Reed Morano, a successful cinematographer, takes her first shot at directing with Meadowland. And it may be because she’s so cinematically inclined, or perhaps she has a dark side the public is getting a taste of here, but she’s chosen some truly heavy material from Chris Rossi (also his first) to kickstart her directorial career. Granted, drama makes for plenty of opportunity to play with the camera, and she certainly does, providing dreamy, close-up, mood all over the place. And it may be because she usually only has control of the camerawork of a film that she felt so inclined to rev up the other sensory experiences of the film to maximum intensity.

The film is about Sarah and Phil (Olivia Wilde and Luke Wilson) who, at the film’s outset, are struck the heavy blow of having their only son kidnapped. Flash forward a year and Phil is back at work as a cop, dealing with his grief with the occasional support group meeting and lunches with a friend who lost his daughter (John Leguizamo). Sarah, on the other hand, stays fairly numb with the help of lithium, barely passing for a teacher at the grade school she teaches at. Clearly these two have chosen the grieve alone path, Sarah often wandering around Times Square late at night, not necessarily searching so much as distracting herself, and Phil parking outside the gas station where their son disappeared as though he may wander back in the dead of night.

The detective on their case presents some new evidence that suggests what neither, though Sarah especially, want to hear. In her own misguided attempt to avoid reality she goes to cringe-worthy extremes leading to a belligerent and uncomfortable end. Grief manifests differently for everyone, especially in the circumstance of a cold case where the absence of concrete evidence doesn’t allow for proper grief, but Sarah’s self-destruction is especially difficult to watch. Morano also makes it quite hard to listen to. The music and sound design of the film are pumped up so high at parts it hurts. What’s meant to be a distraction tactic for the characters is just plain wearisome for the viewer.

Calling the film a bummer is an understatement. Wilde is convincingly inconsolable—and a bit crazy—in what is clearly meant to be a showcase of her talent, but in the hands of Morano, we’re rather hit in the head with it repeatedly. Wilson is of course the easier to sympathize with, those trademark Wilson puppy dog eyes playing to his advantage, but Rossi could have written Phil with more backbone to counter Sarah’s intensity better. As is, the two don’t have much in the way of chemistry, or even a believable animosity befitting their situation. They are more like two characters sharing the same story by chance.

Rossi wrote a script exploring the most gruesome depths of repressed grief, Morano certainly pulled it out of the actors and added further intensity with her blurry focus and pore-revealing intimacy in almost every scene, throw in the ear-assault and too-serious actions of the characters and it stops being insightful and starts being a bit scary. The film does a full stop at the very end, attempting to bring the mood back up with a slipshod scene that feels so much like a therapy session it’s laughable. Sorry Morano, you can’t assail viewers for 90 minutes and not expect them to be numb by the end to any ploy at pulling at heartstrings. Like Rossi’s characters, we can’t help but follow their lead and remain neatly anesthetized.

Originally published as part of our 2015 Tribeca Film Festival coverage.

Depending on your generation of comedy, the name National Lampoon likely signifies drastically different levels of quality. For decades, the media empire developed some of the most influential comedy and comedians of their era, including names like John Belushi, Chevy Chase, Billy Murray, Ivan Reitman, Christopher Guest, and more. Documentarian Douglas Tirola uses the deep archives of sharp, satirical National Lampoon material to pull together a hilarious, rapid-fire biographical documentary on the history of the Lampoon. Complete with interviews from National Lampoon co-founder Henry Beard, Animal House director John Landis, and former chief executive of the Lampoon Matty Simmons, Drunk Stoned Brilliant Dead: The Story of the National Lampoon is replete of material to thrill Lampoon fans.

The documentary draws from years of funny material and the deep roster of iconic humorists associated with the National Lampoon brand. The magazine’s distinctive illustrations become fully animated and the assortment of ridiculous Lampoon photoshoots are arranged into hysterical slideshows. Some of the best insights that Drunk Stoned Brilliant Dead provides are into individual gags and issues. In tracing the development behind standout material like the Yearbook issue or the infamous cover of the “Death” issue, Douglas Tirola’s documentary reveals the thought process that birthed such darkly twisted humor.

Recognizable names such as Chevy Chase, Ivan Reitman and Al Jean appear for interviews, but Tirola also pulls from writers like Michael O’Donoghue, Tony Hendra and P.J. O’Rourke for revealing tidbits about the early days at the Lampoon. As Drunk Stoned Brilliant Dead moves through the creation and establishment of the National Lampoon brand, it seamlessly integrates profiles on a collection of important figures to the story. The film highlights nearly all the major writers, illustrators and businessmen who brought the company from a small magazine to a nationally recognized media conglomerate.

Large sections are devoted to two chief contributors who have both died: Douglas Kenney and John Belushi. Kenney co-created the Lampoon with Henry Beard, but by Beard’s own admission Kenney was the driving force while the magazine was young and growing. Kenney’s absence from the documentary is strongly felt, since his work resulted in much of the most memorable output from National Lampoon; however, Chevy Chase’s emotional reflection on his last days with Kenney is one of the film’s most touching moment. Belushi, too, is showered with adulation. As the star of Lampoon’s first live show “Lemmings,” and their first feature film Animal House, Belushi’s impact on National Lampoon was massive.

Whenever the interviews veer towards the more upsetting aspects to National Lampoon’s story, the interviewees tend to brush aside the question. For every great success that the National Lampoon had, there was a falling out or a missed opportunity, such as when NBC approached Matty Simmons about creating a Saturday night sketch show before Lorne Michaels had a chance to pull from the Lampoon’s cast. The story is steeped in touchy subject matter, from inter-office hostility to drug addiction and death, but the documentary mostly skirts past these unhappy moments.

The first on-camera interview in Tirola’s film comes from Billy Bob Thornton, who like fellow celebrity fans of the Lampoon Judd Apatow and John Goodman, reminisces on the influential and biting humor of the magazine’s early days. It reveals the documentarian’s intentions to an extent, this is a nostalgia-driven piece meant to celebrate the legacy of National Lampoon. The film treats just about everything that happens after National Lampoon’s Vacation like an ellipsis at the end of a sentence. Instead, it focuses on (mostly) men with decades of separation from the National Lampoon looking back on their fond, funny memories.

Drunk Stoned Brilliant Dead: The Story of the National Lampoon may not tell the complete story behind National Lampoon, but it’s the best examination that National Lampoon had to offer. Tirola’s film is energetic, plowing through the hilarious backlog of National Lampoon magazine clippings or radio segments fast enough to stay constantly entertaining. The frequently funny documentary is a fitting ode to one of comedy’s vital institutions.

Originally published as part of our 2015 Tribeca Film Festival coverage.

You won’t catch me complaining about rom-coms or decrying the genre as lifeless, well-worn, or ready for bed. One cannot blame a film genre for the laziness of writers, directors, and narrow-minded studios. The same trends we see in consumer products apply to filmmaking. If it works, mass produce it until the market oversaturates and the people demand something new. Leslye Headland is demanding something different. Demanding, and making. Her sophomore film—a follow up to 2012’s Bachelorette—Sleeping With Other People is rom-com 2.0. Or 10.0, who knows which iteration we’re really on, all I know is we are ready for it. Headland must have decided unrealistic banter, comedy based on error and miscommunication, and men being the only ones allowed to misuse sex was getting old. All of which I tend to agree with.

In Sleeping With Other People, Headland, who also wrote the film, presents the “just friends” scenario and frees it up to be honest and self-aware, making for that rare and highly sought after rom-com combo: emotionally fulfilling AND hilarious.  If there is such thing as “organic” comedy, this is it. No one is genetically modifying the laughs in this film, they are all entirely deserved. Does that mean she goes light on the raunch or wickedness? Not for a second.

Starring Alison Brie and Jason Sudeikis, much of the film’s success falls on their mutual magnetism. Brie plays Lainey (but don’t worry she’s nothing like Laney Boggs from She’s All That), a kindergarten teacher with a longtime addiction to her always-unavailable college crush Matthew (Adam Scott). Lainey runs into the guy she lost her virginity to in college, Jake (Sudeikis), at a sex addicts meeting. Since their one-night tryst in college he’s become your typical serial polygamist, successful in his career—he’s just sold his startup to a large corporation led by a sexy CEO (Amanda Peet) he’s determined to nail—and totally absorbed in his sexual amusements. Jake and Lainey attempt a date but decide their mutual attraction will only feed into each other’s bad habit of abusing sex, deciding instead to remain friends.

What ensues is a modern update on When Harry Met Sally’s cynical approach to male-female friendships. Lainey and Jake keep the lines of communication between each other wide open, and similar to Meg Ryan’s famously enlightening lesson on the fake orgasms of woman, this film’s most talked about scene is likely to be when Jake goes into an in-depth (and visually illustrated) lesson on female masturbation. The two are so communicative as to inform each other when they are feeling attracted to the other, developing a safe-word: “mousetrap.”

The real heart of the film lies in their growing friendship and their increased dependence on one another. It’s a modern comedy that allows its characters to fall in love naturally, without the pressure of sex, while also providing plenty of sex throughout the film (with other people). The comedy of the film comes entirely from its honesty and openness, proving that mishaps, mistakes, and misperceptions aren’t the only way for romantic films to utilize comedy.

The dialog pushes Headland’s film far out of the realm of the usual rom-com as well. Not because it’s not bantery, but because the banter is surprising and realistically clever—with all the speed of Sorkin and the referential easter eggs of Gilmore Girls drained of un-believability. Contemporary audiences will appreciate the Millennial-style straight-forwardness and Lainey and Jake’s no-holds-barred conversation style. Throw in some irreverence—like taking drugs at a kid’s birthday party or Lainey’s adulterous weaknesses or Jake’s hesitancy in describing sex with a black woman—and it all adds up to a perfectly balanced amount of laughter and well-built romance.

Brie’s usual sweetness, most evidenced in her role in TV show Community, is balanced with some of the spirit we see her exhibit in AMC’s Mad Men as Trudy Campbell. She’s not a sucker, although she often returns to her hopeless romance with a married man, instead she’s a woman whose sexual desires have only been met by one man and she’s never known what it is to have emotional and sexual fulfillment in the same place. She’s not a victim, she never needs saving, she just needs a friend.

Sudeikis is also impressive, reigning in any lingering SNL silliness and playing as believably sexy and flawed, but not despicable. He could easily have made Jake appear creepy,—taking advantage of Lainey’s friendship—or pitiful—falling for a girl he may never get—but he stays equal parts damaged and dashing at all times.

They are surrounded by a great supporting cast including Jason Mantzoukas in my favorite role of his yet, and Natasha Lyonne playing both the mandatory best friend and mandatory gay best friend all at once, even if she’s not wholly believable as Lainey’s best friend. Adam Scott also plays against type as a nerdy scumbag, and Adam Brody goes big in his one early scene with Brie to hilarious effect.

The possibilities in romantic scenarios will never cease (though most romantic comedies tend to navigate to the same three or four), and Headland turns to one we’ve seen plenty of times before—the friendship-turned-romantic situation—but her approach is outgoing and unrestrained, not only with her humor but in the total transparency between her lead characters. These characters may be more clever than most people we know, more attractive, and more successful, but their friendship feels relatable and their flaws are actual which makes for heartier laughs and an aphrodisiacal love story.

A version of this review first ran as part of our 2015 Tribeca Film Festival coverage. 

An actor earns serious credit when they not only perform incredibly in a role but perform it in a way that makes audiences believe no one else could have possibly played it better. Not to overly gush about a film others have already gushed enough over, but I was oozing with said respect when exiting Grandma. Not only is it a well-written film with a rare and fiercely defined main character, but its title role fits its perfectly casted actor, Lily Tomlin, in perfect symbiosis. Playing this role at this point in her career is perfect timing, and Paul Weitz casting and utilizing her unique talents is an example of the art of directing at its finest. Though comedy might be the safest genre for allowing septuagenarians to shine (though Grandma is more a part of that ambiguous sub-genre of dramedy), it’s films like this that prove there is a trove of older actors who, in addition to the talent they already bring, provide another level of performance that, when given the chance, can absolutely blow us away.

This secret reserve of talent—likely derived straight from life experience—is something Tomlin displays in abundance in Grandma. A taciturn and grieving widow, Tomlin plays Elle Reid, a feminist poet and movement leader, still revered if not much remembered from her glory days. A year and a half has passed since her partner Violet has died from cancer, and her relationship with a much younger woman, Olivia (Judy Greer), is ending and she deals with it with the same cutting rigidity with which she faces all of life’s challenges, telling Olivia she doesn’t love her, and to leave her key on the table. Elle hardly has time to actually process this breakup when her teenaged granddaughter Sage (the curly-haired goddess Julia Garner) shows up on her front door, pregnant and in need of funds for an abortion.

Elle does her due diligence as a grandma—complaining about the price of an abortion these days—and also as a wizened woman, asking Sage if she’s thought through the decision since she’s likely to think of it at some point every day for the rest of her life, but never tries to talk her out of it. Instead, she grabs the keys to her vintage Dodge and agrees to help Sage scare up the $600 she needs by 5:30 that afternoon. As Elle attempts to collect on old debts and the goodwill of friends, more of her varied and complicated life is revealed. Laverne Cox is a tattoo artist buddy who tells of Elle’s kindhearted gift of loaning her money to fix a botched transgender boob-job. Elizabeth Pena is coffee shop owner who puts Elle in her place by offering $50 for some of her old first edition hardbacks, including The Feminine Mystique (and Sage wonders aloud if the book has anything to do with The X-Men). Elle challenges Sage’s sensibilities, teaching her along the way by standing up to her deadbeat boyfriend when Sage won’t (hilariously kicking the teenager’s ass) and making a scene in a coffee shop when the proprietor asks her to quiet down when discussing abortion.

While clearly pro-choice, the film doesn’t especially try to conventionalize or even trivialize abortion but instead bring it into colloquial terms. Sage’s decision is treated with gravity and respect. It’s even given an interesting dual-perspective by another character in the film, who expresses the sadness an abortion once brought them with sincerity and dignity. The crux of the film lies within a scene between Elle and her one-time husband Karl (Sam Elliott, also absolutely shining), he an unfortunate casualty of Elle being gay at a time when no one was discussing such things and thus part of her path of destruction in her youth.  They chit-chat about lovers and grandchildren, roll a doobie together, and then go on to have a fiercely charged and emotionally revealing series of exchanges that perfectly expresses the complexity of real relationships, the many forms of love, and the way our decisions shape us and stay with us as we mature.

Paul Weitz is a wonder in being able to capture saturated morsels of the different humor associated with different age ranges and genders. In American Pie he nailed the adolescent male mind without demeaning it, and here he’s traveled the length of the spectrum (galaxy?) to home in on the perfectly evolved humor of an aging widowed lesbian academic. I’ve certainly never heard anyone insult another by calling them a “writer-in -residence” but the joke is among the sharpest of the film. All involved should certainly remain in the minds of voters when awards season rolls around.

Filled with laughs, realistic love, and a freedom to emote, Grandma is as cathartic as it is hilarious. Even while seeing the pain that comes from a lifetime filled with loss and experience, the wisdom and humor of a lifetime’s experience is given equal merit. It’s enough to make being a grandma look like the coolest job out there, and a reason to look forward to advancing through our years.

A version of this review was originally published as part of our Tribeca 2015 coverage.

It can become harder to develop friendships as you grow older. For Emily and Alex, who recently moved from Seattle to Los Angeles with their young son R.J., they’re worried about their ability to make those new connections in an unfamiliar neighborhood. But when R.J. starts to play with another boy at the park, Emily and Alex are introduced to the boy’s enigmatic father, Kurt (Jason Schwartzman). The sleekly dressed, seemingly clichéd Angeleno opens with a joke about his son’s vegan diet before kindly offering recommendations of the best local shops and restaurants.

Kurt can’t resist himself though, there’s so much more to share, so he invites the newly relocated couple over for dinner that night with him and his wife. Emily (Orange Is The New Black’s Taylor Schilling) argues worst-case scenario is they’ll go home after a boring night and Alex (Adam Scott) worries the bottle of Two Buck Chuck they brought with them isn’t fancy enough; however, neither expects their overnight family playdate will test the couple’s openness, and the strength of Emily and Alex’s marital bond.

At the onset of The Overnight, Emily and Alex guide each other through their morning sex. They accommodate one another and exchange helpful instructions, but seem to have made “self-completion” a ritualistic finish. They’re a cooperative couple, even if they’re not perfectly compatible. Their collective anxiety is largely embodied by Adam Scott’s performance as Alex. Shades of Scott’s Parks and Recreation persona manifesting itself in Alex’s neurosis, particularly the character’s habit of impulsively lying in response to questions in order to respond “the right way.” Yes of course he paints with acrylics, who wouldn’t?

Alex is constantly on the back foot in Kurt’s house. Kurt comes on very strong, and from almost the moment that Emily and Alex arrive at Kurt’s house they’re deluged by his conversation. The Spanish lessons Kurt gives his kindergarten-aged son, the water filtration business he’s installing in third world countries, his pompous pronunciation of, “the South of France,” (as if France is pronounced with an ‘aw’). It’s a flood of superfluous character building that takes too long to work through, even with a helping of chuckle-worthy line readings.

For most of The Overnight (which only runs 80 minutes long) we’re waiting for the movie to get to its point. The dynamics of the “family playdate” become increasingly bizarre, but when the alcohol begins to work as a conversational lubricant (as it’s wont to do) the couples’ conversation starts to explore ideas of openness and honesty. Most of the talk steers sexual and you wonder when someone will finally say the word, “swinger,” but there exists a frank and humorous honesty in the characters’ words. When a vulnerable Alex admits to his size-related body issues, it’s uncomfortably funny but oddly touching, seeing new friends bond through understanding.

Taylor Schilling’s Emily appears to be the more self-assured half of the primary pairing. She’s the primary breadwinner for the family and retains more self-control once the adults have worked their way through a couple bottles of red wine. She’s not the butt of nearly as many jokes as her fictional husband, but Taylor Schilling gives Emily a cool, loving energy that makes her performance fun to watch while maintaining a complexity to her character. The Overnight makes it clear that Emily and Alex are very understanding to each other, and refreshingly, they take the time to consult one another throughout the film. The dilemmas here don’t emerge from clichéd bickering, they stem from the complications of a strong couple that are open to each other’s desires.

The instigator for most of the film’s hijinks is Schwartzman’s Kurt, and the potential to enjoy the comedy relies largely on his performance (as well as a tolerance for penis humor). The talkative character Kurt proceeds through the night brazenly dictating the couples’ agenda. It can be hilarious, as he is when confidently strutting naked around the pool, but other times it registers as awkward and unmotivated, like when he shows Emily and Alex a mildly pornographic movie of his wife Charlotte (Judith Godrèche). Schwartzman has an ability to remain charming even as an irritating character, and for the most part, Kurt is mysterious enough to stay intriguing.

The wild night created by The Overnight’s writer/director Patrick Brice (director of SXSW film Creep, also produced by the Duplass Brothers) does uniquely capture the contagious nature of a fun night around people you love. Even as his film plays dumb with its premise a little too much, it’s forgivable within the context of the intoxicating night Emily and Alex share with Charlotte and Kurt. They’re having too much fun exploring their boundaries honestly, and it’s usually entertaining enough to keep watching them.

The Overnight could easily be faulted for its couple of questionable turns, the directness with which the ending lays all the cards out on the table, or the film’s liberal use of prosthetic penises (which might have been the centerpiece in an Apatow or McKay comedy, so kudos to The Overnight). The movie mostly makes up for it by developing a compelling situation, and facilitating charismatic performances from Scott, Schilling and Schwartzman. The Overnight is a sexually adventurous, occasionally uncomfortable comedy with an outrageous ending, but one that feels like the proper result of its story.

A version of this review first appeared as part of our Tribeca 2015 coverage. 

If it’s indeed true that a documentary can only be as compelling as its subject, first-time feature director Crystal Moselle stumbled upon a veritable goldmine when she met the Angulo Brothers and gained access to their lives for The Wolfpack. These lanky, longhaired, half-Peruvian young men ranging in age from 16 to 23 stomp across New York City in ill-fitting suits and dark sunglasses. They absorb the city environment with the eagerness of a flock of tourists. In a way they are, though most of the boys lived in the city for a majority of their lives. That’s because the Angulos spent extended periods of their childhood locked away in their Lower East Side apartment by a paranoid, alcoholic father. That is, until one of the Angulo boys simply decided to leave the apartment.

The Wolfpack took home the Sundance Grand Jury Prize for Best Documentary earlier this year before its New York premiere at the Tribeca Film Festival. Director Crystal Moselle opens her documentary as the Angulo boys exchange bits of dialog from Quentin Tarantino’s Reservoir Dogs. The boys responded to their captivity by immersing themselves classic movies and remaking them with homemade aesthetics. In a way, the Angulos and The Wolfpack owe a debt to Michel Gondry’s 2008 Be Kind Rewind. The Angulos chop up pieces of cardboard and yoga mats in order to assemble Batman’s suit of armor, or patch on pieces of fake facial hair to more closely resemble Samuel L. Jackson. With limited options, the Angulos escaped into movies to learn about the world. One of the boys articulates it tragically, that movies, “make me feel like I’m living, because it’s magical a bit.”

In total there are seven Angulo children, six boys and one daughter, who is mentally challenged. Growing up, the Angulos would leave their apartment sometimes once, sometimes nine times per year. Occasionally the kids would go a full year without leaving their home. Their father, Oscar, was a Hare Krishna who dreamed of rock & roll stardom with a family of 11 children; however, complications left the Angulo parents in an LSE housing project afraid to leave the home and navigate the negative influences surrounding their residence. This forced seclusion was exacerbated by Oscar’s distrust in the establishment. As one of his sons explained, their father, “didn’t believe in work,” and thought he was either enlightened, or a god himself.

This disposition left Oscar’s wife Susanne the chore of raising and home-schooling the children under his judgmental, watchful eye. Fear was the dominant force in the Angulo household & Moselle’s documentary captures its paralyzing effect on the family. When Susanne discusses rationalizing her children’s confinement by expressing worries about the world outside, it’s easy to understand her thought process. As the victims of an abusive husband and father with deluded worldviews, the Angulos were hostages in their own home. “We were in a prison and at night our cells would lock up,” one of the boys says through a knowing smile, aware of the awful circumstances of his youth. The Wolfpack serves as an intriguing portrait of the lives of a family that’s lives through trauma, but one that ultimately feels hopeful.

Unfortunately, the documentary is little more than its captivating collection of characters. By keeping herself at a distance from the subjects, Moselle fails to elicit deep insights from them. Their story seems so bizarre you hope for a moment when the movie will confront any of the Angulos about how these circumstances hindered their transition into the real world. A scene of the boys at a beach where one of them refuses to get in the water comes close to addressing this dilemma, but rarely does The Wolfpack feel greater than the story of its surface.

That story is a remarkable one, but Moselle’s film only examines the tip of a monstrous iceberg. This is a family that’s undergone a distinctive form of cruelty, but the ramifications are hardly felt. The Angulos are already moving on from their past. Far too many details, such as how Moselle encountered or gained access to the Angulos, are left out of the final film. Several critics have voiced skepticism, either half-seriously or jokingly, of The Wolfpack’s truthfulness. I don’t doubt the authenticity of Moselle’s documentary; however, the murkiness of aspects in the Angulos’ story makes it easy to imagine much of the movie coming from an exaggerated truth instead of the full truth. Moselle discovers an incredibly scary circumstance to grow up in, but doesn’t illustrate a huge amount of detail.

There’s an inevitability to these young men finding freedom with their age, and it’s exciting as Moselle documents their transition into normal people with varied passions. The Angulos’ individual identities aren’t fully explored (truthfully, it’s difficult to distinguish one Angulo from the next for most of The Wolfpack), but they each seem to find a form of vindication for escaping their father’s domain. You can’t help but crave a deeper dive into their lives, but The Wolfpack involves the viewer in a unique struggle and it presents its subjects empathetically. Despite the troubling circumstances of their lives, it’s gratifying to see the Angulos emerge strong from The Wolfpack. The unbelievable story of their upbringing provides an inspirational, albeit uncomfortable, backdrop for Crystal Moselle’s debut documentary.

An earlier version of this review was first published as part of our Tribeca 2015 coverage. 

Falconry, icy tundras, mystical healers, and a mother and son estranged. Claudia Llosa’s third film sounds on paper like a Narnian fantasy. It’s not actually, but watching the film is to play a guessing game of sorts. Within the first few minutes I was sure the film was meant to be dystopian. That might explain Jennifer Connelly’s rat-tail and why the entire film is set in an icy cold winter. But the film’s time period is never really established, which is fine for mystery’s sake, but the film makes a habit of offering only the peaks and no explanatory valleys. Its characters are seen only in their misery, pain, or exaggerated moments with very little buffer between to fill in the gaps of knowledge surrounding their personalities and circumstances. Llosa’s idea of filler seems to be beautiful icy and dreamlike shots that add to the dystopian fantasy, but not to the story.

Told within dual storylines set in an enigmatic future and an enigmatic past, Jennifer Connelly plays Nana, a mother of two boys, the younger of which has incurable cancer. In its opening scenes Nana travels with her sons, Gully and Ivan, to seek “The Healer” (William Shimell) a mystical man who has a cult-like following and hundreds of visitors all seeking healing for themselves and loved ones. Upon arriving at his healing shack, made of intertwined sticks, all of the people seeking healing are given wrapped pebbles. The one with the white one gets to be seen by the healer. Nana doesn’t get it, but she watches as the child of another family enters the stick shack. Ivan, who carries with him a pet falcon, lets his bird fly free. But the falcon gets itself trapped in the stick shack and accidentally destroys it. Nana’s attempt to help only gets her shunned by the livid parents whose healing has been interrupted and incomplete. Desperate for a ride home for her family, she agrees to force her son to leave the falcon behind. A livid father decides that’s not good enough and shoots the bird as it flies off. All a very somber start to the grimness waiting in the rest of the film.

Cut to the “future” where Ivan (Cillian Murphy) is grown, still a falconer, and has a wife and son of his own. A documentarian, Jannia (Mélanie Laurent), comes to interview him but is gruffly shot down when she starts asking questions about Ivan’s mother. His curiosity gets the better of him later, and when he gets Jannia to admit she’s seeking out the current location of his mother he decides to join her to travel to the Arctic circle where’s she’s last been spotted. Meanwhile, back in the past the Healer, Newman, reveals to Nana that the boy whose healing she interrupted with the falcon incident is now cured, and since he never touched the boy, he’s deduced she must have been the one to heal him. A bit of a slap in the face considering her cancer-stricken son. But she’s haunted by the possibility, and starts to seek him out to explore what this could mean. Unfortunately we’re not shown a lot about her investigation or acceptance of her role as a healer, with very few questions around this very mystical side of the film answered.

Connelly plays stony maternal to great effect. She’s by far the most mesmerizing aspect of the film. The moments we get with her and Ivan as mother and son are great, but never steeped in much warmth. Her eventual abandonment of Ivan feels unwarranted, but is just one of several contrived plot points meant to lead to the second storyline. The only relationship that attempts emotion is weirdly between Ivan and Jannia, but doesn’t add up as we don’t know enough about why Ivan has become the man he is and because Jannia is a relative mystery until the very end when her hidden motivations are revealed (and unfortunately not at all surprising).

The snowy landscape, the fanciful falconry (a unique occupational choice that is, surprise surprise, given no backstory), and the sparkling eyes of both Murphy and Connelly do much to allure and create a sense of purpose to the film. But the gaping holes in the film’s story, clearly meant to entice and add mystery, only serve as frustrating barriers in fully connecting with what could be a gorgeous follow-up to Llosa’s Academy Award nominated film The Milk of Sorrow.

Originally published as part of our 2015 Tribeca Film Festival coverage

Immediately after watching John Maclean’s feature film debut, Slow West, I had a nagging feeling that his film style reminded me of another director. I couldn’t nail down his exact style, which is bright but gruesome, gritty but aesthetically pleasing, serious but absolutely hilarious. It didn’t hit me until after some serious thought who the best director to compare him to is. I hesitate to say it, given the high profile comparison, but Maclean has an approach that feels very similar to Wes Anderson. They both take characters that could be easy to simply laugh at, but whose heartfelt conviction is too winning to deny. They both pay close attention to the details of art direction. Heck, there is even a random moment of French-speaking, poetic love-pondering among strangers—very Anderson-esque. Both Anderson and Maclean have a level of self-awareness that adds an intriguing edge and humor. In the case of Slow West, this self-awareness lifts the film up beyond what, on the surface, could have been a run of the mill western with off-beat characters. Instead, what Maclean presents is a campfire tale just bizarre enough to believe and beautiful enough to entrance.

Young, Scottish, and totally out of his element, Jay Cavendish (Kodi Smit-McPhee) is making his way across turn of the century wild Colorado, heading west in pursuit of his love, Rose Ross (Caren Pistorius). A wonder that he’s survived as long as he has, Jay happens upon Silas Selleck (Michael Fassbender) as Silas holds up a Native-killing ex-soldier in the woods. Silas convinces Jay he’ll never make it to his true love alone and offers to take him for a fee. Jay, shaken by this recent encounter, sees his logic and agrees. They take off together, Jay trying to get to know his new trail partner, Silas making it clear he’s a loner.

Their first stop, at a tiny supply depot, turns unexpectedly violent when a poor immigrant family attempts to hold the general store up to steal money. Things escalate, in this brilliantly directed scene, to a bloody end. But this is life in the Wild West, death is all too common. Jay leaves the situation shaken, but stronger. Silas’s obvious lack of conscience, however, troubles Jay. Jay attempts to go out on his own, running into a kindly German writing a book on the diminishing Native American culture and population. “Theft,” he claims. Jay’s faith in the goodness of people seems momentarily renewed. Until he wakes up alone on the ground, all of his things stolen. Not the only example of humorous irony in Slow West. It’s used in abundance throughout, always with a subtle cleverness that makes for unexpected laughs at unassuming moments.

Unbeknownst to Jay, Rose and her father John (Game of Thrones’ Rory McCann aka The Hound) have a price on their heads, and Silas is actually a bounty hunter. Jay is leading Silas right to her. He isn’t the only outlaw interested in the high reward, however. As the paths of these lawless men cross, more about Silas’s past comes out, and his evolving personal integrity. To Silas, Jay’s undying love, (though it may be misplaced), and virtue are signs of the possibility of decent humanity in the West.

As the various bounty hunters descend upon Rose and her father—one a priestly-looking silent type with a sniper-looking rifle, the other Silas’s old mentor, the fur-coated Payne (Ben Mendelsohn)—it becomes an all out shoot out between the competing parties, as Jay rushes to defend his love.

The film is maybe less fairy tale and more cautionary tale, but the storytelling presented in the film is excellent. Not to mention peppered with Tarantino-quality fighting and deaths. But where Tarantino makes us laugh as reaction to his choreographed gore, Maclean’s humor is a bit higher brow. And the entire thing is infused with an honest and hefty measure of heart. It’s a difficult balance of emotions, and masterfully executed.

Fassbender, while never disappointing when presenting as cold and curt, turns out to have some decent comedic timing. Smit-McPhee takes the cake. His baby-face certainly makes his naive boy-in-love believable, but he adds a wise-beyond-his-years soulfulness that takes Jay beyond pathetic and upward to sweet and charming. The one most likely to be buzzed about after the film releases is newcomer Caren Pistorius as Rose, who holds very little screen-time but owns it when she has it.

Everyone’s on their A-game, including Jed Kurzel and his score (whose abilities to enhance ho-hum genre music we’ve most recently enjoyed in The Babadook). Slow West is the perfect example of a first time filmmaker who knows what he wants and how to invoke talent, making for a visionary and excellently finessed film. With a literal body count at the end, Maclean ties all his loose ends in the satisfying way of most parables. But, like he does throughout his film, what makes it ultimately so entertaining is how much the film goes against expectations, and for a Western—a genre filled with expectation—that’s no small feat.

A version of this review first appeared as part of our Tribeca 2015 coverage. 

Chris Bell‘s documentaries hit close to home. Often putting both himself and his family in front of the lens, Chris gets deeply personal in order to examine the issues that creep into the lives of ordinary Americans. With his first documentary Bigger Stronger Faster, Bell began by looking at the relationship he and his siblings (Mike, a WWE wrestler and Mark, a powerlifter) had to the world of steroids, as well as the expanding realm of cosmetic drugs. In the years since BSF‘s 2008 Sundance Film Festival debut, Bell’s focus shifted to prescription drug abuse with his new documentary Prescription Thugs. In part, it was a result of his older brother Mike, aka “Mad Dog”, who died in 2008 after struggling with a drug problem; however, at the time, Chris was harboring his own secret addiction issues.

In his interview with Way Too Indie from the 2015 Tribeca Film Festival, documentarian Chris Bell opens up about putting himself and his family on camera for his documentaries, confronting the duality of making a documentary about addiction while dealing with your own addiction struggles, and his early aspirations of directing a Rambo movie.

When did your interest in making documentaries first come about?
I never wanted to make documentary films. I didn’t even know what they were. I just wanted to blow shit up. Basically, I wanted to make Arnold Schwarzenegger movies and Sylvester Stallone movies. I was [going to] Gold’s Gym – I went to USC film school – and I met this kid Alex Buono at film school. I was telling him this whole story of a bodybuilding, fitness script I wanted to do. He was like, “You know all these people, you should this as a documentary.”

Once I got into it, it was so much fun and so poignant. I was saying things in the documentary that I could never say in a narrative film. Very rarely do narrative films change your life. For me Rocky, Braveheart were those kind of movies. If I can’t make something like that I think documentaries are the way to go. I like to clear out the bullshit and just tell the truth.

That’s what ended up getting me involved in documentaries and I’ve stayed in it because there are so many things that keep attracting me back to it. Every time I go to make something narrative I get pulled back in.

Right, if it doesn’t have that point, or some message you’re not as interested in pursuing it?
When I ask a lot of people about their film or their script, I’m like, “What point in the world is that going to make?” Not to say that those aren’t good or great films but for me I need to make a serious point with everything that I make.

A lot of your movies are really personal, as well. They involve your family, involve what you’ve personally gone through. Does that provide an additional motivation or is it challenging?
Well when we did Bigger Stronger Faster and my parents were involved I thought that nobody was going to care about [them]. We had our first test screening and everybody was saying, “I could watch a whole movie with just you and your family. Your brothers and your parents.” I realized after Bigger Stronger Faster, everybody said, “How’s [your brother] Mad Dog doing? I want to know how Mad Dog’s doing.”

To me that always resonated. I thought I had to do something [for] Mad Dog. I started watching all the old footage from Bigger Stronger Faster and I realized that a lot of people don’t know that he passed away. So if I start the movie with all this footage of him talking to me, it will look like a continuation of Bigger Stronger Faster. For a lot of people they were so shocked that he passed away.

I think that was a really great way to honor my brother. He was my hero my whole life.

When you’re making a documentary that’s dealing with something so painful, what’s the decision process like of choosing to document it?
Look, losing your brother sucks. Losing any family member sucks. Losing any friend sucks. The thing that you have to do is you have to look at it like, “How can my brother’s death not be in vain?” Yeah, it’s personal, but it’s way more important for me to tell you this story so that it doesn’t happen to you, and your brother, and your family.

I know a lot of people care about how much money their movie makes – I want this movie to be seen by everybody when they go to rehab or when they’re in high school. That kind of thing excites me. Health teachers and college professors, they email me all the time saying they showed Bigger Stronger Faster in their class. If we can replace the old school educational films with some really important, good documentaries then I think kids will be way better off. They’ll be much more informed, and that’s important.

Your documentaries are very engaging, you have central characters and your voiceovers directly address the audience. Is that a focus going into the filmmaking process?
It is, it’s kind of weird. When I first did Bigger Stronger Faster, some of the first criticisms were like, “Oh, he’s trying to be like Michael Moore.” Everybody says that because Michael Moore was the originator of that style but in Bigger Stronger Faster I actually never wanted to be in it. I was talking about like, “Hey, maybe we should get The Rock to narrate this!” I knew him from the gym and different things.

My producer’s like, “No you need to be in it. This is your story. You’re in the middle of this.” So once we started shooting I ended up in the middle of it. Everything was so organic that it just worked. It all came together and I think that’s [because] nothing’s forced.

When we did Prescription Thugs there was a lot of ‘Should I be in it? Should I not be in it?’ We tried to catch lightning in a bottle twice and see if we can do something that’s really impactful again.

How long did it take to put Prescription Thugs together?
Prescription Thugs is kind of a weird movie for me. I was going through my own addiction issues while I was making the movie. I’m now one year sober but in the past year I haven’t put a whole lot of time into Prescription Thugs because we had mostly shot everything and my partner was editing here in New York [while] I was in L.A.

It was a lot of work up front. I wrote the treatment, I got everybody together and while I was doing all this I didn’t realize that I had a really bad drug addiction that I needed to fix before I could make the movie. Then my partner Greg Young was amazing in the fact that he never faltered. When I went to rehab he thought to shut it down, he just wanted to keep cranking.

He kept putting pressure on our other producers like, “Hey we’ve really got something here.” I remember when he made the call to Peter Billingsley and all the executive producers that put the money in. He was like, “Hey, Chris is having a problem, he went to rehab, but he’s willing to put it all in the movie.” I wanted to make sure he told them that so they don’t think everything that we’ve done is for nothing.

There’s no hesitation in opening up that way?
Once I was in it this deep I had to tell the whole story, I had to tell the truth, I had to come clean. When I had a drug addiction problem I couldn’t tell anybody. When I met my girlfriend, I said, “Man, I can’t mess this up. I may never get this chance again.” After maybe two months with her, [she] was the first person I ever told. I told her I have a drug and alcohol problem.

After seven days of being clean I started having the shakes and having these withdrawals and I relapsed. After that she called my brother and my whole family bonded together [with my girlfriend] to help me. I went up to my parents’ house, I still had some Xanax in my, I was kind of loopy in bed, and I kept telling my mom, “Just call Richard Taite.” It was sort of like, “Help me Obi Wan Kenobi.” I kept saying it, “Call Richard Taite he can help me.”

My mom calls [my producing partner] Greg and she’s like, “Chris keeps talking about this guy Richard Taite.” Greg’s like, “Oh, we interviewed him, he owns Cliffside Malibu.” When Richard Taite found out what happened to me he was so willing to step in and help, basically save my life and change my life.

How did you struggle to make a film about addiction while dealing with your own addiction issues?
Everyday… Look, my soul is good. I was trying to do a good thing. When I first interviewed Richard he said to me, “I knew there was something wrong with you, I didn’t know exactly what it was but I knew that you had a problem.” I said, “Why didn’t you stop me? You’re an addiction specialist.” He goes, “You never get in the way of somebody doing something good.”

It all played out the right way. God has a way of making things come full circle so when [Richard] came back into the movie it was really interesting. None of this was planned, obviously, it’s just a crazy story. I was trying to make a movie about prescription drug addiction and I was still doing it. That’s what I want people to realize, that’s how powerful it is.

I haven’t had a drink in a year and I feel amazing. I haven’t been in better shape in a long time, I haven’t felt better. I think that that’s going to transfer into the next film I make, I’m going to smash it out of the park. I know that because I’m going to be sober the entire way.

From its premise alone it would be easy to discard Man Up in the same waste bin with Kate Hudson’s career from ’06 to ’09 and rejected Katherine Heigl movie pitches. After a night of heavy drinking, and yet another failed first date, Nancy (Lake Bell) gets mistaken for another woman at the train station only to end up on a blind date with Jack (Simon Pegg), a man that she actually could see herself dating. It feels unfair to try and defend the movie against all the romantic comedies that this one isn’t, because Man Up is an exceedingly charming unlikely love story with quick wit and hilarious performances despite any semblance to worse films. Having held its premiere at the 2015 Tribeca Film Festival, the movie is hardly a revelation within the rom com subgenre. The best thing about Man Up that less successful versions of this movie lack is Lake Bell in the lead role.

To this point in her career, Bell has largely been relegated to the supporting parts in films like It’s Complicated or No Strings Attached. Even her memorable TV appearances (Boston Legal, How to Make It In America, Children’s Hospital) feature her among an ensemble of funny actors. It was Bell’s feature filmmaking debut in 2013, In a World…, that helped to exhibit her magnitude and versatility in a starring role. As Nancy in Man Up, Bell once again demonstrates her mastery of accent work, seamlessly adopting a British inflection to her lines. She’s able to sell rapidly exchanged pieces of dialog and broadly absurd physical comedy; however, Bell appears so earnestly genuine that it’s impossible to deny her likeability.

Man Up begins by moving through a raucous hotel-set engagement party as a couple sneaks away to copulate in their room. Locked away by herself in the next room is Nancy, reciting a list of mantras into her mirror. She hopes to overcome her anxiety about the man downstairs whom her friends have set her up to meet, but first orders room service to avoid being at the party. Eventually, her date goes poorly and the next morning Nancy is hung-over on a train to London for her parents’ 40th wedding anniversary. Across from Nancy’s seat, a peppy, optimistic 24-year-old named Jessica (Ophelia Lovibond) flips through a copy of a self-help book before giving her copy to Nancy out of concern. Unfortunately for Jessica, the man she’s arranged to meet for a blind date, Pegg’s character, sees the self-help book with Nancy and mistakes her for the 24-year-old he planned on taking out.

The implementation of a misunderstanding as the impetus for romance has been a staple of cinema since movies like Bringing Up Baby, yet its overuse has made the more recent occurrences frustrating to watch. Man Up largely, though not entirely, avoids this issue two ways. Firstly, the meet cute between Nancy and Jack is actually fairly relatable and sweet, with both characters attempting to diffuse an awkward situation in a friendly way. Secondly, the misunderstanding is dealt with somewhat early rather than strung along for the duration of the film to provide a cheap, unnecessary twist in the third act. Nancy reveals that she’s not the woman Jack anticipated going on a date with less than halfway through the movie, and the two characters reassess their situation and advance the plot. The changing relationship dynamics throughout Man Up helps keep the Jack and Nancy romance engaging.

The pace at which all of the characters deliver their lines maintains a lively energy as scenes barrel forward. When the writing hits a false note, as it does a few times in the movie, the bevy of silliness and funny repartee surrounding it elevates the mediocre moments. There’s an infectious tone in Man Up, one that’s played for some broad laughs, but is mostly written to feel real. While the extent to which certain situation are heightened can be preposterous, the performances of both Bell and Pegg ground the film in a version of reality, and provide likable, empathetic characters in the lead roles.

The inconsistency of the humor does put a slight damper on Man Up as a whole. Rory Kinnear plays Sean, an old schoolmate of Nancy’s who had a crush on her, and goes to the extent of manipulating an uncomfortable kiss from her in the women’s bathroom. Kinnear’s performance becomes such a caricature that Sean feels like a character written for a different, dumber film. Sean and Nancy’s “intimate moment” gets interrupted by Jack, who enters the restroom despite Nancy’s not having been away for an egregious amount of time, and doesn’t act apologetic for intruding. The scene registers as forced in comparison to the rest of the absurdity in Man Up, which develops more naturally despite its wackiness. The occasional logic flaw breaks the momentum of some scenes, but is far from enough to disrupt the thoroughly pleasant experience in Man Up.

Fewer and fewer romantic comedies have broke through with audiences in the past few years. The only films in the genre to surpass $100 million at the domestic box office anytime this decade were Just Go With It ($103M), Valentine Day ($110M), and Silver Linings Playbook ($132M). Occasional subversions of the romantic comedy norm (Appropriate Behavior or They Came Together recently) manage to earn attention with critical acclaim, but rarely does the genre produce something quite as comfortable and entertaining as Man Up. The movie likely won’t amass a huge box office haul or garner the type of enthusiastic reactions that its more unique romantic comedy counterparts receive, but its charms are hard to resist and welcomed in an environment lacking quality films of its type. The combination of Bell and Pegg with fast-paced material and a few broad set pieces makes Man Up a completely enjoyable modern rom-com.

Don’t tell Tess Morris that the romantic comedy is dead. As a self-described “romantic comedy scientist,” she’s an ardent defender of not just her upcoming romantic comedy Man Up, but the genre as a whole. Her creative counterpart Ben Palmer wasn’t quite so bullish on the prospects of rom-com prior to reading Tess’ script. “I thought I would know what this script would be, I thought I knew what a British romantic comedy would entail, and it probably wasn’t for me.” Within the first couple of pages of Morris’ script, Palmer recognized that Man Up had qualities to make it an  endearingly entertaining romantic comedy. Together with their lead actors Lake Bell and Simon Pegg, both Palmer and Morris crafted a sweet, funny film that feels fresh amidst its familiar beats.

Chatting with Way Too Indie at the Tribeca Film Festival, Man Up screenwriter Tess Morris and the film’s director Ben Palmer go over their new movie’s entry into a harsh climate for the romantic comedy. They also discuss the benefit of casting great actors to star in your comedy, being inspired by a real-life missed connection, and the origins of the term “cute meet.”

Watch the full video interview on Way Too Indie’s YouTube channel

Romantic comedy, at least in recent years, has sort of taken on a negative connotation. Did you ever find that an obstacle when putting together Man Up?
Tess: No, I absolutely love the romantic comedy genre and I get very angry when people are dismissive of it.

Ben: Careful, Zach.

Tess: Sorry, careful, Zach. Yeah. I get quite irate when people say, “Oh the rom com is dead or whatever,” because I think you never hear that about thrillers or horrors or any other genre of filmmaking. For me, I wanted to write an unashamedly romantic, comedic film. It’s really only now that it’s coming out that we’re finding a lot of people saying to us, “I really enjoyed it! A romantic comedy!” And we’re like, [straining], “Yay!”

Ben: I think that’s good though. I think that’s good. It was certainly an obstacle for me because I’m the first to admit–

Tess: –because you’re an idiot.

Ben: Well, yeah, I am. When I was sent the script, I thought I knew what this script might be. Thought I knew what a British romantic comedy might entail and it probably wasn’t for me. It was within reading the first couple of pages of Tess’ script that you go, “Oh hang on a minute. This is very different. It’s sharp, it is really, and it’s very, very honest. And it’s really funny.”

At no point did it feel sort of schmaltzy or sentimental or patronizing, which was my expectation. At the same time it didn’t feel like it was trying to be snide and cynical, or take the piss out of the genre as well. It was very heartfelt and very emotional. It had all of those ingredients. That’s a very hard thing to pull off.

Tess: I like it when men respond to this film because—I like to think that I just write people. I’m not necessarily only writing the ladies.

It’s not a “chick flick”.
Tess: It’s not a “chick flick” in that sense but at the same time we also want to sell it as a “chick flick” in a good way because it is also a “chick flick” and there’s nothing to be ashamed of. It’s kind of like, “It’s a film!” [laughs] It’s a romantic comedy that men and women, cats and dogs, whoever can go see. Of any sexual preference. Of any whatever. I was saying to someone earlier, I think when you come out of the film you should just feel hopeful. Not necessarily about your love life but about life in general.

Ben: When we did the screening somebody came over to me and grabbed me by my shoulders, a guy, and said, “I loved your film! I’m going to go out there and get myself a girlfriend now!” And he all but spun around and ran out the door.

Tess: And then we were like, “We should film him for a documentary!”

The follow up, Manning Up.
Tess: Yeah, exactly.

When did you first start writing the film?
Tess: Well it actually happened to me. I was under the clock at Waterloo and a guy came up and said, “Are you Claire?” And I said, “No, I’m not Claire.” Then he walked away and I thought, “Maybe I should have said that I was Claire.” Maybe just because I’m single and then I didn’t say that because I’m not a total maniac like Nancy. I then thought, “What a great premise for a set up in a film.” From that moment on I had my cute meet. I could then just run with it.

I also wanted to set something over a small period of time. Just mainly because I’m a lazy writer and I find it much easier when I’m given a sort of contained environment to do something in. Also I just feel like there hasn’t been a one crazy night British movie for a while. It was all based on something that actually happened to me and we were saying earlier I wish I could find that dude and thank him.

Ben: Well this is your opportunity.

Tess: Yes, if you’re out there guy that thought—this is like 5 years ago, probably, October 2010.

Ben: Describe him.

Tess: Kind of light brown hair.

Ben: Right. That’s narrowed it down. Waterloo.

Tess: You were a man.

Ben: You came and said something to her.

Tess: You thought I was Claire, you may be married to Claire now, that’s fantastic if you are. If you’re not…anyway, sorry.

You can throw him into the special thanks for the theatrical.
Tess: Exactly.

Is that a Britishism? The “cute meet”? I usually hear it as “meet cute”.
Tess: Yeah, I say it as “cute meet.” I use the Billy Mernit word. He’s a writer who wrote a brilliant book called Writing the Romantic Comedy.

Ben: Tess is a rom com scientist.

Tess: I am a rom com scientist. Badge.

You’re learned.
Tess: Yes, PhD in Romantic Comedy. [Mernit] calls it the “cute meet” and it’s only recently actually that a few people have gone “meet cute.” I don’t really know, actually.

Ben, at what point did you become involved with the script?
Ben: You’d written the script quite a while ago, hadn’t you?

Tess: Yeah, I wrote it on spec in 2011 and then I think you came on in 2013 from the end of the summer.

Ben: Four or five months before shooting. Got sent the script. I thought I knew what to expect and I had to convince myself that I definitely wouldn’t be doing it. That they’d sent it to the wrong person because I have slightly more cynical, irreverent sort of humor I suppose. The sort of comedy that I normally do.

So I thought—I was away on holiday—I’ll look at this on my phone, I’ll read the first 10 pages maybe and then I’ll politely say no. And I didn’t, I read the whole thing because she’s a brilliant writer. It suckered me in within the first couple of pages and it totally challenged my expectations of a romantic comedy. So I finished that and found my agent and said I’d love to do this.

I know you mentioned that cute meet actually happened to you, but that whole misunderstanding as the impetus for romance it’s kind of a staple of the romantic comedy. Were there influences you were drawing from when you were putting together Man Up?
Tess: I would say what I definitely had a sense of is [that] I wanted to find a modern way to do it. I supposed the one that did it well quite recently was The Proposal but then he’s pretending to be someone else rather than mistaken kind of identity. I wanted to find a way to have two people meet without knowing anything about each other which is very, very difficult in the modern world. I’m basically a bit of an Internet detective. If someone says to me, “Do you wanna get set up with a guy?” Give me a name and a location and I’ll know everything about him. I’m not even on Facebook and I can do that. Sounds a bit stalkery [laughs].

It’s impressive Googling.
Ben: Terrifying Googling.

Tess: But the point is that I thought for the audience [that] I’m not, for the sake of the audience, that I’m not going to make a whole film that is about someone pretending to be someone that they’re not. I didn’t want to do that. I want her to reveal who she is within that end of act one beginning of act two sort of sequence. I definitely thought, “Right. How can I do this and make it believable?”

That’s the thing. Not to be too hard on the romantic comedy but a lot of the ones you see and don’t like it’s just that the believability, the authenticity isn’t there. Is it the characterization of these two, of Nancy, that makes Man Up work much better?
Tess: I think it’s a combo.

Ben: It’s a lot of everything like that.

Tess: I obviously wrote them like that and then we got a dream team of Pegg and Bell to bring them to life for us.

Ben: There’s so many facets that go into it. It’s the storytelling, obviously, and it’s not feeling like you’re being patronized. Or told how to feel. In combination with that you’ve got your two leads. The film effectively lives or dies by the chemistry of those two performances. Those two performers. Thankfully with Simon and Lake they are so brilliant and they had that sort of spark from the first time we did the read through. When Lake came over from the States and sat with Simon we did like one blast through the script. They were so…

Tess: They just liked each other.

Ben: Yeah, they’re funny performers and they would crash each other’s lines. There was a real spark but also it felt very real. It’s how people talk to each other. It’s not heavy handed or cloying.

How did Lake Bell and Simon Pegg first get involved and did you format the script with them in mind?
Tess: Well we got Simon first and that was brilliant because he was actually about six months before Lake. Maybe a bit before. I actually did a draft with Simon. He obviously had some thoughts, some notes, and it was obviously just fantastic for me. I remember him going to me, “Can I sort of, like, send you some notes?” And I was like, “Uh, yes! You’re like one of my favorite writers. Really! Please! Send me your notes!”

So he did that and brought loads more to Jack. I suppose the draft he read maybe was slightly more Nancy-centric, and obviously because Nancy is very much based on sort of…me. I loathe to say that, exposing soul. But you know what I mean, I felt like I had definitely nailed her and I remember Simon saying to me, “I like Jack but he’s a bit of an idiot, isn’t he?” I said, “Yes, that’s exactly what he is.” So it was great having his kind of input. His comic timing is genius obviously.

Then Lake came on board a bit later. It’s quite interesting. Two actors who also write… But it was like a dream scenario. Lake did exactly the same as Simon in terms of offering up her own, “Can I say it like that? What about this?” So really I got incredibly lucky. I can imagine if you got actors that don’t write but want to write. But I had Lake & Simon who were two brilliant writers going to me, like, “What about that bit? What about that bit?” I remember having a big conversation with Simon about the Barbie joke on the train. Lots of stuff like that.

Ben: Based on that read through because they were so messy with their dialog, like we do. You talk over people’s lines, you don’t hold back. That all helps with that authenticity that you’re talking about and that realism. When they did this read through you’re going, “We definitely need to cross-shoot this whole film.”

Which is what we did. Then that gave us the freedom to shoot multiple, multiple takes. So you do those first few takes where you preserve everything in the script and you don’t overlap any of the lines. Then you crank it up faster and faster.

It has that very ping-pongy nature to the dialog. How much of that is in the script and how much of that is just through the rehearsing and practicing of these scenes?
Ben: There’s a lot in the script. There’s a lot in the script straight away and that was the enticing thing from the off. That Tess had captured that dialog and that banter so perfectly.

Tess: I love dialog. It’s my favorite thing—I was going to say in film but just in life. I love listening to how people talk. I’m a bit weird like that, I’ll always have my notepad on me and if people say things—you can’t really be friends with me because things will end up in a film that you have said.

Ben: Let that be a warning.

How different or similar then is it from the one you first wrote or read?
Tess: It’s not different. I mean, obviously I’d say that, I wrote it.

Ben: There’s the usual cutting and trimming just to get that pace and that energy throughout.

Tess: We had a scene that we lost. I don’t know if it’s going to be in the deleted scenes but the “More Than Words” thing. It was quite a key scene where Simon and Lake sing “More Than Words” by Extreme. We have to put that on the internet somewhere at some point. But the problem is they got too good at it, they were too good at singing. They were like amazing.

Ben: There was restructuring as we were going along just a little bit. But I think because it was tightly script, the final film feels like there should be elements of improvisation in there because there’s a naturalism to it. There’s obviously quite heightened, big set pieces, but the core of it feels very realistic.

In a way it’s a compliment if people think that people think it isn’t heavily scripted. It means you’re doing something right. I think that was the approach, making those characters and that dialog feel as real and as honest as possible so then when you hit those more farcical set pieces you believe those characters and you roll with it. You don’t question it in a way.

There’s some very big moments and Sean is quite a heightened character but your bedrock of Jack and Nancy, you’re in and you’ve got them. So people just buy it after then.

And there’s a building to that absurdity as well.
Tess: Yeah, exactly. It builds. When I watch it now with people seeing it for the first time I’m really acutely aware how in the third act people suddenly go, “Ahhh.” Because I think they suddenly realize what’s been plotted for them. Someone was saying the second time they saw it they got even more from it the second time. I think there are quite a lot of jokes that maybe you could miss in the first viewing of it. Basically pay to go and see it twice.

Ben: It’s a very mercenary approach. But you need to I think.

Tess: Yes. Twice. Twice viewed.

We’ve got yet another giant-sized show for this week on the Way Too Indiecast! Joining your regular host, Bernard, on today’s podcast are three familiar faces, plus one very special, very indie guest. Indie filmmaker Kevin Chenault joins the show in our first segment to talk about his latest movie, Different Drum, as well as share his favorite road trip movies along with Bernard and Way Too Indie head honcho, Dustin Jansick. After the break, we say goodbye to the boys from the midwest and welcome in Ananda and Zach to talk about the highlights and lowlights from the 2015 Tribeca Film Festival, which just wrapped up. Plus, as always, our indie picks of the week!

Topics

• Indie Picks of the Week (2:30)
• Different Drum (10:40)
• Favorite Road Trip Movies (14:30)
• Tribeca Wrap-Up (33:18)

WTI Articles Referenced in the Podcast

Of Horses and Men review

Different Drum review

Along the Roadside review

2015 Tribeca coverage

TransFatty Lives review

(T)ERROR review

Among the Believers review

The Wolfpack review

The Overnight review

Grandma review

Slow West review

Subscribe to the Way Too Indiecast

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• and don’t forget to leave us a rating and quick review!

With films like In The Company of Men and The Shape of Things already in his filmography, Neil LaBute has developed a reputation for creating provocative, occasionally inflammatory material. Which is why, at least in part, LaBute ventured to develop a “sweeter” project in Dirty Weekend. The film stars Matthew Broderick and Alice Eve as work colleagues whose business trip gets diverted to Albuquerque, New Mexico, where they ponder indulging in a “dirty weekend” away from their significant others. Despite any intended sweetness, the movie still proved too challenging for at least one pair of movie-goers. “I had one couple close to me [leave] together,” LaBute acknowledges. “It didn’t seem to come at a point, like, ‘Oh, that’s offensive’… Two thirds of the way in they realized this wasn’t Furious 7.”

Speaking with Way Too Indie at the Tribeca Film Festival, LaBute, as well Dirty Weekend actors Gia Crovatin & Phil Burke, discuss the new movie’s enigmatic characters, the idiom that inspired the movie, and Phil’s favorite ballooning spots.

What was the initial inspiration for the film?
Neil: Probably the title. When you hear that term… I work over in England every so often, and when I first heard it I thought, “Oh that’s a good one! That’s a good title. But what’s a story that goes with it?” So I started writing a script that was going to take place in England. Made sense, right? We get the chance to finally make it, [we] had to make it in the States. We’ve got to find a place, all the things that go into independent filmmaking. All the economic madness of ‘Hey, we’ll have to do it here. Try and make this work.’

So we made Albuquerque work for Albuquerque, but having worked with Alice Eve before, who does a very credible American dialect, I said, ‘You know what, this time let’s go with the English dialect. You’ll be the one to explain what a dirty weekend is. Coming from you it will make sense.’ I didn’t want to give up the title, but for a couple of Americans it didn’t make quite as much sense.

If it had been set in England do you think you would have had her do an American accent?
Neil: It’s possible. Yeah, I mean we certainly thought about it when we did Some Velvet Morning. We knew in the beginning that in the end she would her dialect, but it made more sense to me because she actually is English to have her switch and be American. It was like, “Wait, she’s really English!” So it was nice to have her use her own dialect, and be the one to explain what [a dirty weekend] was.

But that just lead to this idea of a buddy movie. A road picture about two people who weren’t in love and had their own kind of private, very specific thing that’s going on in their personal lives. And how we don’t really know the people we’re around. We’re around so many different people, it’s not like we’re in the same office for ten years, so we’re constantly around people and so you know them even less. As intimate as it suddenly feels for two or three weeks, you become quite close but you are actually working hard enough and fast enough that you don’t really know them very well.

It’s one of those things where it’s interesting to see two people discovering things about each other that doesn’t lead to a romance. That they’re still in kind of the same place that they were. That they’ll probably just go on with that. What I liked about it, the events that took place weren’t life changing. I think once he figured out what had happened, he does it again. He doesn’t go, “Oh, I shouldn’t do that,” he tries it again. Then it’s like, “Wait a minute, maybe that’s not the answer to life. Maybe I still have all my problems, I should just go home and deal with that.” One thing kind of begets the next thing.

I thought it was curious how you mentioned sweetness at the premiere, I’m not sure it’s a word that you could attribute to the movie if it had come from most other filmmakers, but I totally see it with your movie. It’s there, but there’s all this content that’s much less heart-warming. Was the sweetness your driving force in putting the characters together?
Neil: No, I think it happens in the process. Actors tend to warm up the character because they’re alive and tangible. You go, “Oh, they’re just like me. They have problems and so I can identify with that person.” So you put some actors together, they start breathing life into those characters, and suddenly I saw how real those people were. Then you start carving away at that and thinking, “How can I make that the feel of the movie?”

As strange as the little odyssey is that they’re on, it’s really coming from a place of desire and frustration and wanting a real connection in their lives. So I think the same for [Gia’s] character [and Phil’s character] who’s just driving around and picking people up all the time, trying to make connections with people. It’s just about frustration, desire and that idea of connecting with someone.

Gia and Phil, how did you first get involved with Dirty Weekend?
Gia: I worked with Neil before in a lot of theater. He came to me with the script and said, “I think I have a sweet, little role here.” I read it and I thought it was really charming. I felt the whole script was charming and knowing that Matthew Broderick was involved, and Alice Eve–

Phil: –And Phil Burle.

Gia: I just think they’re both so awesome.

Phil: And Phil Burke.

Gia: I’m getting there.

Neil: She’s working her way up to you.

Gia: I just knew I wanted to be a part of it and part of telling that kind of a story about people who are trying to figure out how to deal with problems. My kind of movies are people who are sitting there and actually figuring out, discussing how they’re going to fix a problem.

I guess as an actor that’s what you really want to sink your teeth into is the figuring out of the problem, and how you come to a decision. So that’s what was exciting to me. And then Phil, who I’ve worked with before. Not together, but in the show Hell on Wheels.

Phil: I think we’ve actually done like three, four projects together?

Gia: Several projects together.

Phil: But we’ve never actually worked together.

Gia: So when I heard that he was a part of it, I was like, “Damn!”

Neil: That’s strange, I never realized that.

Phil: As for me, Neil gave me a call because he knew I was a big balloon enthusiast. So he was like, “What do you think about New Mexico?” I said, “It’s probably my favorite balloon spot on earth.” So he was like, “Well listen, man. I’m kind of doing this thing, you want to come down?” And I said, “Let me just fold my balloon into my backpack and I’ll head down to Albuquerque.” So I was very chuffed and very grateful to have the opportunity. Where he goes, I will follow.

Gia: Me too.

Neil: Thank you guys.

Phil: Yeah, absolutely. We’ve worked together before, and like I said, I mean that in all sincerity. I just love the conversations he brings up. Everybody last night was like, “What’d you think about it? What’d you think about it?”

Gia: All the theories.

Phil: “You know, what’s going on.” I love the conversation between these two people. The fact that it’s a practical relationship because they’re work colleagues. The fact that everybody’s got secrets. We don’t know the people who we actually spend so much time with. That conversation about discovery of each other but also, “Do I like this? Do I not like this? What’s up? Do I taste the rainbow again? I don’t know. Am I a big fan of Skittles? I’m not sure, I’m going to buy another pack and see how it goes.”

Neil: What a strange and wonderful analogy.

Phil: It was just a gift. It was always a gift to work with Neil. And Gia. Even though we haven’t worked together.

Gia: But we have. IMDB says we have.

Neil: Maybe that’s what the gift is. To not actually work together.

Phil: Basically we’re magnets. Pointing at each other but can never touch. Negative polarities.

Gia: It’s happening.

Neil: I’ve never understood [polarity] until you just did [that]. It never made sense to me. So many teachers tried to explain it and you just had a breakthrough.

There’s so much that’s left unsaid between these characters, these characters remain enigmas to a degree. How much do you consciously leave out the material that the audience may want to know but doesn’t necessarily need to know?
Gia: Are we talking about subtext?

Neil: Ew. I hope not. Well it was funny last night hearing a question about the brother and sister, and / or, “Are they really brother and sister?”

Gia: “They’re not really brother and sister.”

Neil: People kind of want things to work out for them so it’s just like, “Make me feel better.”

“Do they have to be brother and sister?”
Neil: Yeah. For having just seen it, people built a relatively elaborate backstory for as to why they really weren’t [brother and sister]. About how protective it was for their psychological well-being. I was like, “You thought about this a lot more than I did really. I just wrote down a brother and sister and you guys have found so many ways to make them not brother and sister.” It’s sort of whatever works for you. I think that life rarely explains itself, at least not in an hour and a half. People are funny and complex, not everything works out the way you think.

That’s ultimately why it was important that once Matt’s character found [Gia] was to go through with it again, and not learn a lesson before he did that. Here’s a guy who’s so uncertain about how he felt the experience he had that he could have walked away without having it again but he probably should have it again. And then realize that it’s not the key to the universe. Same for Alice, that she was left in a place that she’s uncertain about her future, her relationship. All they know is they still have a job and these relationships are kind of going good or bad and that life will go on. This guy doesn’t have a profound reawakening, he just wanted to get home. Maybe change his life a little bit.

That’s sometimes the best stories. The small ones. So for me, it was one worth telling. To find something that was different than what I’d done before and didn’t have all the answers. I think my job is to raise questions, not to provide answers.

Then in portraying those characters, is there anything you have to do as an actor to fill in those details that aren’t provided in the script?
Phil: [to Gia] Did you try going out and being a prostitute?

Gia closes her mouth and mimes locking a key

Gia: Hookers never tell.

Neil: Hooker with a heart of platinum.

Gia: I think that you should, for yourself, have a sense of a backstory. It’s fun. I mean, come on. It’s super fun to create stuff. I know that Phil brought so much to his character. The hula lady. Your Henry V script.

Neil: Just physical things he brought with him.

Phil: Physical things.

Gia: Physical choices.

Phil: And my balloons.

Gia: And your balloons. But it’s fun to create the stuff that’s left unsaid, but also to leave room for on the day, when you get there, the surprises that magically happen in filmmaking. When you’re with another person and navigating what’s happening. So for me, it’s the balance of having the two. Honestly, Neil’s words are so perfectly chosen. The script is just right on, and how you want it, that you don’t really need to do a whole lot more. It’s there for you so you go with that and I think that’s the preparation that you need.

Phil: I think I would agree. I think G.C. is nailing it down.

[Gia throws finger guns]

Phil: And with the flare.

Neil: Authentic gang–

Gia: Albuquerque!

Phil: I spent the movie in a cab, but what I like to do for a lot of projects I’m with I like to try and be everybody else’s character. So I was a prostitute for a couple of days in New York which made a lot of money. Which was great. My girlfriend didn’t like it very much, especially with all those guys I was hanging out with. Which really actually brought me to these gay clubs, which funny enough, I don’t know how that happened.

Neil: You’ve gone down the rabbit hole.

Phil: It’s one of those things when you’re prepping for a role you want to get as informed as possible. New York’s a great place to do that especially when you want to have dirty choices that lead to dirty weekends. Boom!

Jason Sudeikis is primed this year to be our ’90s rom-com Tom Hanks if we let him. With two romantic comedies out, both of which played at Tribeca, he’s smoothly proving he is up to the challenge of being a leading, wooing man. With the upcoming Sleeping With Other People, he has the sexy friendship-turned-romantic bit down à la Tom Hank’s in You’ve Got Mail, (though decidedly more modern and with a lot more sex), and in Tumbledown he zones in on the hopeless widower meets potential enemy turned love interest like Hanks in Sleepless in Seattle—but with the roles reversed and more antagonistic. Ok, so he’s not as wholesome-sex-symbol as Hanks, but when it comes to melding the old rom with the new com, he does an excellent job. Unfortunately the sparse and rather predictable small-town comedy of Tumbledown isn’t much for Sudeikis to work with, and he’s not even this film’s leading role.

Rebecca Hall is the film’s lead, playing Hannah, the widow of an Iron and Wine-style folk musician named Hunter with a huge following. It’s been a few years since his death and, as a sometime writer and journalist, she decides to try and tackle writing his biography. She spends a lot of time in their wooden lake cabin in Maine, near the town she grew up in, hanging with her two pit bulls and occasionally getting it on with local meathead Curtis (Joe Manganiello). Almost immediately after delving into the biography, a new guy shows up in town, Sudeikis’s Andrew McDonnell, an academic with a passion for Hunter’s music. He’s been leaving Hannah messages, which, if she hadn’t ignored them, would have tipped her off that Andrew is also starting a biography of Hunter. Immediately defensive, and because people don’t act all that rashly in rom-coms, she steals Andrew’s writing journal from his hotel and begrudgingly realizes he’s a pretty great writer. But she sends him packing anyway, determined to do this herself.

Griffin Dunne plays her friend, a bookstore owner, and the local newspaperman. When she hands off her first few pages of the book, he gives her some honest feedback. She has a series of memories, but they don’t a good book make. So Hannah hires Andrew to write the book with her. He moves in temporarily to get to work, and there is immediate animosity between the two. Hannah isn’t quite sensitive enough to his ego and he’s a little too familiar and assuming when it comes to discussing her dead husband.

Together they (of course) discover a few new things about Hunter, and each other. The real lessons lie in Andrew’s assumptions about Hunter, entirely based on his own life hardships and the way he thinks a talented musician’s life should look. Hannah has the expected problem of letting go of her dead husband.

Hall and Sudeikis have a reasonable amount of chemistry in the film. Their characters play into a few devices, but there are enough outside revelations to maintain interest in their ongoing story. Hall, who seems best when playing endearingly difficult, is easy to like. But, as sometimes happens, her own personality is shadowed by the interestingness of her dead husband. If first timer Sean Mewshaw (along with screenwriter Desiree Van Til) had thought to include more back story about what brought Hunter and Hannah together, it may have helped round her out a bit.

Dianna Agron shows up as Andrew’s throw-away girlfriend, a useless character meant only to contrast with how different she is from Hannah. And Blythe Danner and Richard Masur are charming as Hannah’s parents, if only given about one scene apiece of meaty material.

Tumbledown is tender, but not compelling. It’s a comedy where the tension is far more interesting to watch than the eventual coming together. The more dramatic bits, focusing on Hunter’s death and the impact of losing the love of one’s life, provoke the most emotional response, whereas the romance playing out seems to pale in comparison to the one Hannah already had. The music of the film, sung by Damien Jurado, is sad, lilting, and makes Hunter an easily believable genius. All of the elements making up Hannah—her community, family, and past—make the film a cute watch. Her progressing relationship with Andrew doesn’t compel quite as much as the rest. Overall, Tumbledown is a pleasant and sweet tempered film, and Hall and Sudeikis are lovely though simple in it, but it certainly isn’t aiming to be one of the great roms or coms of the century.

While they were simultaneously attending NYU, Shut Up and Drive actress Sarah Sutherland had heard buzz about the film’s director Melanie Shaw. “She was sort of this golden child of Tisch film,” she mentions in Way Too Indie’s interview with the Shut Up and Drive cast. Shaw’s process of working with actors, collaborating through improv to develop a character, was a prospect that excited many of the actors in Shaw’s films. It’s also something that allows the world in Shut Up and Drive to feel authentic, with fully formed characters occupying even the most minor roles.

In Melanie Shaw’s interview with Way Too Indie, the fresh filmmaker discusses her method of incorporating improv into scripts, how films evolve through the production process, and her self-critical thoughts while watching her films.

Was your premiere a fun day or do you get nervous for things like that?
Oh, sitting there watching anything you do — you can’t [laughs]. All you see is like, “I could have done that, and I could have done that. What is going on?” That’s all that you see, you don’t see anything [you like] — but everyone once in a while you pick up something you like. But that is what it’s like.

When did you start working on Shut Up and Drive? When did the idea first come to you?
Two of my friends came up with the story. My friends were Zoë Worth, who’s in the film, and Kelsey McNamee — they brought it this to me, we developed it together. We have a process of doing a lot of a lot of improv. We will develop a specific story for specific actors, the characters for them, and work on it with them. Do scenes with improv, put that into a script, improv again, put that back in a script and keep going. Then Sarah [Sutherland] came along and we began to really craft these parts to make them for Zoë and Sarah.

So it all came out of rehearsals and practicing it together?
Yeah.

The characters are then very much geared for these actresses.
Yeah, exactly. Each actress had a lot of input into their part, and really were a part of coming up with the script, which is kind of an incredible thing. That way you can really show off the performances. I just think it’s a more interesting way of shooting.

How much time were you actually in the production process, actually making the movie?
Pretty short; very short shoot. I want to say two weeks but it was a little more than that. Two and a half weeks, very short shoot.

You’re fitting a lot into a small period of time. How’d you accommodate for such a short shoot?
I thought that one of the biggest [obstacles] was — basically, I’m used to working with the same few people and oftentimes they’re my friends. I’ve been doing that for a while. Just having new people and learning very quickly how to talk to them, how to communicate with people that you don’t really have a way communicating [with] already. I think that that was the biggest thing.

How different does this movie look than when you first envisioned it?
I think that it looks really different but I think that all films do that. Every film changes so many times and I think you change the film to go with the actors, or to go with different things. Hopefully you still keep what it was always supposed to be. I would say that the film changes when you write it, it changes when you cast it, it changes when you shoot it, it changes when you edit it.

Is there something you can identify from that production process that influenced the final movie?
What I do see is I see elements of each of actors being brought into the characters. It’s incredible to see them in the film. I guess that’s what I like to see in performances so that’s what I was interested in.

Are you working on anything else coming up after Shut Up and Drive?
I’ve been doing a short with one of the actors who’s in this film, the guy who plays Milo, and I guess that’s it? Small shoots.

Shut Up and Drive co-stars Zoë Worth and Sarah Sutherland attended NYU at the same time as their film’s director Melanie Shaw; however, Zoë & Sarah’s relationship extends even further back than college. Friends since the age of 12, the two actresses forgo any seeming familiarity with one another in their roles of Laura and Jane. In Shut Up and Drive, Sutherland’s Jane becomes anxious when her boyfriend Austin (Morgan Krantz) suddenly moves to New Orleans shortly after his childhood friend (Worth’s Laura) starts to stay in their home. Unable to live together without Austin around, the two women embark on a road trip from Los Angeles to New Orleans, forming a bond along the way.

In an interview with Way Too Indie, Zoë Worth, Sarah Sutherland and Morgan Krantz, as well as the film’s director Melanie Shaw, discuss “unknowing” each other, watching the film with an audience for the first time, and their deep love of Marfa, Texas.

How was your premiere day?
Zoë: I thought it was great, I thought it was so crazy, and when I got on stage for the Q&A I thought the room looked really big.

Sarah: Morgan and I had the unique experience of watching the film for the first time at the actual premiere, which is really exciting and made it [an] extra high octane experience.

What’s that experience like of seeing something you’re in for the first time with a live audience?
Sarah: I don’t typically watch myself so that was the first time I sat through an entire film I’ve been in, let alone one I haven’t seen.

Zoë: You were such a big, brave dog I thought.

Sarah: Zoë held my hand! [laughs]

Zoë: It was great. It was really impressive. I left twice during the movie. I was singing.

Couldn’t be in the room for the singing scene?
Zoë: Uh, no. Not in surround sound.

Morgan: Really?

Zoë: No. Not the first time. Tonight I might watch it.

Morgan: I thought your singing was great.

Zoë: Thanks babe. Thanks.

So Zoë you were the co-creator of the story, how’d that first come about?
Zoë: Well, we have a friend named Kelsey McNamee. We were working in our theater company and after meeting one night we were like — wasn’t it really late at night or something?

Melanie: Yeah, or it became really late.

Zoë: It became late at night. The idea came because — it’s based on some real things, some not real things.

Melanie: We just stayed up talking all night. It came from some of the relationship and then it was sort of re-developed around Zoë and Sarah later.

Zoë: Yeah, but the “taking someone out of the picture” instigated a lot of the fiction parts.

Melanie: You and Kelsey were just getting to know each other which was kind of interesting, too.

Zoë: Yeah, and we were strangers and had this kind of loaded experience of being someone’s close, close friend. Being someone’s girlfriend.

How long did you two cultivate this idea until you started to assemble a cast?
Melanie: At least a year.

Zoë: Really? Is that true? I think you might be right. I think it might have been summer to summer. I talked to Sarah about it before that, probably six months. When we came to you, Sarah, did we have a script or did we have just ideas?

Sarah: No, there was basically a really detailed outline but Zoë was very stealthy about it where she came over to my apartment and talked to me about this story without saying she had me in mind for the part. Then she wanted me to meet Mel and sort of randomly called me and asked if I wanted to go to Disneyland the next day. So we go to Disneyland together and unbeknownst to me, I think Mel just wanted to get a sense of Zoë & I’s chemistry and if it made sense before she said anything.

At the same time I was going to [theater company] meetings. A lot of people write work and put up scenes. Zoë and I would do some work together. When I look back on it, it’s quite evident that the process was coming together but I was actually really surprised and profoundly flattered when they asked me to do it.

What was your initial reaction to what they brought to you?
Sarah: Oh, I loved it! I mean that’s the thing, I was so excited. Zoë and I talked for at least an hour and a half or two hours about this story.

Zoë: The first day.

Sarah: They were such cool characters and only the seeds in the beginning of what they came to be. Also I had heard such beautiful things about Mel. Zoe, Mel & I went to NYU and she was sort of this golden child of Tisch film that I had heard wind of [laughs]. I had also heard a lot because Zoë had worked with her prior, [I heard] about her process of working with actors and getting together, doing improvs. The emphasis on character and collaboration and improv. That kind of work is so exciting to me so it was definitely a really easy decision.

Morgan: When we started we just talked a lot in preparing for it about the relationships and the backstory and stuff like that. I was mostly trying to be conscious of the level of “douchery” with the character. Just because I thought it was a delicate thing. It was good seeing it, I feel like we did a great job. Mel was really helpful in guiding that. I think the process of [making] it really helped that character not be some sort of one-dimensional, “Oh yeah, he’s an asshole.”

Because we were a little looser with the dialog and stuff, I think that we achieved that he’s real. He’s self-centered but it’s not obvious. It was actually a really interesting thing thinking of what the real version of a self-centered person. Not like the movie version. We see it represented in movies and stuff all the time. “Oh yeah, he’s the douchey actor.” But the real version was interesting to reflect on as an actor, you know what I mean? When am I actually being self-centered?

I love the moment when she faints and then I’m like, “I’m going to go get you water,” but then I never come back. I just end up on the telephone. That’s stuff that I feel like I’m totally capable of. I think it was a fun line that I was trying to walk with them.

Sarah and Zoë, you mentioned at the premiere you’ve been friends since you were 12. What was it like adopting a different dynamic for this film?
Sarah: Well to begin with we’re really close in real life. I’ll just speak to Jane specifically, obviously when you’re playing a character you want to empathize with them. I have a lot of affection for Jane, but I think in general she’s more of a co-dependent, kind of needy character. [She’s] really grappling with her sense of self and ability to stand up, to say no. These things that I don’t necessarily identify with. So by way of playing a character that’s so different, immediately it changed our dynamic in the process of doing it.

Zoë: I’ll speak about being Sarah’s friend, Sarah is definitely not someone that defines herself through other people. Jane I feel her starting place in the film is definitely defining her life through her boyfriend. For me, unknowing each other is one big change. Then being strangers and getting to know each other that’s obviously something new.

My character Laura — Mel and I talked a lot about this idea of having no context. I feel like between Laura’s socioeconomic background, her creative passion and just her really youthful personality, I think that she’s someone who’s not bound by any rules. I think that that’s definitely different than me. I access my purest, most fun, passionate, creative self playing that role. She has no structure, is sort of how it is. That’s a really fun place to be to create from. Her influence was key in playing the part.

Sarah: I think also that our actual relationship in life helped us at points in the movie when the characters are starting to get to know each other better. The tenderness.

For the production you had to take the road trip your characters take, was there a favorite stop along the way?
Sarah: My favorite, I think this is what most people, was probably Marfa just because it’s such an unusual place to be privy to. I love New Mexico as well, I had never been there. It was incredibly beautiful, those sprawling landscapes.

Zoë: My favorite was Marfa, too.

Melanie: Marfa was the greatest.

Zoë: It was so fun and we were there for the longest time. I would say New Orleans was amazing, which it was, but we were there so quickly that I didn’t get to know it. I feel like I got to know Marfa, especially because it’s so small we did get to know Marfa. It’s only a few blocks.

Sarah: I had to say that the county fair actually was also a highlight just because it was the most unusual experience that we otherwise wouldn’t be privy to.

Zoë: That was crazy.

Sarah: Because Melissa is committed to authenticity and we were in the real locations.

Zoë: Then we stumbled into real longhorns. A real longhorn ranch. That was real.

Just a happy accident of the shoot?
Zoë: Yeah! Within an hour of shooting we had met them.

If Blockbuster still existed (R.I.P.), Andrew Renzi’s Franny would be the equivalent of picking a family friendly VHS with a cover featuring an audacious aristocrat who looks amusingly like he’s about to learn a thing or two about what really matters in life, only to get home, stick it in the VHS player and discover you’ve actually gotten a film about a drug addict that happens to have money. A little jarring to say the least. Insert a score that would actually fit that fun-loving aristocrat comedy and feels ridiculously out-of-place in this more serious character study and the film feels like it has the cinematic equivalent of body dysmorphia.

Beginning with Dakota Fanning’s Olivia preparing to go off to college as her parents lay down the final decisions on the children’s hospital they are founding with their longtime friend Franny (Richard Gere), things are of course a little too happy to last. And they don’t, almost immediately Franny and her parents get into a horrific car accident that results in Olivia’s parents dying. Flash forward five years and Franny, also injured in the crash, lives a secluded life of luxury, maintained by a morphine addiction that mellows him out enough to at least sometimes hang out with the children at his hospital. Olivia calls from out of the blue one day. She’s married, she’s pregnant, and her doctor husband needs a job. As much addicted to philanthropy as he is morphine, Franny is more than happy to find Luke (Theo James) a position at his hospital.

Upon returning to Philadelphia, Olivia tries to pick up with Franny, guilty about having left when she did, distraught by her own grief. Franny is thrilled to have Poodles (as he calls her) back in his life, and eager to recreate the relationship he had with her parents, he begins to deluge the young couple with gifts. Franny’s morphine addiction catches up to him as quickly as the reality of him not being able to recreate the past does as well.

Mood-wise, the film is all over the place. The music tries to capture Franny’s wealth and pomp but seems to have missed the note that he’s also a crazed drug addict. A couple skin-crawling moments of drug addiction keeps things feeling uneasy. Fanning is barely given lines in the film, let alone a character, so it’s no surprise that what should be the driving relationship of the film ends up as lip service and static. Instead Renzi (who takes his first foray into drama with this film, and also wrote it) focuses on Luke and Franny’s strange power-play bromance.

Whether he’s in denial of his own place in life, Gere weirdly comes across as a younger actor trying to play an older man. He’s got the rich eccentric thing, but not enough of the world-weariness. James is probably the strongest performance of the film, but it’s a little too easy to see his Insurgent bad-boy at play, not enough softness with Olivia to even things out. Fanning’s constant wide-eyes and warm voice make Olivia likable, but she’s shortchanged in the writing and thus underutilized.

Franny clearly wants to be a great many things. Heartwarming, emotional, a character study, and an acting platform; it takes two hours to come to a conclusion that would take two minutes in reality. If only more of Franny’s outgoing wealth-induced charm felt real it may have tipped the scale toward an enjoyable film, but in the end the pity one feels leaving the theater is likely to be geared more toward their own wasted time then to anything happening to the characters.

Diane Bell’s second film melds her Masters degree in Mental Philosophy and her experience as a yogi in a film that thoughtfully, though somewhat obviously, questions the difference between living peacefully and living indifferently. The philosophical depth of the film remains somewhat shallow, building to an inevitable conclusion, albeit one that is incredibly satisfying. Bell, who also wrote the script, takes two modern opposites, a zen-like yoga instructor and an abused sex worker, to explore whether violence is an acceptable way to combat violence. Bell really only skims the surface of so broad a question, however, by providing a scenario where very few alternatives are provided.

The yogi is May (Jessica Biel), a yoga instructor about to open her own studio with her boyfriend Dex (Edi Gathegi). She’s been trying to track down her birth family and finally gets real news from the private investigator, she has a sister, and she’s not very far away. Despite Dex’s cavalier comments that May should wait to reach out to her newfound sister so she’s not distracted from their work, May can’t wait to connect with the sister she never had. Appearing on her doorstep her sister Susan (Zosia Mamet), or Shiva as her friends call her, is just as surprised to learn about May. Their mother died when Shiva was young, and she was put into the foster system and then fell in with her current boyfriend Cody (Joe Anderson), an emotionally and physically abusive type.

In trying to connect with her sister, May quickly learns Shiva has led a very different life then her own and is currently in a bad spot. Shiva, without any shame, admits to being a sex worker, Cody serving as her pimp, and makes it clear to May she doesn’t require any saving. May and Shiva get away for a night to May’s mother’s house in Santa Barbara without telling their respective significant others. May seems to want to hide from the results of the success she’s built, and Shiva may or may not be taking advantage of May’s good intentions.

Their bond appears to be mostly built on their shared bloodline, their obvious cultural differences being what they are. But when things start to heat up for Shiva, as Cody’s jealousy of her new relationship gets dark, and as all the privileged people in May’s life encourage her to turn a blind eye and ignore Shiva’s situation, the tension inside of May builds to a breaking point. Though it’s less a breaking point, and more a path that has been rather clearly laid out for her.

Biel and Mamet have an easy chemistry, if not especially strong. Biel hasn’t played this squeaky clean since 7th Heaven, and Mamet shreds her vapid, material girl image as Shoshanna from Girls well enough, aided by some heavy eyeliner. Her ambiguity and Neither of them seems too far out of their comfort zone, but play their parts well. Unfortunately the other characters play their roles with clear intention to serve their purpose to the story.

May’s mother, played by Kate Burton, is clearly sheltered, treating Shiva with clear disdain, and keeping her conversation with May focused on her intentions to re-decorate her already up-to-date manicured bedroom. Dax is so un-supportive it’s hard to believe May and he are destined to last, and he serves to push May away conveniently. And Cody is so blatantly abusive, one can hardly imagine a different fate for him.

The film, much of which is spent in May’s awesome vintage car, keeps up its rather neutral stance with some similarly neutral tones. The music also present, but un-intruding. It feels as though Bell was maybe attempting some juxtaposition between May’s zen-like life and Shiva’s chaotic and violent one, but she could have taken it a few notches further to better effect. But for all of its line-riding, Bleeding Heart does still feel especially gratifying in its conclusion. Bell tells a predictable tale, but it comes as a good reminder. She may not be trying to win the war on complacency, but she provides a soft-spoken genuflection toward the power of community.

A Congolese farmer with hopes of cashing in on a trade deal finds himself stuck in Guangzhou when an order on political t-shirts is complete months after the Democratic Republic of Congo’s presidential elections. An immigrant in a distant, unfamiliar land, Lebrun (Lebrun Iko Isibangi) struggles to adapt to life in Canton and the foreign culture surrounding him. The comedic docudrama Stranded in Canton, from Swedish artist Måns Månsson, is holding its North American Premiere at the 2015 Tribeca Film Festival; however, its intriguing premise is hindered by the inertia of its story.

Lebrun approaches his potential business transactions with little forethought. Arriving in China with big dreams but few practical skills, his hopefulness gets in the way of his entrepreneurial aspirations. Lebrun invests all his energy into half-baked ideas without a suitable backup plan to which he can revert. As his attempts continue to fail, Lebrun maintains a frustratingly unfazed outlook. His friends and acquaintances offer him advice, but Lebrun ignores their suggestions, determined to prove his worth as a businessman.

The eclectic cast of characters, as well as the unique perspective into burgeoning trade markets between Asia & Africa, provide a compelling backdrop for Stranded in Canton’s story, but the way the film belabors its central conflict grows tiring. There’s little developing within Stranded in Canton, and not much mood to reflect on. Måns Månsson’s movie is an inert examination into the life of an ineffectual would-be trader.

As the modern need for new programmers grows rapidly, a disproportionately low amount of women have filled those jobs. Despite American women earning 57% of college degrees, they represent less than 20% of computer science graduates. When director Robin Hauser Reynolds asks a group of young girls at the beginning of her documentary Code: Debugging the Gender Gap what they think a computer programmer looks like, the girls nearly unanimously respond with some version of, “a man.” By interviewing several high-profile female programmers and mining their insights, Reynolds seeks to uncover the obstacles that women face in pursuing math & science professions.

The documentary, making its World Premiere at Tribeca, provides a historical overview of the role women played in computer technologies, from Ada Lovelace to the programmers at Etsy. Highlighting the fluctuating percentage of the workforce made up of women through the decades, Reynolds pinpoints a culture shift in the 80s to 90s as a primary negative influence for women. Though the film largely avoids specifics, it emphasizes that the prevalence of the nerdy guy and “brogrammer” stereotypes have played a major factor.

The case presented argues that societal preconceptions for who should or shouldn’t become a computer programmer cause men and women to view women unfavorably for those jobs, both in how women are treated and how they perceive themselves. There is plenty of convincing evidence, but very little of what’s in the film comes as a surprise. Code: Debugging the Gender Gap is totally well-intentioned, but it’s an entry-level discussion point into the issues facing women in technology. Reynolds’ documentary is breezy and engaging, complete with slickly assembled infographics as well as talking heads from women that work for Dreamworks, Facebook, Twitter & other youth-friendly brands. It should make for a decently entertaining part of a middle school’s assembly programming.

25 years after “The Reset” left most of the world without power, Max (Ian Christopher Noel) receives a mysterious hard drive from a friend who recently committed suicide. Max is a hacker who lives on the fringes of the rebuilt society in Sector 6; however, when he’s unable to hack his friend’s hard drive, Max must recruit the law-abiding computer technician Simon (Josh Caras) to help him uncover nefarious hidden truths. Together in Jackrabbit, set for its World Premiere at the Tribeca Film Festival, Simon and Max seek the answers to a dead friend’s riddle while under the watchful eye of a mysterious, new world government.

First-time feature filmmaker Carleton Ranney establishes a retrofuturistic look to his film that blends modern technological advancements with DOS interfaces, VHS tapes, and bulky monitors. Both aesthetically and in its narrative, Jackrabbit raises a series of unanswered questions that make the story increasingly intriguing when it begins to unfold. Unfortunately, when the movie attempts to reveal its intentions, Jackrabbit becomes a nonsensical and tedious look at life in a surveillance state.

Scene after scene delivers sparing details as the characters interact slowly, and deliberately articulate as little as possible. The technique wouldn’t grow so tiresome if these scenes contained any tonal variety (the same can be said for Noel and Caras’ one-note performances). Max and Simon discover a minor clue about the hard drive left to them by their dead friend, only to follow that clue to another small clue in an endless investigation into nothing. There are vague allusions to an overreaching, corporate-run government and a group of rebels outside the city’s walls, but Jackrabbit leaves its enemies and the protagonists’ obstacles ambiguous enough to render them boring.

Jackrabbit moves through its story at such a lethargic pace it may lull you to sleep, desperately waiting for a third act revelation. Individual details are compellingly weird, but it would take the most attentive of audience members to parse meaning from many seemingly pointless actions. Despite its potential, and the film’s impressive production design, Jackrabbit is irritatingly dull and ends with a shrug.

James Franco, ever the prolific actor, is easy to find on multiple screens at once fairly often. It’s especially interesting, however, to have just watched him in the memoir-adapted, true crime focused True Story when his most recent vehicle is also based on a memoir, also about a writer, and also involves a high-profile murder case. Whereas he is the suspected murderer in True Story, in Stephen Elliott’s adapted memoir The Adderall Diaries, Franco wears the writer’s shoes. The writer being Elliott, who, deep in a state of writer’s block, takes an interest in the public trial of an accused wife-murderer.

Pamela Romanowsky’s directorial debut has a few of the same old drug-fueled and frenzied elements one comes to expect in melt-down films. The cinematography of Bruce Thierry Cheung maxed out in color, angled sideways, and sometimes slowed down in a pretty, if not unexpected, way. The music of Michael Andrews fits well, pulsing when called for, though maybe not especially stirring at times.

Franco’s Elliott is propelled through life, and his writing career, by a zealous hatred and capitalization on his abusive relationship with his father. The reserves of his grudge-holding run deep. Thus far it’s proven lucrative for him, as his first auto-biographical novel is doing well and he’s gotten an advance from a publisher for his next. Except he can’t seem to write it. He sees the trial of Hans Reiser (Christian Slater) on television and, much to the dismay of his editor (Cynthia Nixon), decides to attempt an entirely different sort of novel. This will be his In Cold Blood, he claims.

At the trial he meets Lana (Amber Heard) and, with one look at his motorcycle, the two begin a relationship steeped in their mutual brokenness, hers involving an abusive step-father. It’s of course when Elliott’s life seems most together that things must coming crashing down. At a reading of his first book, wherein he’s depicted the death of his mother to cancer at an early age and the chain-reaction this had on his relationship with his father and his relationship with drugs, Elliott’s father Neil (Ed Harris) makes an appearance. Bad news is a key part of Elliott’s memoir revolves around the supposed death of his mentally abusive father. When Neil shows up, publicly decrying the lies present in Elliott’s memoir, his entire reputation and career are at stake.

The film’s source material is all about the inaccuracy of memory, the way we select and remember out of context in order to suit our feelings on our pasts. Romanowsky depicts this theme in multiple flashbacks, sometimes tweaking them to be slightly different, to add more context, as Elliott progresses. Elliott’s words also appear on the screen as he types, letting us in on his personal way of mis-remembering. Elliott as the unreliable narrator of his own life is interesting, sure, but, well, unreliable. By his own admittance. It’s hard to hope for his redemption when he doesn’t just push people away, he selfishly tries to drag them down into his dark pity party.

Franco and Harris are on point, while Slater is severely underused, his plot line of very little interest. And, I admit, there’s a certain amount of guilt one has in finding fault with a real person’s attempt to share their own difficult narrative, but somehow blaming mis-remembrance as an excuse for self-destructive behavior reeks of falsity. You can’t play the martyr if the cause never existed. Romanowsky never wins audience trust, and her film gets distracted by the lesser fleshed-out true crime story, something I’m assuming Elliott does better in his book. Added all up, The Adderall Diaries confuses itself somewhat when laying out all its many themes, and despite Franco’s masochistic charm, his protagonist remains lacking in finding his way toward empathy.

Indian Point, making its World Premiere at the Tribeca Film Festival, gets its name from the Indian Point nuclear power plant that resides less than 40 miles north of New York City. The documentary from Ivy Meeropol takes a comprehensive look at the tenuous situation surrounding the future of the nuclear reactors in relation to the over 20 million Americans that live near the plant. While the problems regarding the implementation of nuclear power are far-reaching, Meeropol’s documentary takes a focused look at the situation in Buchanan, New York, as she follows several residents whose everyday lives concern Indian Point.

As the film begins, Indian Point looks as if it’s attempting to document the lives of the people who work at the power plant. Meeropol showcases the daily routine of Indian Point’s control room supervisor, as well as a couple other plant employees, who vouch for the safety of their plant. To a nuclear plant worker, it’s about risks versus perceived risk, and the risks appear minimal from the inside. The film’s scope then widens when it introduces Roger Witherspoon, an environmental journalist who has covered Indian Point for decades.

His wife, a local environmental activist named Marilyn Elle, is another prominent figure in the film. Like her husband, Marilyn attends any public hearing on Indian Point; however the couple insists on arriving separately so as to maintain professional integrity. Marilyn rails against the company and the Nuclear Regulatory Committee while Roger sits back, reporting. The interviews with Witherspoon and Elle provide the majority of Indian Point’s case against the continued existence of nuclear facilities, mining their years of immersion with the issues for a deep understanding of each side’s talking points.

Between Indian Point’s employees and the combination of Roger and Marilyn, the majority of the documentary’s interviews come from residents of the Buchanan area that have spent decades steeped in the debate over the nuclear site’s future. Condensing years of disputes makes parts of Indian Point feel like a bit of a general overview, which can be frustrating when an interviewee mentions structural damage as if were just in passing. Gradually, Indian Point’s seemingly even-handed approach fades, as informational screens warn of the immense dangers that nuclear power plants pose.

After Indian Point profiles a series of locals, the documentary turns its attention to the bureaucratic logjam disrupting progress on handling nuclear facilities throughout the country. In the wake of 2011’s Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster, the United States’ attention turned to its nuclear power plants, but none more threaten to harm a larger population than Indian Point. Former NRC chairman Gregory Jaczko plays a pivotal role in the documentary’s latter part; however, his interview appearance is surprisingly brief. During his chairmanship, Jaczko pushed for rapid changes to US nuclear policy before getting pushed out of his job. For Indian Point, he’s a particularly authoritative figure on the subject, and it might have been beneficial to get more of his insight. The documentary keeps its focus on Indian Point, the company that owns the facility, and the people most directly impacted by the nuclear site.

Indian Point outlines a lot of frightening aspects of real danger, but at points the approach feels like a bullet point summary of relevant topics. Several shocking revelations about Indian Point’s safety concerns are glanced over without a descriptive explanation of the problem. However, Meeropol includes such a litany of reasons against the continued use of nuclear reactors in Buchanan that her documentary becomes deeply chilling. Indian Point offers limited bits of information on many disconcerting facets to the Indian Point nuclear plant, creating a persuasive argument for greater scrutiny in our approach to nuclear.

The dispute over how to properly contend with terrorism skews toward ideological talking points in favor of a discussion about the people involved with terror. While terror is a global issue whose ramifications can be far-reaching, the actions taken by a terrorist are motivated by specific situational causes. Among the Believers ventures to personify those most directly affected by terror, speaking with Pakistanis who are both for and against extremist causes. From the hotbed of terror in Islamabad, the filmmakers of this new documentary gained unprecedented access inside infamous The Red Mosque, home to chief cleric and sharia law advocate Maulana Aziz, a fervent supporter of jihadist warfare. The chilling movie, making its World Premiere at the Tribeca Film Festival, is a shocking examination of the extremist movement in Pakistan.

Among the Believers hones in on the volatile situation in Pakistan by profiling a series of individuals that have differing relationships to Islamic terrorism. Most notable is Al-Qaeda supporter Maulana Aziz, who is shown leading the Red Mosque congregations in anti-Western chanting as well as literally pocketing money that’s been donated to the mosque. Aziz’s role isn’t simply to inspire violence and hatred among his followers; he’s also a prominent religious figure and thus a community leader. A young child stands in his office reciting jihadist rhetoric, then turns to Aziz looking for confirmation. When an elderly man approaches for charity, Aziz pulls from his pocketed stash of cash in order to help. These moments help to illustrate how a man capable of disgusting evils can endear himself to the public.

Many of the supporters for The Red Mosque become indoctrinated by the most extremist views of Islam in Pakistan’s madrassas. These seminaries offer to host, feed, and educate Pakistani children in the Quran for free, as opposed to Pakistan’s school that require children to live at home and parents to pay for the costs. As a result, the amount of madrassas across Pakistan has grown from 3,500 to 40,000 since launch of the Afghan war. While the madrassas plays an integral role in allowing Pakistani parents to give their children healthy lives, Among the Believers shows how many times these parents are unaware of the lengths to which their children are exploited.

In the madrassas, children spend all day memorizing the Quran. “We don’t know the verse’s meanings, we only memorize them,” says Talha, a young boy interviewed for Among the Believers. Like most children in the madrassas, Talha comes from a poor, rural area and had parents who were moderate Muslims looking for a good place for their child. By the time Talha’s father wants to remove him from the madrassa, Talha refuses, stating that if his father is wrong he won’t listen to his father’s orders.

The danger is documenting such unsettling material is slipping into fear-mongering territory, but Among the Believers steers clear of damning Pakistan or Islam as a whole. Sections with the 12-year-old Zarina, a young girl who escaped her madrassa in order to return home, demonstrate that even Pakistani youth can sometimes recognize the faults in the jihadist mentality. Amongst the other featured interviewees is nuclear physicist and education activist Dr. Pervez Hoodbhoy, who speaks out elegantly against extremism. During a particularly representative scene, Maulana Aziz and Hoodbhoy argue in a TV interview over the justification for recent acts of terrorism. Their ardent commitment to opposing sides of the debate underlines the inevitability of more conflict. Both sides feel deeply wounded and are unwilling to wave a white flag.

Among the Believers highlights the saddening, cyclical nature of the issues surrounding religious extremism, not just in Pakistan, but around the world. One problem feeds the next, and no one fix will alleviate years of mutual damage. Though it’s possible to find hope in Pakistanis continued pushback against the jihadist fervor bred by the Red Mosque and Maulana Aziz, the overriding realization is that these conflicts often reach an unbreakable impasse. Among the Believers exhibits the fraught situations that can cultivate an extremist ideology.

If suicide is a nonsensical act, leaving all in its wake confused and reeling, then Bridgend just might be its cinematic equivalent. Harsh, violent, and often lacking in reason, the film is a frustrating portrayal of fake people in a very real and very intriguing situation.

Based on real events and a real problem in the constantly wet and dreary Welsh county of Bridgend, where as of right now almost 80 teenagers have committed suicide since 2007. Which, rightly so, has induced rather a frenzy as adults scramble to figure out what’s happening with the youth of that area. First time director Jeppe Rønde’s film is set in this area, at an ambiguous point in the epidemic, but it is mentioned in the film the death count is around 23. The story is from the perspective of Sara (Game of Thrones’ Hannah Murray), who moves back to the Bridgend area with her father, Dave (Steven Waddington), after years away.  Dave, a cop, has come to lead the investigation on the suicide problem. It seems a bit naïve of Dave not to worry about putting his teenage daughter into the middle of a teenage-suicide-centric town, but their bond is tight and at first she keeps herself distracted from the locals by her horseback riding and generally cheery attitude.

But she is after all a teenager, and when a local girl, Laurel, invites her to hang with the main group of teens in the small town, Sara can’t help herself. This group, led by the shaved-headed Thomas, like to hang out by a lake in the nearby woods. Often stripping down and jumping in, drinking beer and building bonfires. Typical rebellious teenage stuff and Sara is entranced by this tight-knit group. When they head back to town, they stop at the spot where the latest suicide took place, in their version of paying respect to their dead friend, they stop to howl the name of the deceased teen at the top of their lungs. Clearly these teens find more satisfaction in uniting and celebrating their friends’ deaths more than grieving or asking questions. Sara gets her first taste that this group may not be as typical as she thought. Hearing that Thomas, who had shown an interest in her, has committed suicide only a few days later—literally the day after Sara came on to him—feels like it ought to strike more fear into Sara’s heart, but strangely just seems to bring her closer to the other teens.

Throughout the film, the teens communicate in an online community. A chat group where they mourn the growing loss of their friends, while simultaneously extolling that each is in another place. That they are “together.” None of these teens seem especially concerned that their friends are dying. Sara, herself, doesn’t ask nearly enough questions of her new friends until much too late in the film. And her father, the cop, seems hell-bent on being insensitive and unhelpful in the investigation.

While it’s difficult to draw too many conclusions about a real-life case that is currently still open, the picture painted by Jeppe Rønde is one of a strange resignation. In the film the parents of these children, while distraught, don’t seem to be trying all that hard to understand what’s happening to their children. Nor does anyone try to keep a closer eye on the teens still living. The total lack of clear-thinking and logical interrogation is rather frustrating. Rønde chose to focus on the characters of the film rather than try to suggest possible answers for a real problem, but unfortunately the characters all feel two-dimensional.

Sara and her father, while close at first, quickly spiral when he starts seeing a local woman, who isn’t present enough to be a real character. And Sara is so utterly transfixed by Jamie (Josh O’Connor, giving the best performance of any of them), the new leader of the group after Thomas’s death, and the others that it’s hard to see her as the “strong” person others in the film keep claiming she is. The few parents who do pop up, also seem motivated and blinded to reality in an inexplicable way.

All of this could have played into the film if Rønde had offered up some sort of suggestion for what exactly is influencing them all. Supernatural? Old-fashioned bad parenting? It’s quite hard to tell what we’re supposed to think. The film builds, somewhat jarringly, to a dramatic climax. The film’s deafening and uncomfortable music pulsing in a way that makes the confusion of what is happening on screen that much more annoying. If we’re supposed to be frightened, Rønde could have at least given us a hint at what we’re supposed to be frightened of.

Much of the imagery used, the teens floating naked in the dirty lake for instance, feels distinctly horror-ish, but it’s hard to feel any real sense of dread. This may be due to the true-story aspects of the film and the very real mystery they present. For a film that couldn’t provide any real answers, it doesn’t seem to want to try to provide any real guesses. The lack of questions make it a puzzling and disturbing film that feels off-putting because it’s using a real and tragic scenario. The phenomena of cluster suicide is a strange and mystifying one, but it is a psychological phenomena and therefore should have been treated with a bit more mindful consideration.

Traditional sake brewing in Japan dates back over 2000 years, but as manufacturing grows and sake sales decline there are fewer Japanese brewing companies that make sake through the traditional means. One such brewery still implementing the painstakingly arduous process of fermenting rice into alcohol is the Tedorigawa brewery in the Hokuriku region of northwest Japan. The sake company has been operating for nearly 150 years, and when it’s passed to the next heir in 2020, he will become the 6th member of his family to run the brewery. At Tedorigawa, a brewmaster guides his team of nearly twenty men through a procedure of steaming, kneading, and preparing rice over the course of 6 months. Documentarian Erik Shirai follows the group of sake brewers at Tedorigawa for a full year as they live together and craft old-fashioned Japanese sake in his new documentary The Birth of Saké, which has its World Premiere at this year’s Tribeca Film Festival.

Shirai develops an atmospheric feel to his film, primarily utilizing natural sound and the conversations between employees at Tedorigawa. The talking head sections are given less emphasis than real moments of collaboration that unfold during the brewing process. Shirai’s camera lingers on detailed close-ups of hands as they press the rice, or the puffs of steam that envelop various workers. Some of the director’s previous work was with The Travel Channel’s No Reservations, which makes sense given the enticing way he shoots rice in this documentary. The sporadic use of slow-motion in conjunction with the continuous, waving arm movements of the Tedorigawa staff gives The Birth of Saké a contemplative, meditative quality that’s occasionally entrancing. The method is so repetitive, and the workers’ routine has become so exact that the challenging process becomes oddly alluring.

That said, The Birth of Saké outlines the many difficulties that face Tedorigawa and its staff. To brew the sake, workers must spend 6 months away from their families, living at the brewer and rising for breakfast at 4:30 in the morning, only to work through dinner at night. The climate is frigid, and the employees spend so much time massaging rice that their hands lose feeling. Many who work at Tedorigawa have to seek employment elsewhere for the remaining months of the year, and these harsh conditions have made it increasingly difficult for the brewery to recruit new hires. Many who work for Tedorigawa are approaching retirement age. Others leave when they find the work too grueling. These and financial obstacles work to threaten the future of traditionally brewed Japanese sake.

The documentary interweaves the group’s work at the brewery with the “off-season” lives of certain employees, including the company’s impending heir Yasuyuki Yoshida. Yasuyuki spends the remaining 6 months of his year traveling the world to sell the Tedorigawa sake, pitching or taste testing with restaurants in Japan and abroad. As sake consumption decreases in Japan, many Japanese sake brewers have accommodated by offering lighter and sweeter varieties of the drink. Bucking trends, Tedorigawa has continued to brew their bolder, more distinctively flavored sake with the hope of appealing to traditionalists. For Yasuyuki, this harsher taste yields mixed results for sales.

Other tangents focus more closely on the limited time the Tedorigawa staff gets to spend with family. Erik Shirai largely plays interview audio through voiceover and therefore maximizes his natural footage. These segments provide a fuller portrait of the lives of sake brewers; however, they’re sparse on detail and not as riveting as the sections featuring the brewery.

There’s artistry in seeing the aging brewmaster at Tedorigawa meticulously monitor his brews’ temperatures in order to keep them regulated. The artisanal procedure is presented elegantly, and there’s a calming aspect to The Birth of Saké. Though the movie is slow in parts, Erik Shirai’s debut documentary feature is an entertaining glimpse into an ancient technique as its practice begins to die away. The Birth of Saké is a hypnotizing ode to Japan’s primary alcoholic export.

For most, last summer’s Ice Bucket Challenge was the first they’d much stopped to consider the disease ALS (amyotrophic lateral sclerosis). Since then two Hollywood films have come out highlighting the disease, The Theory of Everything and the Hilary Swank led You’re Not You. The first focusing more on the spouse taking care of a husband (slash genius) with ALS, the second a poorly received drama where the disease is sideswiped by character development. Instagram-ed videos of ice water baths aside, true insight into the day-to-day of living with ALS  isn’t a subject featured all that often in film. A documentary about ALS is the perfect vehicle for that insight, and one made by a madly artistic force of nature—Patrick O’Brien aka TransFatty, who thought to tape his every step in his personal journey with the disease—ends up being a brilliantly honest, creative, and moving spotlight—not on the disease, but on people with the disease.

Directed, written by, and all about Patrick, the film is of course deeply personal, even more so in that Patrick, who no longer has use of his limbs or the ability to speak, uses this completely unconventional documentary to express himself in a way that allows us into his head, the only place where he’s truly active anymore. And it’s a wacky, scary, hilarious, and moving place. Those familiar with TransFatty’s work previous to the documentary, as an Internet sensation and DJ, may be used to his mid-90’s MTV-style. Erratic coloring, home video footage of strange set-ups. Patrick wearing three prosthetic breasts. Buildings being blown up. All edited together with footage Patrick has been shooting since before he was even diagnosed. As a filmmaker it makes sense he’d be drawn to capturing life on camera, but the extent to which he has been thoughtful to record the events in his life is staggering. Not to mention that he convinced his friends and family to take up the camera when he wasn’t able to hold it himself any longer.

The documentary starts around when Patrick started to notice his first symptoms. A quick look at the work he did after film school. The short films he made and his electronic music as DJ TransFatty. Then a video of himself, walking through his apartment, falling in his hallway and knowing a few records off his shelf on the way. Then a scared admission on camera that he finds out the next day whether or not he has what many consider to be the most debilitating disease humans have yet to be subjected to. At the doctor’s office, still recording of course, he tells the doctor his legs have been shaking. He’s been falling down. Not soon after, he films the official diagnosis: he has ALS. His family sits around him in shock as Patrick plasters a scared smile on his face. He’s a man quick to smile in any situation, a part of himself that has not yet seem to have gone away.

Every stage of Patrick’s disease is caught on film. He and his family go to Puerto Rico where they have to help him walk. They work out his limbs for him on the bed as he makes crude jokes. He floats in the pool, still joking about his situation, about the unknown future. His speech has gotten a little bit slower. Patrick holds nothing back. He shows every high and low of his experience with ALS. The fun times, like when he camped out in front of the White House naked with a statistic written on his stomach to make a point about how many people are taken by ALS every hour. The times where his friends roll him about, American flag flowing off the back of his wheelchair. For a wheelchair-bound man with almost no use of much of his body, he clearly stayed incredibly busy. Busy enough, even, to fall in love and have a son.

Throughout the film O’Brien “speaks” directly to his son, the robot that has replaced his voice expressing in a supine but ironically comical voice, some of the many thoughts he has. His gift as a writer is clear. His sense of humor ever-present. And his pain on not being the father he wants to be utterly heart-wrenching. Patrick O’Brien is never manipulative. Never appears to be looking for sympathy. He’s doing what many artists claim as their driving force: fulfilling an innate need to express oneself. Capturing his life, capturing his essence, is the motivation of the film. And with such a colorful essence, his life translates to film in the most perfect way.

It’s so hard not to constantly question the fairness of life when a person of such acute mental sharpness and artistic genius would be shackled by a disease that threatens to take away most of their humanity. I wouldn’t dare comment on O’Brien’s ability to make the most of his situation. He’s made better use of his body and brain than most full-functioning humans, and it’s not because he’s been attacked by ALS, it’s because he’s an artist and a film director and he has thoughts worth sharing. Watching him change because of ALS is difficult, but the parts that will tear your heart out are the hardships O’Brien faces as a normal human man. Hardships of love, of fatherhood, of artistic struggle, and basic human needs. And that’s where he’s done what other films around ALS have not, reminded us that no one should ever be defined by the things they can’t control, but by what they choose to express and put into the world, circumstances be damned.

We’re less than a week away from the start of the 2015 Tribeca Film Festival and the lineup of films, speakers, and events (not to mention a fun assortment of jurors) has us excited to usher in Spring in the city. With just over 100 films playing at the festival, picking and choosing what to see is one heck of an undertaking, not to mention the speakers—Stephen Colbert with George Lucas, Brad Bird with Janeane Garofalo, Bennet Miller with Christopher Nolan, and so many more—and the special events—Back to the Future 30th Anniversary screening, Goodfellas 25th Anniversary screening, Monty Python and the Holy Grail 40th Anniversary special screening (as well as many of the other Monty Python films)—there’s more to be done than can possibly be done in a week and a half.

In anticipation for this exciting New York jubilee, we’ve honed in on the films playing at Tribeca that we’re most excited to see. Stay tuned for all of our Tribeca 2015 coverage, and keep an eye out for these hotly anticipated films.

Grandma

As a feminist poet reeling from a break-up and still mourning the loss of her long time partner, Elle Reid (Lily Tomlin) is forced to sideline her misery when her teenage granddaughter (Julia Garner) shows up needing $600 and a ride. In an effort to round up the money, the two have to hit the road, running into people from Elle’s life and discovering more about each other. Based on his track record alone, it’s not hard to be excited for the latest from Paul Weitz (About a Boy, Mozart in the Jungle). His best work stems from the dynamics of stubborn former-successfuls forced to interact with younger polar opposite-types, hilarity and lessons picked up along the way. After its highly lauded debut at Sundance this year, Weitz is being praised for doing what he does best, but in a particularly indie, low-budget sort of way. That he cast Lily Tomlin (whose impeccable comedic acumen has been restricted mostly to television of late and is so seriously deserving of big screen attention) to helm, only proves Weitz is maturing from his American Pie days and I, for one, can’t wait to see the results. [Ananda]

Meadowland

Cinematographer-turned-director Reed Morano (Winter’s Tale, The Skeleton Twins) makes her feature debut in this drama following a pair of parents struggling to cope in the aftermath of their son’s disappearance. In Meadowland, Sarah (Olivia Wilde) struggles to maintain her job as a teacher, while her husband Phil (Luke Wilson) develops a disconnect from his responsibilities as a city cop. Olivia Wilde has developed into an unofficial ambassador for the Tribeca Film Festival, producing several films (including shorts) that have debut in New York; however, often these movies provide Wilde with an intricate role to play. Her willingness to stretch herself as an actress is exciting, and here she’s paired with one of the many female directors making their debut during the festival. Meadowland’s wide-ranging supporting cast includes Giovanni Ribisi, Elisabeth Moss, John Leguizamo, Juno Temple, and Scott Mescudi, and the combination of elements makes this contemplative drama an intriguing prospect for the Tribeca Film Festival. [Zach]

Bleeding Heart

A sophomore effort from director Diane Bell (Obselidia), Bleeding Heart (not remotely to be confused with Bleeding Hearts, the low-budget Dustin Diamond horror vehicle also wheedling its way into the world this year) is the tale of two sisters. One, May, a yoga instructor (Jessica Biel) living a clean and orderly life with her boyfriend, the other, Shiva, a street-smart chaotic sometime-street worker (Zosia Mamet) in need of saving. When May takes in Shiva and attempts to put her life into some sort of order, it’s Shiva who ends up pulling May into her own disarray. Bell has described the actual core of her story as centering around violence, specifically violence against women. The questions she hopes to bring up about violence being an answer to violence are intriguing, and the message is one always worth exploring. [Ananda]

Slow West

Slow West left the Sundance Film Festival with the Grand Jury Prize for the World Cinema Dramatic competition, as well as smatterings of praise from the critics in attendance. Described as a Western set at the end of the 19^th century, Slow West’s plot description (17-year-old travels from Scotland to Colorado to reunite with the woman whom he loves) and even its title (it’s not Exciting West) seemed to suggest a sleepy, thoughtful brand of frontiersmen cinema. Then came the recent of the trailer to Slow West, packed with horse-riding, gun-totting, fur-coat-wearing characters set against expansive blue skies and empty fields. If Michael Fassbender spouting dialog through the cigar held firmly in his mouth while “Come Alive” blares in the background isn’t enough to get you excited for Slow West, not much else will. But how about one more shot of Ben Mendelsohn in his fur coat from Sundance? [Zach]

Tumbledown

After being a part of last year’s unfortunate Johnny Depp flop, Transcendence, it’s good to see Rebecca Hall getting a lighter and more central role. In Tumbledown she plays a widower of a famous musician beginning work on his biography and spurred into action when a New York academic (Jason Sudeikis) makes it known he too wants to write a book on his life, and his version may look very different. The two end up collaborating, digging into her deceased husband’s life and coming to clearer understandings of what it means to live and love. Directed by first-timer Sean Mewshaw, the film boasts an impressive cast including Dianna Agron and Blythe Danner, but mostly looks like the perfect romantic comedy to relieve some of the tension by some of the more serious festival drama fare. [Ananda]

Aloft

Having only really seen its first stirring teaser trailer, full of poetic imagery and no dialogue, a lot of my interest in seeing Aloft is based on pure intrigue. But the talent loaded behind it makes for real promise as well. Tribeca’s description of the film sums it up best: “The tales of a mother and son are told in parallel and woven together in a way that demonstrates the subjectivity and fragility of time. Single-mother Nana (Jennifer Connelly) has a mysterious experience at the hands of a traveling healer. Years later, her troubled son Ivan (Cillian Murphy) sets out to search for his now absent mother. The film blends past with present against the backdrop of a frozen world.” The film also features Mélanie Laurent (Inglourious Basterds), an actress I’d watch do almost anything. Peruvian director Clauda Llosa first impressed with The Milk of Sorrow, nominated for the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film in 2010. The emotional and visual tantalization of Aloft implies this may be one we all go home talking about. [Ananda]

Slow Learners

Don Argott & Sheena M. Joyce have collaborated on several strong documentaries (Last Days Here and The Art of the Steal are both on Netflix Instant) but are set to make their fictional feature debut this year with the World Premiere of Slow Learners at Tribeca. Adam Pally (Happy Endings, The Mindy Project) and Sarah Burns (Enlightened, Married) star as platonic friends who decide to shed their vanilla personalities for more confident alter egos in a summer filled with crazy, drunken nights.  Beyond the underrated comedic talents of Pally & Burns, Slow Learners’ cast features funny supporting performers like Saturday Night Live’s Bobby Moynihan, The Office’s Kate Flannery, and Veep’s Reid Scott. Tribeca typically features a couple standout, low-key humanistic comedies, and with the talent attached, hopefully Slow Learners will be among this year’s most entertaining. [Zach]

Thought Crimes

The story of the NYPD’s “Cannibal Cop” dominated headlines when Gilberto Valle was accused of plotting to kidnap, rape, kill, cook, and eat up to 100 women. Valle had utilized police databases to conduct surveillance on women that he fantasized about brutalizing, and although Valle alleged got close enough to stalk a couple of his potential victims, he never carried out the long list of heinous acts associated with his name. For obvious reasons, this scandal permanently affected Gilberto Valle’s life; however, first-time feature documentarian Erin Lee Carr endeavors to take a closer look at the case while asking a fundamental question: can you be guilty of a crime you only thought of committing? With unique access to Valle and his family, Carr’s documentary Thought Crimes promises to examine the evolving role of the criminal justice system as the digital world becomes an increasingly vital part of everyday life. [Zach]

For the full guide to films playing at this year’s Tribeca Film Festival, check here. 

Following the unveiling of half of its feature films slate on Tuesday, the Tribeca Film Festival has revealed the remaining movies set to screen while the festival runs from April 15th to the 26th. The new batch of films covers the festival’s Spotlight selections, the Midnight features and some Special Screenings including showings accompanied by performances and some Works in Progress.

Oscar-winning The Departed screenwriter William Monahan‘s 2nd feature film will have its World Premiere at the festival, as will new films from actors Jessica Biel, Zosia Mamet, Jason Sudeikis, Anton Yelchin, Mickey Rourke and many more stars.

Among the notable special screenings, the World Premiere of the documentary Mary J. Blige – The London Sessions will be accompanied by a live performance from Blige at The Beacon Theater.

Single ticket sales for the Tribeca Film Festival begin Tuesday, March 31 for American Express Card Members, Sunday, April 5 for downtown residents, and Monday, April 6 for the general public.

Spotlight Screenings

Aferim!
Directed and written by Radu Jude, co-written by Florin Lazarescu . (Romania, Bulgaria, Czech Republic) – North American Premiere, Narrative. A police officer and his son travel across Wallachia in 1835, hunting down a runaway gypsy slave. In their journey across the countryside they encounter people of different religions and nationalities, each with their own prejudices and opinions on the state of the country. Shot in black-and-white, Radu Jude’s Aferim! is a gripping look into the political and religious landscape of 19th century Romania. In Romanian with subtitles.

Aloft
Directed and written by Claudia Llosa. (Canada, France, Spain) – New York Premiere, Narrative.
In parallel narratives, single-mother Nana (Jennifer Connelly) has a mysterious experience at the hands of a traveling healer, years later her troubled son Ivan (Cillian Murphy) sets out in search of his now absent mother. Academy Award®–nominee Claudia Llosa’s (The Milk of Sorrow) decade-spanning family drama is a dreamlike rumination on faith, forgiveness, and family, set against an otherworldly frozen landscape. A Sony Pictures Classics Release.

Among the Believers
Co-directed by Hemal Trivedi and Mohammed Ali Naqvi, written by Jonathan Goodman Levitt. (Pakistan) – World Premiere. An unsettling and eye opening exploration into the spread of the radical Islamic school Red Mosque, which trains legions of children to devote their lives to jihad, or holy war, from a very young age. With incredible access and chilling footage, Among the Believers is a timely and relevant look into the causes that have led to the growth of radical Islam in Pakistan and around the world. In Urdu with subtitles.

Anesthesia
Directed and written by Tim Blake Nelson. (USA) – World Premiere, Narrative. On a snowy night in New York City, a Columbia professor is brutally mugged on the doorsteps of an apartment building. Director Tim Blake Nelson’s haunting meditation of city life traces the chain of events that precipitate the attack, examining the inextricable and unforeseen forces that bring a group of disparate individuals together. Featuring a star-studded ensemble including Sam Waterston, Kristen Stewart, Glenn Close, and Cory Stoll.

Angry Sky
Directed by Jeff Tremaine. (USA) – World Premiere, Documentary. In the 1960s, truck-driver Nick Piantanida discovered skydiving, and set out to break the world record for highest parachute jump by taking a helium balloon to the edge of space. Over the course of a year, his dream to launch the first civilian space program drove him to obsession. An ESPN Films release.

The Armor of Light
Directed by Abigail Disney. (USA) – World Premiere, Documentary. This inspiring documentary digs into the deep affinity between the evangelical Christian movement and our country’s gun culture — and how one top minister and anti-abortion activist undergoes a change of consciousness to challenge prevailing attitudes toward firearms among his fellow Christians.

As I AM: the Life and Times of DJ AM
Directed and written by Kevin Kerslake. (USA) – World Premiere, Documentary. Adam Goldstein, better known as DJ AM, was a man with deep passions and aggressive demons. As I AM is an insider’s look into the life of the late, famed mash-up pioneer: his professional successes that made him the first million-dollar deejay in the United States and his incredibly complex personal life that was lived under the specter of drug addiction.

Ashby
Directed and written by Tony McNamara. (USA) – World Premiere, Narrative. Awkward Ed Wallis (Nat Wolff) needs help fitting in and turns to his neighbor Ashby Holt (Mickey Rourke) for help. Ashby’s unforgiving brand of tough love soon tests their friendship, and it hardly helps when Ed learns that Ashby is a former CIA assassin. Peppered with upbeat music and standout performances, Ashby is a spirited, self-referential update on Harold and Maude for a John Wick generation. With Emma Roberts and Sarah Silverman.

Backtrack
Directed and written by Michael Petroni. (USA) – World Premiere, Narrative. In this spine-tingling supernatural thriller, troubled psychotherapist Peter Bowers (Adrien Brody) is suffering from nightmares and eerie visions. When he uncovers a horrifying secret that all of his patients share, he is put on a course that takes him back to the small hometown he fled years ago. There he confronts his demons and unravels a mystery 20 years in the making.

Bleeding Heart
Directed and written by Diane Bell. (USA) – World Premiere, Narrative. Reserved yoga instructor May’s (Jessica Biel) peaceful, clean-living life is thrown out of balance by the arrival of her long-lost sister Shiva (Zosia Mamet), a street-smart yet naive young woman trapped in an abusive relationship. May feels compelled to rescue the hapless Shiva, but she finds herself increasingly drawn out of her sedate world and deeper into Shiva’s chaotic one. With Edi Gathegi, Joe Anderson, Kate Burton, and Harry Hamlin.

Cartel Land
Directed by Matthew Heineman. (USA, Mexico) – New York Premiere, Documentary. A portrait of two men, both leaders of small paramilitary groups that police different sides of the Mexican drug war. With unprecedented access, this film brings forward deep questions about the breakdown of order and entanglement of modern-day vigilante movements at a time when the government cannot provide basic security for its people. In Spanish and English with subtitles. A release by The Orchard.

The Cut
Directed and written by Fatih Akin, co-written by Mardik Martin. (Germany) – North American Premiere, Narrative. Fatih Akin’s historic epic follows one man’s journey through the Ottoman Empire after surviving the 1915 Armenian genocide. Deported from his home in Mardin, Nazareth (Tahar Rahim) moves onwards as a forced laborer. When he learns that his daughters may still be alive, his hope is revived and he travels to America to find them. In Arabic, Armenian, and Spanish with subtitles.

Dirty Weekend
Directed and written by Neil LaBute. (USA) – World Premiere, Narrative. Neil LaBute returns to Tribeca with this sharp-edged comedy treat about the ripple effects of desire, whether it’s followed or left unredeemed. Matthew Broderick and Alice Eve are wonderful together as colleagues with secrets who come to depend on each other for understanding as they go to find a spark of excitement in Albuquerque, after dark.

Down in the Valley
Directed by Jason Hehir. (USA) – World Premiere, Documentary. How far would you go to save your hometown team? For many Sacramento residents, faced with the nearly certain relocation of their beloved Kings, no boardroom was too distant. One native son proved it. Follow former NBA superstar turned Sacramento mayor Kevin Johnson as he battles owners and executives to keep the Kings at home, in this a roaring testament to the passion and power of the small-market fan. An ESPN Films release.

The Driftless Area
Directed and written by Zachary Sluser. (Canada, USA) – World Premiere, Narrative. Pierre Hunter (Anton Yelchin), a bartender with unyielding optimism, returns to his tiny hometown after his parents’ death. When he falls for the enigmatic Stella (Zooey Deschanel), Pierre is unknowingly pulled into a cat-and-mouse game that involves a duffel bag full of cash, a haphazard yet determined criminal (John Hawkes), and a mystery that will determine all of their fates. With Alia Shawkat, Frank Langella, Aubrey Plaza, and Ciarán Hinds.

DRUNK STONED BRILLIANT DEAD: The Story of the National Lampoon
Directed and written by Douglas Tirola, co-written by Mark Monroe. (USA) – New York Premiere, Documentary. Using rare, never-before-seen archival footage and in-depth interviews with fans and founders, Douglas Tirola traces National Lampoon’s evolution from underground countercultural movement to mainstream household brand. Drunk Stoned Brilliant Dead is a riotous and revealing chronicle of a trailblazing comedic institution and a celebration of creative expression at its radical, envelope-pushing finest.

The Emperor’s New Clothes
Made by Michael Winterbottom & Russell Brand (UK) – International Premiere. Cinema’s prolific writer/director Michael Winterbottom and comedian/provocateur Russell Brand join forces in this polemical expose about inequality and the financial crisis. From London to New York the film combines documentary style, archive footage and comedy to explore how the crisis has gravely affected the 99% and only benefited the 1%.

Far From Men (Loin des Hommes)
Directed and written by David Oelhoffen. (France) – U.S. Premiere, Narrative. During the height of the Algerian War, an unlikely bond forms between a reserved French teacher (Viggo Mortensen) and the elusive dissident (Reda Kateb) he must turn over to the authorities. Based on a short story by Albert Camus, David Oelhoffen’s classically conceived period Western is a tense and timely study of war’s political and personal sacrifices. In French with subtitles. A Tribeca Film release.

Fastball
Directed and written by Jonathan Hock. (USA) – World Premiere, Documentary. Since 1912, baseball has been a game obsessed with statistics and speed. Thrown at upwards of 100 miles per hour, a fastball moves too quickly for human cognition and accelerates into the realm of intuition. Fastball is a look at how the game at its highest levels of achievement transcends logic and even skill, becoming the primal struggle for man to control the uncontrollable.

A Faster Horse
Directed by David Gelb, and written by Mark Monroe. (USA) – World Premiere, Documentary. As the fiftieth anniversary of the Mustang approaches, Ford is launching a redesign, placing the jobs and expectations of thousands squarely on the shoulders of Chief Program Engineer Dave Pericak. Masterfully crafted by TFF alumnus David Gelb (Jiro Dreams of Sushi), A Faster Horse moves beyond a car lover’s documentary to a resonant examination of American ingenuity, workmanship, and resilience.

Good Kill
Directed and written by Andrew Niccol. (USA) – U.S. Premiere, Narrative. Major Tommy Egan (Ethan Hawke) is fighting a war from the safety of a Nevada trailer, but commitment to the mission comes at a price. Gattaca director Andrew Niccol reunites with Ethan Hawke for this timely drama about the human costs of advanced war technology. Co-starring January Jones and Zoe Kravitz. An IFC Films Release

Grandma
Directed and written by Paul Weitz. (USA) – New York Premiere, Narrative. Reeling from a recent breakup and still mourning the loss of her longtime partner, once-famous poet Elle Reid (Lily Tomlin) is surprised to find her teenage granddaughter on her doorstep in need of $600 and a ride. The two embark on an all-day road trip that ends up rattling skeletons and digging up secrets all over town. Co-starring Julia Garner, Marcia Gay Harden, Judy Greer, Laverne Cox, and Sam Elliott. A Sony Pictures Classics release.

Hungry Hearts
Directed by Saverio Costanzo. (Italy) – U.S. Premiere, Narrative. After a chance meeting and a whirlwind romance in New York City, Jude (Adam Driver) and Mina (Alba Rohrwacher) become pregnant. Convinced their child will be harmed by the pollutions in the outside world, Mina becomes consumed by protecting her baby, forcing Jude to recognize a terrible truth about why his son’s life could be in danger. A Sundance Selects Release

Jimmy’s Hall
Directed by Ken Loach, written by Paul Laverty. (UK, Ireland, France) – North American Premiere, Narrative. James Gralton returns from exile and reopens a public dancehall, bravely pushing back against the sharply drawn religious and political margins of his time. Ken Loach (Winner, Palme-d’or 2006, The Wind that Shakes the Barley) paints a romantic drama about a leftist leader, and a 1930s Ireland that celebrates free speech and thought in the face of oppressive dogma. A Sony Pictures Classics Release.

Maggie, directed by Henry Hobson, written by John Scott 3. (USA) – World Premiere, Narrative. There’s a deadly zombie epidemic threatening humanity, but Wade (Arnold Schwarzenegger), a small-town farmer and family man, refuses to accept defeat even when his daughter Maggie (Abigail Breslin) becomes infected. As Maggie’s condition worsens and the authorities seek to eradicate those with the virus, Wade is pushed to the limits in an effort to protect her. Joely Richardson co-stars in this post-apocalyptic thriller. Lionsgate/Roadside Attractions release.

Mojave
Directed by and written by William Monahan. (USA) – World Premiere, Narrative. William Monahan’s second feature, starring Oscar Isaac and Garrett Hedlund, is a delirious trip from the fringes of the desert to the center of the film industry. Armed with little more than a knife and two handles of vodka, an on-edge Hollywood director sets out to the Mojave Desert, where he finds a drifter brandishing a rifle and claiming to be the Devil.

Our Fathers, the Nazis
Directed by David Evans, written by Philippe Sands (UK) – World Premiere, Documentary. Can you imagine what it means to grow up as the child of a mass murderer? While studying the Nuremberg trials, a lawyer becomes fascinated with two men: both sons of famous Nazi Generals, and both with polar opposite views of their fathers’ hand in the war. A forthright dive into individual perception, Our Fathers, the Nazis adds new meaning to the ties that bind us.

The Overnight
Directed and written by Patrick Brice. (USA) – New York Premiere, Narrative. Alex and Emily have just moved to LA with their young son. Eager to make new friends, they accept an invitation to a party from the father of their son’s playground mate. After the kids fall asleep, the “playdate” takes a bizarre turn in this racy and hilarious romp. Featuring Judith Godrèche, Taylor Schilling, Jason Schwartzman, and Adam Scott. A release by The Orchard.

Peggy Guggenheim – Art Addict
Directed by Lisa Immordino Vreeland, written by Bernadine Colish, Lisa Immordino Vreeland, and John Northrup. (USA) – World Premiere, Documentary. Bouncing between Europe and the US as often as she would between lovers, Peggy Guggenheim’s life story was as swirling as the design of her uncle’s museum, and reads more like fiction than any reality imaginable. Art Addict is a picture into Guggenheim’s world: abstract, colorful, and as salacious as the artwork she revered.

Prescription Thugs
Directed by Christopher Bell, written by Josh Alexander. (USA) – World Premiere, Documentary. Americans consume 80% of the world’s prescription drugs. After losing his own brother to the growing epidemic of prescription drug abuse, documentarian Chris Bell (Bigger, Stronger, Faster) sets out to demystify this insidious addiction. While the war has raged against illegal drugs, Bell attempts to break the hardened correlation that legal means safe.

Requiem for the American Dream
Directed and written by Peter Hutchison, Kelly Nyks and Jared P. Scott. (USA) – World Premiere, Documentary. Anchored by a series of interviews with Noam Chomsky, this definitive documentary of the “Two Americas” is an unvarnished account of how policies have helped concentrate wealth in the hands of a few at expense of everyone else. This is an eye-opening, revised vision of the American Dream, in the wake of a dying middle class.

Roseanne for President!
Directed by Eric Weinrib. (USA) – World Premiere, Documentary. Comedian Roseanne Barr always went against the odds, first as an assertive housewife struggling to pay the bills on her sitcom. Now she tests the limits of the two-party system, vying for candidacy on the 2012 ballot. Roseanne for President! follows her impassioned campaign journey.

Sleeping With Other People
Directed and written by Leslye Headland. (USA) – New York Premiere, Narrative. Jason Sudeikis and Alison Brie star as two romantic failures whose years of serial infidelity and self-sabotage have led them to swear that their relationship will remain strictly platonic. But can love still bloom while you’re sleeping with other people? Writer/director Leslye Headland’s (Bachelorette) sexy romantic comedy co-stars Amanda Peet, Adam Scott, and Natasha Lyonne. An IFC Films Release

Slow West
Directed by John Maclean. (UK, New Zealand) – New York Premiere, Narrative. At the end of the nineteenth century, 16-year-old Jay Cavendish (Kodi Smit-McPhee) journeys across the American frontier in search of the woman he loves. He is joined by Silas (Michael Fassbender), a mysterious traveler, and hotly pursued by an outlaw (Ben Mendelsohn) along the way. Sundance 2015 World Cinema Grand Jury Prize: Dramatic. An A24/DIRECTV release.

Steak (R)evolution
Directed and written by Franck Ribière, co-written by Vérane Frédiani (France) – International Premiere, Documentary. Grass fed, grain finished, intricately marbled, and dry aged — the concept of what makes the best steak varies greatly, and it continues to evolve as we move toward more sustainable farming practices. In this gourmet, across-the-world road trip, chefs, farmers, butchers, journalists and other experts weigh in on the various factors at play to help us understand the (r)evolution taking place right now and the challenges ahead. In English, French with subtitles. A Kino Lorber release.

Thought Crimes
Directed by Erin Lee Carr. (USA) – World Premiere, Documentary. Convicted yet then acquitted of conspiring to kidnap, rape, kill, and eat several women, NYPD officer Gilberto Valle quickly rose to infamy as New York’s own “Cannibal Cop”. With exclusive access to Valle, Erin Lee Carr’s unflinching documentary asks a fundamental question that challenges our beliefs about the criminal justice system, and even the very nature of right and wrong: can you be guilty of a crime you only thought about committing? An HBO Documentary Film.

Tumbledown
Directed and written by Sean Mewshaw, co-written by Desi Van Til. (USA) – World Premiere, Narrative. Years after the accidental death of her folk-singer husband, Hannah (Rebecca Hall) has yet to fully accept her small-town life without him. Then she is approached by a charming New York writer (Jason Sudeikis) intent on penning a biography of her late husband’s life, and Hannah finds herself opening up again. Also featuring performances by Dianna Agron, Blythe Danner, Griffin Dunne, Joe Manganiello, and Richard Masur

The Wannabe
Directed and written by Nick Sandow. (USA) – World Premiere, Narrative. Gotti-obsessed and hopelessly in love, Tommy (Boardwalk Empire’s Vincent Piazza) and Rose (Academy Award®–winner Patricia Arquette) are New York nobodies who get their moment in the sun when they begin robbing New York’s mafia elite in this real-life crime story of mob culture and amour fou. Based on true events surrounding the 1992 trial of John Gotti. From writer-director Nick Sandow (“Orange is the New Black”) and executive producer Martin Scorsese.

When I Live My Life Over Again
Directed and written by Robert Edwards. (USA) – World Premiere, Narrative. Jude (Amber Heard) is a would-be singer-songwriter still struggling to make her mark. Cash-strapped and homeless, she begrudgingly returns to the Hamptons home of her father (Christopher Walken), an over-the-hill crooner desperately charting his musical comeback, in this spunky, soulful dramedy about the personal costs of artistic ambition and the bonds that carry us through.

Wondrous Boccaccio (Maraviglioso Boccaccio)
Directed and written by Paolo Taviani and Vittorio Taviani. (Italy) – International Premiere, Narrative. Set against the backdrop of a black plague-stricken Florence, ten young men and women escape to a country estate where they spend their days telling different stories of love, fate, and resurrection. From legendary Italian directors Paolo and Vittorio Taviani, Wondrous Boccaccio is a tribute to the stories that emerged from one of the darkest periods in Italian history, and the imaginations that quietly fueled them. In Italian with subtitles.

Midnight

Bodyslam: The Revenge of the Banana!
Directed and written by Ryan Harvie and John Paul Horstmann. (USA) – World Premiere, Narrative. Ronald McFondle, Eddie Van Glam, and other social outcasts made up the Seattle Semi-Pro (SSP) Wrestlers, an off-kilter family of cabaret fighters that spoofed the pros. When a newcomer Paul, The Banana, fell on the wrong end of the joke, he ran to the government to disband the SSP. Bodyslam: The Revenge of the Banana! captures the wrestlers’ fight to keep the theatrics alive.

Emelie
Directed by Michael Thelin, written by Richard Raymond Harry Herbeck. (USA) – World Premiere, Narrative. After their regular babysitter Maggie can’t make it, the Thompson family turns to her friend Anna to supervise their children while the parents go out to celebrate their anniversary. At first Anna seems like a dream come true to the kids, allowing them to eat extra cookies and play with things that are usually off-limits, but as her behavior becomes increasingly odd, the kids soon find out that her intentions are dark and twisted, and she is not who she seems to be.

Hyena
Directed and written by Gerard Johnson. (UK) – U.S. Premiere, Narrative. Michael Logan (Peter Ferdinando) may be a corrupt, coke-addled cop, but he’s a bad lieutenant with a conscience. After years of dodging the same laws he was assigned to uphold, Michael suddenly finds himself trying to change while safeguarding a young Albanian woman from the sex trade. Equal parts grit and neon, Hyena blurs the line between cop and criminal and exposes the illicit underworld inhabited by London’s most ruthless policemen. A Tribeca Film release.

Scherzo Diabolico
Directed and written by Adrián García Bogliano. (Mexico, USA) – World Premiere, Narrative.Armed with a fine-tuned chokehold and penchant for piano sonatas, a wearied accountant breaks his mild-mannered routine when he kidnaps a young woman. What starts as a carefully calculated plan soon crescendos into his worst nightmare. A delightfully twisted black comedy, Scherzo Diaboloco is the latest opus from director Adrián García Bogliano. In Spanish with subtitles

Stung
Directed by Benni Diez, written by Adam Aresty. (Germany, USA) – World Premiere, Narrative. For catering staffers Paul and Julia, Mrs. Perch’s fancy garden party at her remote country villa is nothing out of the ordinary. A mishap with toxic plant fertilizer leads to the most unwelcome of dinner guests: giant killer wasps. Director Benni Diez takes audiences on a thrilling, gory rollercoaster ride from campy to creepy, in this delightful and dreadful creature-feature.

SPECIAL SCREENINGS

A Ballerina’s Tale
Directed and written by Nelson George. (USA) – World Premiere, Documentary. Join us for a world premiere screening of Nelson George’s much-anticipated, behind-the-curtain documentary about the daily routine of Misty Copeland, the first African-American female soloist at New York’s American Ballet Theatre® in two decades.

Followed by a Q&A with Misty Copeland and a special ballet performance by her mentees Erica Lall (American Ballet Theatre’s Studio Company) and Naazir Muhammad (ABT’s JKO School) sponsored by Under Armour.

Mary J. Blige – The London Sessions
Directed by Sam Wrench. (U.K., USA) – World Premiere, Documentary. Join Mary J. Blige in London, where over ten days she will record her 13th studio album. Featuring a behind-the-scenes look at her work sessions with some of Britain’s hottest recording artists, including Sam Smith, Disclosure, Emeli Sandé, Naughty Boy, and Sam Romans.

A performance from Mary J. Blige will follow the screening.

Rifftrax Live: The Room
(USA) – World Premiere. The brainchild of Mystery Science Theater 3000 alumnus Mike Nelson, Kevin Murphy (aka Tom Servo), and Bill Corbett (aka Crow T. Robot), Rifftrax skewers cult classic films with hilarious live commentary.

For their first-ever New York performance the Rifftrax gang will unleash their signature comedic chops on Tommy Wiseau’s modern masterpiece, The Room, for a one-night-only live cinema event.

Speedy
Directed by Ted Wilde. (USA) – Newly restored print from the Criterion Collection, Narrative.

Silent comedy legend Harold Lloyd stars as a die-hard Yankees fan who can’t keep a job, but is determined to save the last horse-drawn trolley in New York. This lighthearted slapstick classic features visits to Coney Island and Yankee Stadium, an incredible cameo by Babe Ruth, and hair-raising cab rides through the city streets.

For one-night only, the legendary dj and producer DJ Z-Trip lends his amazing musical talent to create an all new soundtrack for this silent film classic, showcasing his eclectic style and considerable live turntable skills.

Work In Progress

LoveTrue
Directed by Alma Har’el, (USA) – Work in Progress, Documentary. Director Alma Har’el returns to TFF with a work-in-progress presentation. LoveTrue weaves three challenging relationships, while examining non-fiction performance as a documentation of truth and a purveyor of memory.

Join Har’el and Executive Producer, Shia LaBeouf for an exclusive preview of scenes from the film and an intimate conversation about True Love.

All Work, All Play
Directed by Patrick Creadon. (USA) – Work in Progress, Documentary. There’s something happening in the world of video games. Thousands are flocking to arenas to watch tournaments unfold. Tens of millions are watching online. One percent of the world population is playing the most popular competitive game. In All Work All Play, go behind the scenes and follow the ascent of eSports, and watch as the best pro gamers in the world fight for the Intel Extreme Masters championship.

The 2015 Tribeca Film Festival presented the first half of its lineup this morning, announcing its world narrative and documentary competition selections. It also included its viewpoints titles, which recognizes new artists in international and American independent cinema.

Notable among the 51 named films are James Franco’s The Adderall Diaries,  Andrew Renzi’s Franny starring Richard Gere and Dakota Fanning, and Meadowland, starring Olivia Wilde, Luke Wilson, Elizabeth Moss and Juno Temple.

The lineup includes feature films from 31 countries, including 64 world premieres. Thirty feature film directors of this year’s lineup are women — the highest percentage in the fest’s history. As previously announced, it will open with the Saturday Night Live documentary Live From New York!

The festival will run April 15 to 26 and plans to release more titles this Thursday March 5. Below is the lineup we have so far.

World Narrative Feature Competition

The Adderall Diaries
Directed and written by Pamela Romanowsky. (USA) – World Premiere. Elliott (James Franco), a once-successful novelist inflicted with writer’s block and an Adderall addiction strives to escape his problems by delving into the world of a high-profile murder case. Amber Heard, Ed Harris, and Cynthia Nixon co-star in this adaptation of Elliott’s best-selling memoir.

Bridgend
Directed by Jeppe Rønde, co-written by Jeppe Rønde, Torben Bech, and Peter Asmussen. (Denmark) – North American Premiere. Sara (Hannah Murray) and her dad arrive in a town haunted by a spate of teenage suicides. When she falls in love with Jamie (Josh O’Connor), she becomes prey to the depression that threatens to engulf them all. Jeppe Rønde’s debut is based on the real-life Welsh county borough of Bridgend, which has recorded at least 79 suicides since 2007.

Dixieland
Directed and written by Hank Bedford. (USA) – World Premiere.In the hot lazy days of a Mississippi summer two star-crossed lovers, a recently released ex-con (Chris Zylka) and an aspiring stripper (Riley Keough), become trapped in a downward spiral of crime and obsessive love, as they try to ditch their small town lives. Featuring an impressive performance by Faith Hill.

Franny
Directed and written by Andrew Renzi. (USA) – World Premiere. Richard Gere delivers a bravura performance as the title character, a rich eccentric who worms his way into the lives of a deceased friend’s young daughter (Dakota Fanning) and her new husband (Theo James). The narrative feature debut of writer-director Andrew Renzi, Franny is a warm and winsome drama about the pangs of the past, and the families we choose.

Meadowland
Directed by Reed Morano, written by Chris Rossi. (USA) – World Premiere. Sarah and Phil’s son goes missing, shattering their life together and forcing each to find their own way to cope. Cinematographer-turned-director Reed Morano presents a masterfully crafted contemplation on a relationship strained to the breaking point. Olivia Wilde and Luke Wilson capture the unraveling emotions with remarkable power, alongside Kevin Corrigan, John Leguizamo, Elizabeth Moss, Giovanni Ribisi, Juno Temple, and Merritt Wever.

Men Go to Battle
Directed and written by Zachary Treitz, co-written by Kate Lyn Sheil. (USA) – World Premiere. Kentucky, 1861. Francis and Henry Mellon depend on each other to keep their unkempt estate afloat as winter encroaches. After Francis takes a casual fight too far, Henry ventures off in the night, leaving each of them to struggle through the wartime on their own.

Necktie Youth
Directed and written by Sibs Shongwe-La Mer. (Netherlands, South Africa) – North American Premiere. Jabz and September are two twenty-something suburbanites drifting through a day of drugs, sex, and philosophizing in their privileged Johannesburg neighborhood, ill-equipped to handle a tragedy that has interrupted the hollowness of their daily lives. Using rich black and white photography, Sibs Shongwe-La Mer paints a raw, unique portrait of self-obsessed youth facing adulthood in an increasingly divided city. In Afrikaans, English, isiZulu with subtitles.

The Survivalist
Directed and written by Stephen Fingleton. (Northern Ireland, UK) – World Premiere. Self-preservation takes on a new level of meaning in this organic post-apocalyptic drama, where the only way to get food is to farm it. A man is threatened when two starving women stumble across his cabin and demand to stay. Each new mouth to feed strains the limits of what the farm can produce and diminishes their chance for survival.

Sworn Virgin (Vergine Giurata) 
Directed and written by Laura Bispuri, co-written by Francesca Manieri. (Albania, Germany, Italy, Kosovo, Switzerland) – North American Premiere. As a young woman living within the confines of a Northern Albanian village, Hana longs to escape the shackles of womanhood, and live her life as a man. To do so she must take an oath to eternally remain a virgin. Years later, as Mark, she leaves home for the first time to confront a new set of circumstances, leading her to contemplate the possibility of undoing her vow. In Albanian, Italian with subtitles.

Viaje
Directed and written by Paz Fábrega. (Costa Rica) –World Premiere. After meeting at a party, Luciana and Pedro spark up a spontaneous rendezvous when Luciana accompanies Pedro to a national forest on a work trip. Eschewing the fraudulent nature of traditional relationships, the pair explores the beauty in the nature that surrounds them as they indulge in the passions of their encounter and navigate the various meanings of commitment. In Spanish with subtitles.

Virgin Mountain
Directed and written by Dagur Kári. (Iceland, Denmark) – North American Premiere. Fúsi is a mammoth of a man who at 43-years-old is still living at home with his mother. Shy and awkward, he hasn’t quite learned how to socialize with others, leaving him as an untouchable inexperienced virgin. That is until his family pushes him to join a dance class, where he meets the equally innocent but playful Sjöfn. In Icelandic with subtitles.

Wednesday 04:45(Tetari 04:45) 
Directed and written by Alexis Alexiou. (Germany, Greece, Israel) – World Premiere. A life’s work becomes a prison for jazz club owner Stelios when a shady Romanian gangster calls in his debts. This gripping, underworld drama is a parable on the perils of accumulated debt, and a depiction of the descent of a mostly decent man. Director Alexis Alexiou perfectly balances the complex emotions that drive a man to take the most drastic measures available. In Greek with subtitles.

World Documentary Feature Competition

Autism in Love
Directed by Matt Fuller. (USA) – World Premiere. What does it mean to love and be loved? With remarkable compassion, director Matt Fuller examines the reality of autistic adulthood and shows how the members of this often-misunderstood community cope with the challenge of keeping romance alive. Autism in Love is a celebration of accepting the differences in others, and in ourselves.

The Birth of Saké
Directed by Erik Shirai. (USA) – World Premiere. Traditional and labor-intensive, the production of Saké has changed very little over the centuries. Erik Shirai’s love song to the artisans who have dedicated their lives to carrying on this increasingly rare artform follows the round-the-clock process for six straight months, offering a rare glimpse into a family-run brewery that’s been operating for over 100 years. In Japanese with subtitles.

Democrats
Directed and written by Camilla Nielsson. (Denmark). – North American Premiere. In the wake of Robert Mugabe’s highly criticized 2008 presidential win, Zimbabwe’s first constitutional committee was created in an effort to transition the country away from its authoritarian leadership. With unprecedented access to the two political rivals overseeing the committee, this riveting, firsthand account of a country’s fraught first steps towards democracy plays at once like an intimate political thriller and unlikely buddy film. In English, Shona with subtitles.

Havana Motor Club
Directed and written by Bent-Jorgen Perlmutt. (Cuba, USA) – World Premiere. Reforms have offered opportunity in Cuba but the children of the Revolution are unsure of the best route forward. For a half-dozen drag racers, this means last-minute changes to their beloved American muscle cars, as they prepare for the first sanctioned race in Cuba since 1960. Punctuated by a lively Cuban soundtrack, Havana Motor Club offers a fascinating glimpse at the resilience and ingenuity of the competitive spirit. In Spanish with subtitles.

In My Father’s House
Directed by Ricki Stern and Annie Sundberg, co-written by Ricki Stern, Annie Sundberg, and Pax Wassermann. (USA) – World Premiere. After moving into his childhood home on Chicago’s South Side, Grammy Award–winning rapper Che “Rhymefest” Smith hesitantly sets out to reconnect with his estranged father, the man who abandoned him over twenty years ago. In My Father’s House is a stirring, multigenerational chronicle of Che’s sincere but often-fraught journey to build a future for his own family by reconnecting with his traumatic past.

In Transit
Co-directed by Albert Maysles, Nelson Walker, Lynn True, David Usui, and Ben Wu. (USA) – World Premiere. The Empire Builder is America’s busiest long-distance train route, running from Chicago to Seattle. Throughout these corridors sit runaways, adventurers, and loners – a myriad of passengers waiting to see what their journey holds. A touching and honest observation, co-directed by the iconic documentarian Albert Maysles, In Transit breathes life into the long commute, and contemplates the unknowns that lie at our final destination.

Indian Point
Directed and written by Ivy Meeropol. (USA) – World Premiere. Indian Point Nuclear Power Plant looms just 35 miles from Times Square. With over 50 million people living in close proximity to the aging facility, its continued operation has generated controversy for the surrounding community. In the brewing fight for clean energy and the catastrophic possibilities of complacency, director Ivy Meeropol weaves a startling portrait of our uncertain nuclear future.

Palio
Directed by Cosima Spender, written by John Hunt. (UK, Italy) – World Premiere. In the world’s oldest horse race, the Palio, taking bribes and fixing races threatens to extinguish the passion for the sport itself. Giovanni, unversed in corruption, challenges his former mentor, who dominates the game. What ensues is a thrilling battle, filled with the intoxicating drama that is at the center of Italian tradition. In Italian with subtitles.

Song of Lahore
Directed by Andy Schocken and Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy. (USA, Pakistan) – World Premiere. Until the late 1970s, the Pakistani city of Lahore was world-renowned for its music. Following the ban of music under Sharia law, many artists were forced to abandon their life’s work. Song of Lahore turns the spotlight on a stalwart group of lifelong musicians who continue to play despite their circumstances. They end up attracting listeners from all over the world. In English, Punjabi, and Urdu with subtitles.

Thank You for Playing
Co-directed and co-written by David Osit and Malika Zouhali-Worrall. (USA) – World Premiere. For the past four years, Ryan and Amy Greene have been working on That Dragon, Cancer, a videogame about their son Joel’s fight against that disease. Following the family through the creation of the game and the day-to-day realities of Joel’s treatment, David Osit and Malika Zouhali-Worrall create a moving testament to the joy and heartbreak of raising a terminally ill child.

Tom Swift and His Electric Rifle
Directed and written by Nick Berardini. (USA) – World Premiere. Do you blame the technology or the person wielding it? With damaging reports of taser-related deaths at the hands of police officers, this conundrum spurs a carefully constructed argument that tasers are in fact lethal, discrediting claims by Taser International that stun guns save lives. Yet more than 17,000 police departments in the United States continue to use the electric rifle.

Very Semi-Serious
Directed by Leah Wolchok. (USA) – World Premiere. The New Yorker is the benchmark for the single-panel cartoon. This light-hearted and sometimes poignant look at the art and humor of the iconic drawings shows why they have inspired and even baffled us for decades. Very Semi-Serious is a window into the minds of cartooning legends and hopefuls, including editor Bob Mankoff, shedding light onto their how their humor evolves.

Viewpoints

All Eyes and Ears
Directed and written by Vanessa Hope. (China, USA) – New York Premiere, Documentary. When former Utah governor Jon Huntsman was appointed United States Ambassador to China, the charming career politician arrived at his new post with his entire family—including his adopted Chinese daughter, Gracie. Huntsman’s diplomatic struggles and triumphs are explored in the broader context of China’s relationship with the rest of the world, and intersected with Gracie’s personal experience living in China as a Chinese-American. In Mandarin, Cantonese, English, with subtitles.

Applesauce
Directed and written by Onur Tukel. (USA) – World Premiere, Narrative. TFF alumnus Onur Tukel plays a husband who innocently reveals on talk radio the worst thing he’s ever done. Though his gaffe never makes it on air, it sets off a chain of hilariously uncontrollable events that draw his wife and another couple into an uneasy mixture of infidelities, confessions, and severed body parts.

Bad Hurt
Directed and written by Mark Kemble, co-written by Jamieson Stern. (USA) – World Premiere, Narrative. Life for the Kendalls has been burdened by grief and claustrophobia. Faced with caring for one child with special needs and another with PTSD, the family struggles for a sense of stability at home in their Staten Island hamlet. When a secret from the past is revealed, it threatens to tear them apart.

Bare
Directed and written by Natalia Leite. (USA) – World Premiere, Narrative. Sarah’s (Dianna Agron) mundane life in a Nevada desert town is turned upside down with the arrival of Pepper (Paz de la Huerta), a mysterious female drifter, who leads her into a life of seedy strip clubs and illicit drugs. Their passion inspires Sarah to break free of her past and seek out a new life of her own.

Being 14 (À14 ans)
Directed and written by Hélène Zimmer. (France). – International Premiere, Narrative. Adopting an observational style, Being 14 captures all the secrets, trials, and anguish of adolescence, as experienced by best friends Sarah, Louise, and Jade in their final year of middle school. The narrative plays like a documentary in each true-to-life scene; the camera is witness to their lives unfolding, as it unobtrusively records the moments of a year, after which everything will change. In French with subtitles

Come Down Molly
Directed and written by Gregory Kohn. (USA) – World Premiere, Narrative. In this expressionist odyssey exploring the lonely side of entering adulthood, struggling new mother Molly (Eléonore Hendricks) joins her old high school group of guy friends at a secluded mountain home. Amidst tears, laughter, and mushrooms, they connect with nature, one another, and themselves.

A Courtship
Directed by Amy Kohn. (USA) – World Premiere, Documentary. Amy Kohn’s fascinating documentary offers a peek into the practice of Christian courtship, wherein a woman hands over the responsibility of finding a husband to her parents and the will of God. Such is Kelly’s path, enlisting her adopted spiritual family to find her Mr. Right.

Crocodile Gennadiy
Directed and written by Steve Hoover. (USA)– World Premiere, Documentary. Crocodile Gennadiy, a real-life, self-appointed savior, who works tirelessly to rescue homeless, drug-addicted youth from the streets of Mariupol, Ukraine. At the same time, he challenges dealers and abusers. Despite criticism, Gennadiy is determined to continue his work. Sundance Award-winning director Steve Hoover’s second feature is a bold portrait of a man on a mission. In English, Russian with subtitles.

Cronies
Directed and written by Michael Larnell. (USA) – New York Premiere, Narrative. Louis begins to question his lifelong friendship with Jack, after a simple errand to buy his daughter a birthday gift turns into a visit to a drug dealer. Director Michael Larnell combines an earnestly realistic narrative with documentary-style interviews in which the characters muse on their futures, their impact on those they love, and the nature of friendship.

dream/killer
Directed by Andrew Jenks. (USA) – World Premiere, Documentary. In the fall of 2005, 20-year-old Ryan Ferguson received a 40-year prison sentence for a murder that he did not commit. Over the next ten years, his father Bill engages in a tireless crusade to prove Ryan’s innocence. Interspersed with footage from the Ferguson family archive, Andrew Jenks’ film looks at the personal consequences of a wrongful conviction.

El Cinco (El 5 de Talleres)
Directed and written by Adrián Biniez. (Argentina) – North American Premiere, Narrative.Patón, with his fiery temper and aggressive play, is the veteran star of his city’s soccer team. When his transgressions land him a lengthy suspension, he considers retirement, while discovering a world that consists of more than just feet and fists. This coming-of-middle-age tale reveals the predicament of leaving the arena where you most feel at home. In Spanish with subtitles.

GORED
Directed and written by Ido Mizrahy, co-written by Geoffrey Gray. (USA) – World Premiere, Documentary. Gored centers on Spanish bullfighter Antonio Barrera, holder of the dubious title of “Most Gored Bullfighter in History,” as he grapples with the end of his career. Captivating footage of past and present bullfights reveal Barrera’s tremendous passion for the sport, as well as his seemingly irresistible urge to confront death at every opportunity. In Spanish with subtitles.

Jackrabbit
Directed and written by Carleton Ranney, co-written by Destin Douglas. (USA) – World Premiere, Narrative. When a friend’s suicide leaves behind a mysterious computer drive, a fringe hacker and accomplished computer technician come together to decipher the message left in his wake. First-time filmmaker Carleton Ranney effortlessly combines a low-fi aesthetic with an intensely ambitious sci-fi story, creating a work that manages to satisfy as both a retro throwback and a forward-thinking indie drama.

King Jack
Directed and written by Felix Thompson. (USA) – World Premiere, Narrative. Growing up in a rural town filled with violent delinquents, Jack has learned to do what it takes to survive, despite having an oblivious mother and no father. After his aunt falls ill and a younger cousin comes to stay with him, the hardened 15-year-old discovers the importance of friendship, family, and looking for happiness even in the most desolate of circumstances.

Lucifer
Directed and written by Gust Van den Berghe. (Belgium, Mexico) – United States Premiere, Narrative. An angel falling from heaven to hell unexpectedly lands in a Mexican village where his presence affects the villagers in surprising ways. Inspired by the biblical story, Lucifer is a mesmerizing, moving, and unique exercise in form, presented in the director’s own format, Tondoscope. In Spanish with subtitles.

Orion: The Man Who Would Be King
Directed and written by Jeanie Finlay. (UK) – World Premiere, Documentary. Millions of Americans clung to the hope that Elvis Presley faked his death. For the executives at Sun Records that fantasy became an opportunity in the form of Orion, a mysterious masked performer with the voice of The King. But who was the man behind the mask? In this stranger-than-fiction true story, Jeanie Finlay explores a life led in service to those who couldn’t let Elvis go.

Shut Up and Drive
Directed and written by Melanie Shaw. (USA) – World Premiere, Narrative. Uptight and insecure Jane breaks down when her live-in boyfriend must move from Los Angeles to New Orleans for an acting gig. Jane’s anxiety worsens upon the arrival of Laura, Austin’s wild childhood friend. Unable to deal with each other without Austin, the two women embark on a road trip to see him, forming an unexpected friendship along the way.

Slow Learners
Co-directed by Sheena Joyce and Don Argott, written by Matt Serword. (USA) – World Premiere, Narrative. High school teachers Jeff and Anne (Adam Pally and Sarah Burns) are work BFFs all too familiar with the woes of romance. Desperate to turn their luck around they take on new personas and embark, with gusto, on an adventurous summer of uncharacteristic encounters. Slow Learners is a charming, comedic crash course in discovering who you really are.

Stranded in Canton (Nakangami na Guangzhou)
Directed by Måns Månsson, co-written by Måns Månsson, Li Hongqi, and George Cragg. (Sweden, Denmark, China)– North American Premiere, Narrative. Lebrun is an entrepreneur from The Democratic Republic of Congo who goes to China intent on making a fortune selling political T-shirts. When things don’t go as planned Lebrun spends more time in karaoke bars and falling in love than he does on business. Somewhere between documentary and fiction, this fascinating story explores new trade routes and their impact in two separate continents. In Cantonese, English, French, Lingala, Mandarin with subtitles.

Sunrise (Arunoday)
Directed and written by Partho Sen-Gupta. (India, France) – North American Premiere, Narrative. Social Service officer Lakshman Joshi is led on a chase through the dark gutters and rain-soaked back alleys of Mumbai by a shadowy figure. His pursuit leads him to Paradise, a seedy nightclub seemingly at the center of the kidnapping ring he is investigating. Joshi’s hunt brings back memories of his own kidnapped daughter, as his past and current reality converge. In Marathi with subtitles.

Tenured
Directed and written by Christopher Modoono, co-written by Gil Zabarsky. (USA) – World Premiere, Narrative. In Chris Modoono’s hilarious directorial debut, a broody and foul-mouthed elementary school teacher, Ethan Collins, finds his life turned upside down when his wife leaves him. Stuck with a group of precocious fifth graders, and fraught with fizzling writing aspirations, Ethan uses the school play as a last-ditch effort to fix his marriage. Will this be his greatest accomplishment or his most misguided lesson to date?

(T)ERROR
Directed by Lyric R. Cabral and David Felix Sutcliffe. (USA) – New York Premiere, Documentary. A rare, insider’s view of an FBI undercover investigation in progress, (T)ERROR follows a 63-year-old informant in his attempt to befriend a suspected Taliban sympathizer, and build a fraudulent case against him. Lyric R. Cabral and David Felix Sutcliffe’s startling and timely exposé questions the sacrifices that are being made to prevent terror in the United States.

Toto and His Sisters(Toto Si Surorile Lui)
Directed and written by Alexander Nanau. (Romania) – North American Premiere, Documentary. Shot over a period of 15 months, this hands-off documentary follows siblings living in a Bucharest slum. With their mother in jail, Toto and his two sisters, Ana and Andreea, live in what appears to be a communal drug den. As Ana drifts away with frequent drug use, Toto and Andreea must stick together in an orphanage, awaiting their mother’s return. In Romanian with subtitles.

TransFatty Lives
Directed by Patrick O’Brien, co-written by Patrick O’Brien, Scott Crowningshield, Lasse Jarvi, Doug Pray. (USA) – World Premiere, Documentary. Director Patrick O’Brien is TransFatty, the onetime NYC deejay and Internet meme-making superstar. In 2005, O’Brien began to document his life after being diagnosed with ALS and given only two to five years to live. TransFatty Lives is a brazen and illustrative account of what it’s like to live when you find out you are going to die.

Uncertain
Co-directed and co-written by Ewan McNicol and Anna Sandilands. (USA) – World Premiere, Documentary. An aquatic weed threatens the lake of the small American border town of Uncertain, Texas, and consequently the livelihoods of those who live there. As some of the men in town attempt to figure out their future, they confront a past that haunts them.

We Are Young. We Are Strong. (Wir Sind Jung. Wir Sind Stark.)
Directed by Burhan Qurbani, co-written by Martin Behnke and Burhan Qurbani. (Germany) – North American Premiere, Narrative. A group of disillusioned teenagers wander about in the restless hours leading up to an anti-immigrant riot that took place in Rostock, Germany, in August of 1992. The impending incident is seen through the experiences of three individuals: a Vietnamese factory worker, a local politician, and the politician’s teenage son, Stefan. In German, Vietnamese with subtitles.

The Wolfpack
Directed by Crystal Moselle. (USA) – New York Premiere, Documentary. Everything the Angulo brothers know about the outside world they learned from obsessively watching movies. Shut away from bustling New York City by their overprotective father, they cope with their isolation by diligently re-enacting their favorite films. When one of the brothers escapes, the world as they know it will be transformed. A Magnolia Release.

The 2015 Tribeca Film Festival announced today that Live From New York! will kick off the festival’s 14th year on Wednesday, April 15th. The documentary Live From New York! investigates the early years of Saturday Night Live, with commentary from SNL icons, journalists, past hosts, crew members, and more. The world premiere of the documentary coincides with Saturday Night Live‘s 40th Anniversary.

“The selection of Live from New York! to open the 14th Tribeca Film Festival is personally gratifying to me on several levels,” said Tribeca Film Festival co-founder Robert De Niro through press release. “Having hosted SNL three times, and guested on several occasions, I speak from a first-hand experience about SNL’s rightful place in our culture as well as a welcome addition to our festival.”

The 14th Tribeca Film Festival runs from April 15th to April 26th. Tickets for the 2015 Opening Night Gala go on sale March 23rd. The full offering of films for Tribeca 2015 will be revealed in the first week of March.