Tribeca Film Festival 2008 Mini-Preview: Documentaries
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<a href="http://www.tribecafilmfestival.org/filmguide/16735496.html">Theater of War</a>: Tony Kushner, Meryl Streep, Kevin Kline and George C. Wolfe dish about the creative process behind the Public Theater staging of Brecht's Mother Courage.
<a href="http://www.tribecafilmfestival.org/filmguide/Run_for_Your_Life.html">Run for Your Life</a>: âBack in the '60s, the New York Road Runners Club was just a small group of men who ran on the streets of the Bronx. It took one eccentric first-generation Jewish immigrant from Transylvania to turn the NYRR into the largest organization of its kind in the world. Fred Lebow (the erstwhile Fischl Lebowitz) brought the runners to Central Park, where the first New York City Marathon was held in 1970. By the next year New York had two-thirds more runners than the Boston Marathon. Filmmaker Judd Ehrlich takes an affectionate look at a New York hero who inspired runners worldwide to go the distance.â
<a href="http://www.tribecafilmfestival.org/filmguide/16736101.html">Squeezebox!</a>: "Once upon a time (like the mid-'90s), a party promoter named Michael Schmidt had a novel idea: drag queens dumping the lipsynching routine to sing rock and roll live onstage. No one knew what to expect when they first opened the doors to Don Hill's on the fateful night that SqueezeBox! was born in downtown Manhattan. Directors Zach Shaffer and Steve Saporito capture the raw, debauched energy of SqueezeBox! in their uniquely stylized mix of archival performance footage and interviews."
<a href="http://www.tribecafilmfestival.org/filmguide/16736121.html">Gunninâ for That #1 Spot</a>: "Beastie Boy Adam Yauch combines two of his favorite things in his first non-concert feature documentary: the excitement of street basketball and some slammin' hip-hop tracks."
<a href="http://www.tribecafilmfestival.org/filmguide/16735621.html">Pray the Devil Back to Hell</a>: "The civil and clan wars that ravaged Liberia from 1989-2003 accounted for over 250,000 deaths, one million displaced persons, and a malignancy of unspeakable atrocities often committed by child-soldiers, that left the country in a dire state of hopelessness. Out of this despair rose a group of women; mothers, grandmothers, aunts and daughters, led by Leymah Gbowee, a mother who dared to dream that the wars could end. This documentary tells their extraordinary story. "
<a href="http://www.tribecafilmfestival.org/filmguide/16735366.html">Lou Reed's Berlin</a>: Julian Schnabelâs documentary of Lou Reedâs live performance of his cult-hit album "Berlin" at St. Annâs Warehouse in December 2006.
<a href="http://www.tribecafilmfestival.org/filmguide/I_Am_Because_We_Are.html">I Am Because We Are</a>: Madonna desperately seeks an end to poverty by shining some of her star wattage on the impoverished South African country of Malawi. She spends most of her time with the unlucky children of the region; additional perspective comes by way of Archbishop Desmond Tutu, Professor Jeffrey Sachs and Bill Clinton.
<a href="http://www.tribecafilmfestival.org/filmguide/President_to_Remember_In_the_Company_of_John_F_Kennedy.html">A President to Remember: In the Company of John F. Kennedy</a>: Alec Baldwin narrates this behind-the-scenes documentary about John F. Kennedy, culled from footage shot by Robert Drew, who had unprecedented access to Kennedy from the time he announced his presidential candidacy and on through the Bay of Pigs, the rise of the Berlin Wall, and the desegregation showdown with Governor George Wallace.
<a href="http://www.tribecafilmfestival.org/filmguide/Standard_Operating_Procedure.html">Standard Operating Procedure</a>: In his new documentary, director Errol Morris âlooks outside the frame, interviewing the soldiers who went to jail, the brigadier general who was relieved of her command, and the military investigator who analyzed the photos. Morris looks at what was photographed, and what was not. Why were some acts criminal and others âstandard operating procedureâ? Were the abuses of Abu Ghraib the acts of a few âbad apples,â or were those soldiers made scapegoats by an embarrassed military?â
<a href="http://www.tribecafilmfestival.org/filmguide/Chicken_the_Fish_and_the_King_Crab.html">The Chicken, the Fish and the King Crab</a>: âThe Bocuse d'Or competition is pretty much the Olympics of haute cuisine, bringing24 virtuoso chefs from around the world to a sports arena in Lyon, France every other year for a competition in which they have five and a half hours to prepare 12 portions of two complete meals. Following master chef Jesús Almagro as he seeks to bring the Bocuse d'Or home to Spain at last, The Chicken, the Fish and the King Crab takes its name from the 2006 competition's three mandatory ingredients. Director José Luis López-Linares darts away from the kitchen to educate viewers on happy halibuts, the difference between the king crab's killing and eating claws, and the poultry-loving culture of Bresse, France, but most camera time goes to Almagro's nerve-racking efforts to please the palates of his countrymen chefs.â
<a href="http://www.tribecafilmfestival.org/filmguide/Secrecy.html">Secrecy</a>: âA powerful and provocative new film by Robb Moss and Peter Galison examines the complexities and layers of our government's obsession with secrecy and the effects it has had on individuals and on our government. Using original animation, a powerful score, and expertly edited interviews with both proponents and detractors of our government's policies, Secrecy takes us deep into the dark shadows of this process, shedding light on the implications of reasons behind the need to classify a document as secret-and also asking who polices the state's ability to do so.â
<a href=" http://www.tribecafilmfestival.org/filmguide/War_Child.html">War Child</a>: "First-time filmmaker C. Karim Chrobog follows hip-hop artist Emmanuel Jal, a veteran of the 20-year civil war in southern Sudan who fled his devastated home in 1987. At a United Nations camp for Sudanese refugees in Ethiopia, Jal became the children's spokesperson and soon joined the Sudanese People's Liberation Army, training to fight the Arab-dominated north right under the UN's watch. After almost five years, he and his friends deserted, embarking on a harrowing journey that few survived. Now in his 20s, Jal is using his music to raise awareness about the ongoing humanitarian crisis in Sudan and the plight of child soldiers throughout the world."
<a href="http://www.tribecafilmfestival.org/filmguide/Man_On_Wire.html">Man on Wire</a>: âOn August 6, 1974, an international group of conspirators, disguised as construction workers and armed with fake IDs, snuck into the World Trade Center to perpetrate what would be called âthe artistic crime of the century.â The following morning, a young French daredevil named Philippe Petit walked on a cable strung between the Twin Towers â not once but eight times over a 45-minute period. <em>Man on Wire</em> follows the irrepressible Petit as he recalls his early exploits walking on a high wire between the towers of Notre Dame â while juggling! â and across the summit of the Sydney Harbour Bridge, and features the friends who helped Petit rig the cable and smuggle almost a ton of equipment into the freight elevator of the WTC's South Tower.â
<a href="http://www.tribecafilmfestival.org/filmguide/Baghdad_High.html"> Baghdad High</a>: âFour classmates (Kurd, Christian, Shiite, and Sunni/Shiite) in Baghdad are given cameras to document their last year in high school, resulting in a rare firsthand view of what itâs like growing up where sectarian violence rages right outside the classroom window.â
<a href="http://www.tribecafilmfestival.org/filmguide/My_Winnipeg.html"> My Winnipeg</a>:"With his latest work, Guy Maddin renders irrelevant the hoary debate about whether documentary or fiction is "more real." Ostensibly, he's offering a portrait of the frigid Manitoba city where he grew up-and, indeed, at the Tribeca Film Festival's first screening he appears in person to speak the narration live, as though offering further attestation that this is all true. But although there may well be a birth certificate confirming that Maddin was born in the actual Canadian metropolis of Winnipeg, My Winnipeg offers little in the way of proof that anything described in the film actually happened in Winnipeg, or happened to Guy Maddin in Winnipeg, or happened anywhere for that matter. In fact, viewing the film may make you pause to wonder whether Winnipeg actually exists, or Guy Maddin actually exists, or you actually exist. You may find yourself clutching your ticket stub in a pathetic attempt to hold on to reality."