BY THE EDITORS |
TFF '10: World Narrative Features
Explore the world with the dozen narrative features in competition at the 2010 Tribeca Film Festival. Sponsored by Delta Air Lines.
Today Tribeca announced the first 34 feature films of the 2010 Tribeca Film Festival slate. The rest of the features slate will be announced on Monday, March 15, with the list of short films to follow later in the week. The complete list of features will be posted online on Monday in the 2010 Film Guide.
“This year’s competition, the core of the Festival, represents contemporary international filmmaking at its finest, bringing together fresh voices with established storytellers. These stories will leave audiences engaged, as well as entertained, which is what our Festival is all about,” said David Kwok, Director of Programming for the Tribeca Film Festival. “We also take tremendous pride in all of the filmmakers who are returning to Tribeca to premiere their films with us.”
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Representing 8 countries, this year’s World Narrative Feature Competition is an international film collection created by many first- and second-time director. Sponsored by Delta Air Lines, 7 of the films here are World Premieres.
These dozen films take us around the globe—from a rich and cinematic fable from the exquisite islands of Iran, to a quest for inspiration in post-war Bosnia, to the mind of music legend Serge Gainsbourg in the heart of Paris, to a family pasta empire hanging by a thread in southern Italy. There are stories of boys: some who come of age in a brutal American juvenile detention center and others who are on an impromptu and poignant road trip in Ireland; and stories of women: challenging conventions to save loved ones in politically corrupt Paju, defending their children from false perceptions in a small Irish neighborhood, and confronting the pressures of a traditional Turkish family in Berlin. Young men also find themselves in crisis, dealing with crime and love intertwining on the streets of New York and grappling with memory and mortality on the beaches of North Carolina.
These 12 narrative tales will entertain, amuse, and enlighten audiences.
One film from this slate, Geoffrey Alan Rhodes and Steven Eastwood's Buried Land, will also make its debut on the new Tribeca Film Festival Virtual premium platform. Passes available now!
Buried Land
Directed by Geoffrey Alan Rhodes and Steven Eastwood, written by Geoffrey Alan Rhodes, Steven Eastwood, and Dzenan Medanovic
(USA, UK, Bosnia and Herzegovina) – World and TFF Virtual Premiere
The small town of Visoko heralds to the world a remarkable discovery: A valley of ancient pyramids predating Egypt exists under the hills of central Bosnia. Tourists flood the war-scarred region, and locals are caught between the real and the imagined (mirroring the film’s vacillation between documentary and fiction). With the help of a young man returning to his homeland, an American film crew determines the role of faith in capturing what cannot yet be proven. In English, Bosnian with English subtitles.
Dog Pound
Directed by Kim Chapiron, written by Kim Chapiron and Jeremie Delon
(France) – World Premiere
In North America more than 100,000 children are held in detention centers. Sixty percent are destined to become repeat offenders. Director Kim Chapiron (Sheitan, TFF ’06) takes a searing look at three incarcerated teenagers fighting for their lives and for hope. An electrifying cast delivers blistering performances packed with intensity and emotional power in this story of unlikely friendships in the midst of a brutal and deficient correctional system.
Loose Cannons (Mine Vaganti)
Directed by Ferzan Ozpetek, written by Ivan Cotroneo and Ferzan Ozpetek
(Italy) – North American Premiere
Ferzan Ozpetek (Facing Windows, A Perfect Day) sets this playful family comedy in the picturesque city of Lecce in the deep south of Italy. Tommaso, a reluctant soon-to-be-partner in his wealthy family’s pasta business, has plans to come out—and hopefully get out of his familial obligation. But when his plans are thwarted by his brother, Tomasso gets stuck on the path that he was desperately trying to avoid. In Italian with English subtitles.
Lucky Life
Directed by Lee Isaac Chung, written by Lee Isaac Chung and Samuel Gray Anderson
(USA) – World Premiere
When one of them falls ill, a group of friends takes one last trip to the beach, desiring a meaningful farewell. Years later, as one of the couples plans to have a child, the trip lingers as a haunting memory. Lee Isaac Chung’s follow-up to his award-winning Munyurangabo is equal parts graceful, warmly acted relationship drama and beautifully shot visual poem.
My Brothers
Directed by Paul Fraser, written by William Collins
(Ireland) – World Premiere
When 17-year-old Noel accidentally breaks his dying father’s most prized possession—a cheap wristwatch—he and his two cheeky younger brothers “borrow” the boss’ bread van for a clandestine quest to replace it. But what begins as a quick road trip soon turns into an emotional odyssey for the boys. A longtime writing collaborator of Shane Meadows (Somers Town, TFF ’08 award winner), Paul Fraser makes a stellar feature directing debut with this poignant and bitingly funny family journey.
Open House
Directed and written by Andrew Paquin
(USA) – World Premiere
Brian Geraghty gives a haunting performance as prim and taciturn David, forced for years to watch over his sexually predatory partner Lila and her violent urges. David longs for human connection and a less violent existence, and when a would-be victim becomes a chance at redemption, he is torn between his humanity and the only life he’s ever known.
Paju
Directed and written by Chan-ok Park
(South Korea) – North American Premiere
Joongshik and Eunmo live in Paju: a gray town where the urban landscape is as bleak as the fate of its residents. In writer/director Chan-ok Park's emotionally intense follow-up to award-winning Jealousy Is My Middle Name (TFF ’03), the personal travails of two antiheros are delicately unveiled through an anachronistic period of eight years, demonstrating how easily the lines of development and destruction are sometimes blurred. In Korean with English subtitles.
Gainsbourg, Je t'Aime... Moi Non Plus
Directed and written by Joann Sfar
(France) – International Premiere
From a young man in Nazi-occupied Paris to the sultry crooner who bedded Brigitte Bardot and married Jane Birkin to the vulnerable poet hidden behind a shroud of provocation—Serge Gainsbourg’s is a life large enough for grand treatment on film. One of France’s greatest mavericks is brought back to life (uncannily, by Eric Elmosnino) in this imaginative and visually flamboyant film debut from one of France’s greatest cartoonists. In French with English subtitles.
Snap
Directed and written by Carmel Winters
(Ireland) – World Premiere
With a fresh and intense style, playwright-turned-director Carmel Winters composes a gripping psychological drama about three generations of a family poised to repeat the mistakes of the past. Aisling O’Sullivan (The War Zone) commands the screen as a calloused mother who will do anything to protect her son—even deny her own past. From the producers of TFF award winner Eden and the Academy Award® winner Once.
When We Leave (Die Fremde)
Directed and written by Feo Aladag
(Germany) – North American Premiere
When young Turkish-German woman Umay can no longer stand her husband’s ill-treatment, she flees from Istanbul with her five-year-old son into the arms of her family in Berlin. But love, affection, and loyalty soon become irrelevant as they struggle to reconcile Umay’s willful self-determination with the social system that governs their lives. This passion piece on female flight from oppression builds its considerable dramatic intensity to a glowing payoff. In German, Turkish with English subtitles.
The White Meadows (Keshtzar haye sepid)
Directed and written by Mohammad Rasoulof
(Iran) – North American Premiere
Poetry, mythology, metaphor, and the absurd are expertly woven to tell the fable-like story of Rahmat, who sails from island to island off the coast of Iran to collect tears. Moody and elegant, The White Meadows is acclaimed writer/director Mohammad Rasoulof’s (Head Wind, TFF ’08) mesmerizing cinematic statement on conformity, social norms, and the collective condition of Iran. In Persian with English subtitles.
William Vincent
Directed and written by Jay Anania
(USA) – World Premiere
The versatile James Franco (Milk, Spider-Man) stars in the story of William Vincent, a quiet and peculiar criminal uninterested in the fruits of crime. When he falls for a gangster’s (Josh Lucas) favorite call girl (Julianne Nicholson), William is forced to flee New York. But after four years in exile, William secretly returns, intent on rescuing the woman he loves from her dangerous fate.
Awards
Awards in the World Narrative Features Competition will be presented in the following juried categories: Best Narrative Feature, sponsored by AKA Hotel Residences; Best New Narrative Filmmaker (for first or second-time feature directors), sponsored by American Express; Best Actress in a Narrative Film, sponsored by Delta Air Lines; and Best Actor in a Narrative Film, sponsored by Delta Air Lines.
In addition, films predominantly shot in New York and/or produced by a New York-based production company will be up for the Best New York Documentary Award, sponsored by Polaroid. Films in the World Narrative Competition, World Documentary Competition, Encounters, Discovery, Cinemania, Spotlight and Showcase sections are eligible for the Heineken Audience Award, the audience choice for best feature film.
Check out more of the slate:
TFF 2010: World Documentary Features
TFF 2010: Showcase
TFF 2010: Special Events
TFF 2010: Encounters
TFF 2010: Cinemania
TFF 2010: Spotlight
TFF 2010: Discovery
Learn more: TFF 2010 Ticket Packages and Virtual Pass
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