq, Israel, Italy, Japan, Lebanon, Mali, Mexico, The Netherlands, New Zealand, Pakistan, Panama, Peru, Russia, Serbia, South Korea, Spain, Switzerland, Tunisia, Turkey, U.K., Ukraine, U.S.A and its territory Puerto Rico.


Eighteen narrative features and 16 documentary features will compete for combined unrestricted cash prizes amounting $100,000.  These 34 films, from 25 countries, include 10 World Premieres. 


The Spotlight section presents a combination of both narrative and documentary films that were created by acclaimed filmmakers, including Michael Apted, John Dahl, Patrice Leconte, Shane Meadows, Goran Paskaljevic and Carlos Sorin. These directors are part of a diverse line-up of 22 features from nine different countries.


The festival, while young, continues to attract films expressing compelling views from filmmakers from around the globe and around the corner, said Jane Rosenthal, co-founder of the Tribeca Film Festival. This year's festival presents diverse, original, and, most of all, good storytelling which will encourage dialogue, entertain, and celebrate filmmaking.


Our Festival, and especially its narrative competition, continues to present outstanding new work by some of the top names on the international scene as well as by striking new voices, said Peter Scarlet, Executive Director of the Festival. And as in years past, we hope that our selection of documentaries will provide viewers with a few useful tools in making sense of our increasingly confusing world.


The complete list of films selected for Competition and Spotlight include:



COMPETITIONS



World Narrative Feature Competition



From a musician staging a concert in Iraqi Kurdistan to a lawyer infiltrating the Korean underworld of New York, the films in this section take us on a cinematic journey across the globe. Presenting established and emerging directors from around the world, these films feature a wealth of high profile acting talent from Daniel Auteuil as Napoleon to Lukas Haas as a New Jersey vigilante and America Ferrara involved with a Colombian kidnap victim. 



*        Born and Bred (Nacido y Criado), directed by Pablo Trapero, written by Pablo Trapero and Mario Rulloni. (Argentina)  U.S. Premiere.  When his life is shattered by a terrifying accident, a successful interior designer winds up in the desolate extremes of Patagonia, trying to find himself among other lost, disaffected men. Pablo Trapero's haunting film demonstrates why he is at the cutting edge of Argentina's most exciting cinema.        

        

*        Gardener of Eden, directed by Kevin Connolly, written by Adam Tex Davis. (U.S.A.) World Premiere. In this dark comedy, Adam Harris' (Lukas Haas) aimless life consists of working at a deli, living with his parents, hanging with his friends and…well, that's about it. Stuck in a rut, he loses it all, but soon finds new purpose when he accidentally captures a serial rapist. With Giovanni Ribisi and Ericka Christensen. Produced by Leonardo DiCaprio.


*        Half Moon, directed and written by Bahman Ghobadi, (Iran, Iraq, Austria, France) U.S. Premiere. Graying but determined, Mamo is a famed Kurdish musician who obtains permission to cross the Iranian border to give his first concert in Iraqi Kurdistan. But the journey poses endless challenges, especially when he tries to bring a female singer from Iran, where performances by women have been silenced since the 1979 Islamic Revolution. In Kurdish and Farsi. Winner of the Golden Shell, 2006 San Sebastian Film Festival. A Strand Release.


*        Lady Chatterley, directed by Pascale Ferran, written by Pascale Ferran and Roger Bohbot. (France, Belgium) North American Premiere. Winner of 5 major prizes, including Best Film and Best Actress, at the 2007 César Awards, France’s equivalent of the Oscars ­ this frankly sensual yet never vulgar film is based on the second of three versions of D.H. Lawrence’s tale about an earthy passion that is both innocent and subversive. A Kino International Release.


·         The Last Man (Atlal/Le dernier homme), directed and written by Ghassan Salhab. (Lebanon, France) –North American Premiere. In Beirut, a city where so much blood has been spilled in seemingly interminable political conflicts, the sudden appearance of what appear to be victims of a serial killer isn't especially alarming. A 40-year-old doctor (Michel Chahine, astonishing) develops links to the victims, and begins to exhibit strange and disturbing symptoms of his own.


*        Lost In Beijing (Ping Guo), directed by Li Yu, written by Li Yu and Li Fang. (China) - North American Premiere. This tragicomic look at modern-day life in China's capital may not be especially daring for Western viewers in terms of its sexual content, despite the battle its producers fought with censors at home, but its depiction of a ménage-a-quatre involving a young woman, her boss, her husband and her boss’s wife is decidedly unlike anything else we’ve seen from the People’s Republic.


·         Making Of, directed and written by Nouri Bouzid. (Tunisia)  International Premiere. Bahta, 25, heads up a group of break dancers, but the outbreak Bahta¹s a young break dancer in Tunisia but after the eruption of hostilities in Iraq in 2003, he falls in with a group of fundamentalists, whose brainwashing is intended to make him a suicide bomber. In the framing story, the actor playing Bahta doesn¹t know how the film will end, and he and the director have conflicts of their own. Winner, Gold Tanit, Carthage Film Festival.


·         My Father My Lord (Hofshat Kaits), directed and written by David Volach. (Israel)  International Premiere. This powerful and heartbreaking film takes a look at the price that may be exacted by a rigid observation of religious tenets. Its central character, a respected rabbi in an ultra-Orthodox community -- who is also a father and husband -- is forced to come to terms with the demands of his faith and the welfare of his own family.


*        Napoleon and Me (Io e Napoleone), directed by Paolo Virzi, written by Furio Scarpelli, Giacomo Scarpelli, Francesco Bruni, Paolo Virzi. (Italy, France)  North American Premiere. Napoleon's exile on the Italian island of Elba is seen through the eyes of a young teacher who reviles the former emperor (played by Daniel Auteuil), but must serve as his librarian in this light-hearted costume drama that's as fast-paced as an operetta and spiked with Tuscan humor. Featuring Monica Bellucci as the intriguing Baroness.


*        Playing the Victim (Izobrazhaya zhertvu), directed by Kirill Serebrennikov, written by The Presnyakov Brothers. (Russia)  North American Premiere. One of Moscow's top theatre directors has adapted his own successful play into a cinematic marvel in which a young slacker is employed by the police to literally "play the victim" in videos reconstructing crimes. His dangerously escalating disgust with the world is portrayed in a visual style so inventive that it's only when he receives nocturnal visits from his father's ghost that the echoes of Hamlet are evoked. Winner, Grand Prize, Rome Film Festival


*        Still Life (Sanxia Haoren), directed by Jia Zhang-Ke. (Hong Kong, China) U.S. Premiere. 


This poignant human drama is set against a surreal, metaphorically loaded backdrop -- a Yangtze town that will soon be submerged by the Three Gorges Dam. Like the director's other films (Platform, Unknown Pleasures, The World), it's an empathetic portrait of those left behind by a modernizing society, and a unique hybrid of documentary and fiction.


*        Times and Winds (Bes vakit), directed and written by Reha Erdem. (Turkey)  U.S. Premiere. 


This unforgettable, beautifully observed film is a lyrical and haunting portrait of life in a remote Turkish mountain village, where three pre-teens struggle with dreams and desires that are utterly specific and personal, and yet somehow universal. An extraordinary score by Arvo Pärt adds to the electrifying experience.


*        Towards Darkness (Hacia la Oscuridad), directed and written by Antonio Negret. (Panama, Colombia, U.S.A.) – World Premiere. Colombia's rampant kidnappings are the brutal reality at the heart of this nail-biting thriller. A young photographer is abducted, held for ransom, and forced to contemplate imminent death while his family makes desperate covert deals to secure his release. Featuring America Ferrara. In English and Spanish.


·         Two Embraces (Dos Abrazos), (Mexico)  International Premiere. Four people forced to fend for themselves in life -- a burdened twelve-year-old boy, the cashier he has a crush on, an angry taxi driver and the estranged daughter of one of his passengers -- come together in two embraces. An auspicious film debut and poignant tale of lonely people who find a glimmer of hope in each other in today's Mexico City.


*        Two in One (Dva v odnom), directed by Kira Muratova, written by Evgenii Golubenko and Renata Litvinova. (Ukraine) International Premiere. This celebrated director's exquisite cruelty appears front and center when the death of a stage actor turns a theatrical drama into a real one. Two in One;s two parts, Stagehands and Woman of a Lifetime celebrate the psychological richness that lurks just beneath the surface of banal reality—if murderous stagehands, lascivious fathers, and vengeful daughters can be described as banal.


·         Vivere, directed and written by Angelina Maccarone. (Germany)  World Premiere. On Christmas Eve, Francesca sets out from her small town for the big city, Rotterdam, to find her little sister, who has run off to follow her musician boyfriend. On the way, she picks up Gerlinde, a heartbroken older woman at the end of her rope. This exquisitely photographed tale employs a fragmented timeline to illustrate the story of three lost souls on the run.   


*        West 32nd, directed by Michael Kang, written by Michael Kang and Edmund Lee. (U.S.A.)  World Premiere. After hustling his way onto a homicide case, an ambitious young lawyer (John Cho) infiltrates the gritty Korean underworld of New York, searching for clues. When he meets his match in the syndicate, they'll both do anything to get to the top. It's a raw and thrilling race. In English and Korean.


*        The Year My Parents Went On Vacation (O Ano em que meus pais saíram de férias), directed by Cao Hamburger, written by Cláudio Galperin, Cao Hamburger, Bráulio Mantovani, Anna Muylaert. (Brazil) - North American Premiere.  It's the summer of 1970, and twelve-year-old Mauro's biggest concern is whether Brazil wins the World Cup-until his politicized parents are forced to flee the country, and he is thrust into the alien world of Sao Paolo's Jewish community. This sensitive drama shows an innocent caught up in a ferociously repressive dictatorship he knows nothing about.  


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