As the Tribeca Film Festival ends its run on Sunday, we present our 'ideal viewing experience' for this weekend: Ten interesting films (plus a short) that seem worth the sacrifice.
Sacrifice? What sacrifice, you ask?
Well, advance tickets are pretty much sold out at this stage of the festival. So if you wanna catch anything at Tribeca before it closes, you're going to have to stand in line for 'rush' tickets.
Tribeca holds quite a few tickets back for each film; generally, they advise if you get there early--an hour early has worked for us in the past--you should be able to get in.
Especially for films earlier in the day, and films that sound unexciting to the average viewer.
But you're no average viewer, and neither are we--so below are the films that caught our eye.
Since Urbanite is a collective entity, we may even wind up seeing all of them this weekend--look for us with our amNY.com glow-in-the-dark pens.
* See Celebrity photos here; Tribeca videos and trailers are here
* List of Tribeca Film Festival competition winners is here, with full weekend schedule here
(Unless we provide a link, all capsules are edited from the Tribeca Film Festival description).
Friday, May 02
-9:00PM: Playing for Change: Peace Through Music
AMC Village VII 3
"When you play on the streets, you don't have a particular audience--you have all the world coming to you," says Clarence Bekker, a street musician from the Netherlands.
And I think all the world should see the opening sequence of this global music documentary--it's absolutely one of the best things I've ever seen in a movie theater. Read more of our review here
-9:00PM: Ramchand Pakistani
Village East Cinema 2
The most haunting frame of Ramchand Pakistani may be its first. Over a black screen, the words appear: adapted from actual events. The world is full of mad facts, but among the maddest is that in 2002, as Indian and Pakistani troops massed against each other on the countries' border, an eight-year-old boy named Ramchand wandered over the invisible line separating his own side of the desert from that of India's and was taken prisoner. Going in search of Ramchand, his father followed him across and was captured as well
Saturday, May 03
-10:45AM: Baghdad High
Village East Cinema 4
'Baghdad High' is one of those films you know will be good as soon as you hear the concept: Two journalists gave four Baghdad teens video cameras to capture their senior year of high school. Who knew, though, that it'd be the breakout hit of this years festival? Read more of our review here
-11:00AM: My Marlon and Brando
How far would you go for love? The real-life heroine of My Marlon and Brando was willing to slip into Iraq at the start of the 2003 war.
The film, which won director Hüseyin Karabey the Tribeca Festival's award for best new narrative filmmaker, is based on the frustrating and poignant struggle of the leading actress, Ayça Damgaci, to be with her Kurdish beloved. Read more of our review here
-2:30PM: Gunnin' for That #1 Spot
AMC 19th St. East Theater 1
Throughout the year, in parks and playgrounds around the country, boys of all ages try to show each other up on the blacktop, invoking the likes of Michael, Magic, LeBron, and Kobe. Some of them possess a talent that rises above the others, and united with unparalleled determination, focus, and strength of will, they go on to excel in high school, becoming potential stars of tomorrow. In the fall of 2006, 24 of these top prospects were brought together at one of the most legendary courts in America: Rucker Park.
-5:00PM: Bart Got a Room
AMC Village VII 1
All you need to know about this father/son fable is William H. Macy has a Jewfro in it. See our interview with director Brian Hecker (and yes, see that hair) by clicking here.
-7:45PM: Head Wind
Village East Cinema 4
How can authoritarian governments defeat their citizens' hunger for knowledge in the era of the "information revolution"? Iranian filmmaker Mohammad Rasoulof takes a candid and searing look inside the Islamic Republic, revealing its losing battle for control over the flow of information into the country from the outside world.
Sunday, May 04
-10:45AM: Man on Wire
AMC Village VII Theater 4
On the afternoon of 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 "the artistic crime of the century." The following morning, a young Frenchman named Philippe Petit walked on a cable strung between the Twin Towers-not once but eight times over a 45-minute period.
-1:45PM: A President to Remember: In the Company of John F. Kennedy
Acclaimed director Robert Drew recut his documentaries from the 60s to create 'A President to Remember: In the Company of John F. Kennedy,' in part because of all the interest and comparisons surrounding Barack Obama's campaign. It's almost eerie seeing the similarities--and differences--unspooling in this record of a more innocent era. See our interview with Robert Drew here.
-4:00PM: Fighter
AMC 19th St. East Theater 1
Fighter is an affecting girl-power fable set amid the Turkish émigré community in Copenhagen. Natasha Arthy's film centers on Aicha, a spirited high school senior whose conservative parents expect her to become a doctor-but this girl dreams in kung fu. Dutiful to her family demands, it's only on the kung fu mat that Aicha feels truly at home. Aicha secretly enrolls in an elite, co-ed kung fu school, where she meets and falls for Emil, the sweet and challenging Dane assigned to her as a training partner.
-7:00PM: Great Genius and Profound Stupidity (short film program)
AMC 19th St. East Theater 1
This experimental documentary-which includes interviews with Avital Ronnell, Oliver Sacks, and Merce Cunningham-explores pilgrim mathematician Paul Erdős, Hellen Keller, and the philosophical ideas of genius and stupidity.
* More Tribeca blog coverage here
Images from Fighter, Bart Got a Room, and Ramchand Pakistani courtesy Tribeca Film Festival/filmmakers