Skip to main content

Starring New York: New York Films at the 2009 Tribeca Film Festival

For those who enjoy depictions of New York on film, several movies in this year's Tribeca Film Festival (April 22-May 3, 2009) give New York a featured role. Though not surprising for a festival that was created to reinvigorate lower Manhattan in the wake of 9/11, the festival's New York-centered films sprawl out across the five boroughs. Glamorous Manhattan is still the backdrop for Steven Soderberg's The Girlfriend Experience, and Wall Street and the East and West Villages get their star turns. But other films include City Island, set in the Bronx, The Exploding Girl and Off and Running, set in Brooklyn, and Entre Nos, with Queens as the setting. And yes, Staten Island features in a spooky real-life tale with the film Cropsey.

Features


Blank City. Encounters. Feature Documentary, 2009, 106 min. Directed by: Celine Danhier. East Village art scene of the 1970s with everything-goes film movements such as "No Wave Cinema" and "Cinema of Transgression."

Burning Down the House: The Story of CBGB. Discovery. Feature Documentary, 2009, 90 min
Directed by: Mandy Stein. The "Country Bluegrass Blues" club on the Bowery, founded by Hilly Kristal, becomes a punk, new wave heaven. Vintage performances by Patti Smith, Talking Heads, Television, Bad Brains, and The Ramones.

City Island. Encounters. Feature Narrative, 2009, 100 min. Directed by: Raymond De Felitta. Story of a dysfunctional family living on a little-known island in the Bronx

Con Artist. Discovery. Feature Documentary, 2009, 80 min. Directed by: Michael Sládek. Traces the rise and hard gall of Mark Kostabi, a star during the 1980s New York art world. A docu-comedy.

Cropsey. Midnight. Feature Documentary, 2008, 84 min. Directed by: Barbara Brancaccio and Joshua Zeman. A spooky Staten Island tale of missing children and a real-life bogeyman.

An Englishman in New York. Encounters. Narrative. 74 min. With John Hurt as the aging Quentin Crisp, living in New York. Also a portrait of a new sensibility as the gay community in the early 1980s first confronts AIDS.

Entre nos. Discovery. Feature Narrative, 2009, 80 min. Directed by: Paola Mendoza and Gloria La Morte. After her husband abandons her, a mother must fend for herself and care for her children in the unfamiliar new world of Queens, New York. She finds a future in the city's recycling program.

The Exploding Girl. World Narrative Feature Competition. Feature Narrative, 2009, 79 min. Directed by: Bradley Rust Gray. A maturation story of a college student returning home to Brooklyn for summer break with her longtime guy friend.

The Girlfriend Experience. Spotlight. Feature Narrative, 2009, 77 min. Directed by: Steven Soderbergh. Five days in the life of a $2,000-an-hour Manhattan call girl, with adult film star Sasha Grey in the lead. Filmed with advanced digital technology.

The Good Guy. Encounters. Feature Narrative, 2009, 90 min. Directed by: Julio DePietro. Story of a Wall Street star, his budding romance, and his mentoring of a new guy in the ways of "the street."

Here and There. World Narrative Feature Competition. Feature Narrative, 2009, 90 min. Directed by: Darko Lungulov. A story of the competing cultures and climate of his home country of Serbia and his adopted New York.

Off and Running. Discovery. Feature Documentary, 2009, 78 min. Directed by: Nicole Opper. Story of Avery, a typical Brooklyn teen, adopted by white Jewish lesbians, with a younger Korean brother and an older brother is mixed-race. Avery is black and grows curious about her biological African-American roots.

P-Star Rising. Discovery. Feature Documentary, 2009, 83 min. Directed by: Gabriel Noble. Jesse Diaz, a rising star in the hip-hop world in the '80s, finds himself a broke single father in Harlem with two children to support. He puts his faith in his nine-year-old daughter, a talented rapper.

Partly Private. World Documentary Feature Competition. Feature Documentary, 2009, 84 min. Directed by: Danae Elon. Circumcision story features locations around the world, including New York.

Variety. Restored/Rediscovered. Feature Narrative, 1984, 97 min. Directed by: Bette Gordon. Bette Gordon's pioneering indie narrative about a young woman working as a ticket taker in a porn theater. A product of the downtown artist scene from the early 1980s, Variety credits include composer John Lurie, cinematographer Tom DeCillo, writer Kathy Acker, photographer Nan Goldin, and actor Spalding Gray. Shot on location in New York City at the lost landmarks of the Variety Theatre, Fulton Fish Market, Yankee Stadium, and a funkier Times Square. Preservation by Women's Film Preservation Fund of NYWIFT.

Whatever Works. Feature Narrative, 2009, 92 min. Directed by: Woody Allen. The film will have its world premiere on the opening night of the film festival, April 22. New Yorker played by Larry David - not that there's anything wrong with that - abandons his upper-class life - hmmm - for bohemia - welcome to Greenwich Village. He meets a young girl from the South - uh-oh - and her family - double uh-oh. A Woody Allen movie, with many scenes filmed on location in bohemia, i.e. Greenwich Village, USA.

Shorts

Camera Roll (for Taylor). Shorts in Competition: Documentary. Short Documentary, 2008, 3 min. Directed by: Joel Schlemowitz and Joel Schlemowitz. A city cine-poem, filmed in Brooklyn in the vicinity of the Gowanus Canal, shot on a single roll of 16mm film.

Deadline. Shorts in Competition: Narrative. Short Narrative, 2008, 17 min. Directed by: Joseph Bakhash. A psychological drama of a tortured ex-convict meeting his prison guard in a diner.

Nueva York. Shorts in Competition: Narrative. Short Narrative, 2008, 8 min. Directed by: Manolo Celi. Multiple stories of Latino life in New York.

Images from Empire Fulton Ferry State Park on April 16, 2009 by Walking Off the Big Apple. Starting next week look for my coverage of the Tribeca Film Festival on Reframe, a project of the Tribeca Film Institute.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

A New York Spring Calendar: Blooming Times and Seasonal Events

See the UPDATED 2018 CALENDAR HERE . Updated for 2017 . At this time of year, thoughts turn to spring. Let's spring forward to blooming times, the best locations for witnessing spring's beginnings, and springtime events in the big city. While the occasional snow could blow through the city, we're just weeks now from callery pears in bloom and opening day at the ballpark. In The Ramble, Central Park. mid-April Blooming Times •  Central Park Conservancy's website  lists blooming times within the park. During the month of March we begin to see crocus, daffodils, forsythia, snowdrops, witch-hazel, and hellebores. Species tulips will emerge in several places, but the Shakespeare Garden and Conservatory Garden are particularly good places to catch the beginning of Spring blooms. Central Park near E. 72nd St., saucer magnolia, typically end of March. •  Citywide Blooming Calendar from New York City Department of Parks & Recreation April is u

Museums in New York Open on Mondays

Please see this post for current announcements of reopenings . Please consult the museum websites for changes in days and hours. UPDATED September 23, 2020 Advance tickets required for many museum reopenings. Please check museum websites for details. • The  Museum of Modern Art (MoMA)  reopened to the public on  August 27 , with new hours for the first month, through September 27: from 10:30 a.m. until 5:30 p.m. Tuesday through Sunday to the public; and from 10:30 a.m. until 5:30 p.m.  on Mondays for MoMA members on ly. Admission will be free to all visitors Tuesday through Sunday, through September 27, made possible by UNIQLO. See this  new post on WOTBA for a sense of the experience attending the museum . •  New-York Historical Society  reopened on  August 14  with an outdoor exhibition, "Hope Wanted: New York City Under Quarantine,” in the rear courtyard. The exhibit by activist Kevin Powell and photographer Kay Hickman will highlight how New Yorkers weathered the quarantine

25 Things To Do Near the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA)

(updated 2016) The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) at 11 W. 53rd Street is near many other New York City attractions, so before or after a trip to the museum, a short walk in any direction could easily take in additional experiences. Drawing a square on a map with the museum at the center, a shape bounded by 58th Street to the north and 48th Street to the south, with 7th Avenue to the west and Park Avenue to the east, proves the point of the area's cultural richness. (A map follows the list below.) While well-known sightseeing stops fall with these boundaries, most notably Rockefeller Center, St. Patrick's Cathedral, and the great swath of famous Fifth Avenue stores, cultural visitors may also want to check out places such as the Austrian Cultural Forum, the 57th Street galleries, the Onassis Cultural Center, and the Municipal Art Society. The image above shows an intriguing glimpse of the tops of two Beaux-Arts buildings through an opening of the wall inside MoMA's scu

Taking a Constitutional Walk

A long time ago individuals going out for a walk, especially to get fresh air and exercise, often referred to the activity as "taking a constitutional walk." The word "constitutional" refers to one's constitution or physical makeup, so a constitutional walk was considered beneficial to one's overall wellbeing. (Or, as some would prefer to call it, "wellness.") The phrase is more common in British literature than in American letters. As early as the mid-nineteenth century, many American commentators expressed concern that their countrymen were falling into lazy and unhealthy habits. Newspaper columnists and editorial writers urged their readers to take up the practice of the "constitutional" walk. One such essay, " Walking as an Exercise," originally printed in the Philadelphia Gazette and reprinted in New England Farmer , Volume 11, 1859, urges the people of farm areas to take up walking. City dwellers seemed to have the

25 Things to Do Near the American Museum of Natural History

After visiting the American Museum of Natural History, explore attractions on the Upper West Side or in Central Park. Visitors to New York often run around from one major tourist site to the next, sometimes from one side of the city to the other, and in the process, exhaust themselves thoroughly. Ambitious itineraries often include something like coffee in the Village in the morning, lunch near MoMA, a couple of hours in the museum, a ride on the Staten Island Ferry in the afternoon, cocktails at the midtown hotel, a quick dinner, and then a Broadway show. It's a wonder people don't pass out at the theater. While sitting on the steps of the American Museum of History, consider exploring the Upper West Side and nearby sites of interest in Central Park. There's a better way to plan a New York trip. Consider grouping attractions together geographically. Several posts on this site address this recommended approach. The Wild West of the Tecumseh Playground Groupin

25 Things to Do Near the Metropolitan Museum of Art

(updated) Sitting on the steps in front of the Metropolitan Museum of Art is one of those iconic things to do in New York City. On a sunny day, the wide steps can become crowded with the young and old, the tourist and the resident. It's tempting to stay awhile and soak in the sun and the sights. Everyone has reasons for lingering there, with one being the shared pleasure of people watching along this expansive stretch of Fifth Avenue, a painting come to life. Certainly, just getting off one's feet for a moment is welcome, especially if the previous hours involved walking through the entirety of art history from prehistoric to the contemporary. The entrance to the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Fifth Avenue The Metropolitan Museum of Art should be a singular pilgrimage, uninterrupted by feeble attempts to take in more exhibitions along Museum Mile. Pity the poor visitor who tries "to do" multiple museum exhibitions in one day, albeit ambitious, noble, and uplift

The High Line and Chelsea Market: A Good Pairing for a Walk

(revised 2017) The advent of spring, with its signs of growth and rebirth, is apparent both on the High Line , where volunteers are cutting away the old growth to reveal fresh blooms, and inside the Chelsea Market, where new tenants are revitalizing the space. A walk to take in both can become an exploration of bounty and surprise, a sensual walk of adventure and sustenance. A good pairing for a walk: The High Line and Chelsea Market Walking the High Line for a round trip from Gansevoort to W. 30th and then back again adds up to a healthy 2-mile walk. Regular walkers of the elevated park look for an excuse to go there. Especially delightful is showing off the park, a model of its kind, to visitors from out of town. A stroll through Chelsea Market. Time check. If you haven't stopped into Chelsea Market lately, you may want to take a detour from the High Line at the stairs on W. 16th St. and walk through the market for a quick assessment or a sampling. Among the sampli

Introducing Birds of Inwood

Introducing a New Website It's been a moment since I posted last. Please forgive me. I have been in the forest down the street. After spending many of my leisure hours taking photographs of birds in my local neighborhood of Inwood, I am introducing to you a new website featuring these beautiful and often enigmatic creatures. It's called  Birds of Inwood . As I write there, "Inwood is my Amherst." With time, my advancing age, and the pandemic, I have learned to find depth and beauty in places close to home.  I have also found to my delight that designing a new website presents great opportunities. Birds of Inwood is pretty flashy! The birds are even larger than life on these new pages! Please visit. You'll be glad I didn't call it "Flying Off the Big Apple." Check out my forest home. - Teri

14 Useful Mobile Apps for Walking New York City

Texting and walking at the same time is wrong. Talking on the phone while strolling down the street is wrong. Leaving the sidewalk to stop and consult the information on a cellphone, preferably while alone, is OK. What's on Walking Off the Big Apple's iPhone: A List Walkmeter GPS Walking Stopwatch for Fitness and Weight Loss . While out walking, Walkmeter tracks routes, time, speed, and elevation. This is an excellent app for recording improvised or impromptu strolls, especially with many unplanned detours. The GPS function maps out the actual route. The app keeps a running tally of calories burned while walking, useful for weight loss goals. Another welcome feature is the ability to switch over to other modes of activity, including cycling. An indispensable app for city walkers. $4.99  New York City Compass , designed by Francesco Bertelli, is an elegant compass calibrated for Manhattan, with indications for Uptown, East Side, Downtown, and West Side. While facing a cert

Visiting New York on a Monday

Mondays are OK. Let's have a look at some of the museums open Mondays - • American Museum of Natural History • Jewish Museum • Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) • National Museum of the American Indian • Neue Galerie • Guggenheim Museum • South Street Seaport Museum Any of these museums could be paired with a nearby restaurant or bar, making a complete full afternoon or day in New York. Monday is especially good for a museum visit, because the crowds tend to be thinner, and restaurants, too, tend to be less busy than on a weekend. A fun museum and bistro walk on the Upper West Side would be a combination of the American Museum of Natural History and the nearby Cafe Lalo on W. 83rd St. I also would suggest a pairing of the Neue Galerie with a nearby cafe, but the two cafes inside the musuem are so good, why go anywhere else? Image above: The Guggenheim on left and Beaux-Arts townhouse on right. View from E. 88th St. by Walking Off the Big Apple.