By Maria Esteves - May 11, 2008 The Seventh Annual 2008 Tribeca Film Festival (TFF) was held in Tribeca and venues in New York City, April 23 - May 4, 2008. The festival sponsored by American Express, annually present international films, gala receptions, panel discussions, concerts, special events, awards ceremony, Tribeca/ESPN sports day, and a family street fair. TFF08 included 53 World Premieres, 6 International Premieres, 30 North American Premieres, 7 U.S. Premieres, and 19 New York Ci...

 Sunday, May 4--------Although it is tempting, it is actually quite difficult to take a diverse event as the Tribeca Film Festival and tie its themes or influences into one neat bow. Film festivals are, after all, about diversity and multiplicity of voices. While the programmers of the event certainly have an overall picture of how the films interact with one another, oftentimes the influences are not that clearly on the surface, and only become revealed days after their initial, sometimes acci...

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Saturday, May 3------One of the more intriguing new players in the digital download field is Film Annex. Through its website, Filmannex.com, the company's mission is to provide a new channel for promoting filmmakers and their works as well as distributing their films — to anyone with an Internet connection and selective corporate clients. Since art and independent films (particularly non-English language films) are often hugely popular at film festivals, but suffer at the distribution level t...

 Saturday, May 3-------Following a packed 10-day marathon of film screenings, industry events, seminar panels and chic parties, the Tribeca Film Festival ended this weekend with the announcement of the winners of the juried awards in several categories. The World Competition winners were chosen from 12 narrative and 12 documentary features from 18 countries. Two awards were also given to honor New York films, which were chosen from seven narrative and nine documentary features. Awards were als...

 Saturday, May 3-------Following a packed 10-day marathon of film screenings, industry events, seminar panels and chic parties, the Tribeca Film Festival ended this weekend with the announcement of the winners of the juried awards in several categories. The World Competition winners were chosen from 12 narrative and 12 documentary features from 18 countries. Two awards were also given to honor New York films, which were chosen from seven narrative and nine documentary features. Awards were als...

By Maria Esteves - May 2, 2008 SPEED RACER, directed by Andy and Larry Wachowski (brothers) is an outstanding action packed computer animated film based on the 1960's young race car driver cartoon series I grew up watching every day after school on television. The film depicts Speed (Emile Hirsch) aspiration of becoming a Race Car Champion by entering The Thunderhead Raceway, Casa Cristo Classic 5000, and the Grand Prix XCI. Technically speaking, the special effects are breathtaking. It's a...

Friday, May 2-------With all the films being screened in a concentrated 10 days at the Tribeca Film Festival, it takes a mix of courage and chutzpah to organize a staged reading to attract distribution and financing interest. But that's exactly what the powers that be at Paradigm Shift Productions and Streamline Filmworks pulled off this past Monday.The film in question is MONEY MATTERS from award-winning short film director Ryan Richmond. The presentation included a showing of the short film ...

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Thursday, May 1--------One of the fab parties this week at the Tribeca Film Festival was the Tuesday evening bash at BAR 13, hosted by Wallflower Press, the largest publisher of film books and magazines in the United Kingdom. Yoram Allon, Editorial Director and Publisher, was in Gotham with his wife Nicky Allon and editor Ian Haydn Smith as part of the company’s North American launch of the INTERNATIONAL FILM GUIDE, the authoritative Yearbook of International Cinema, and FILM & FESTIVALS M...

Thursday, May 1-------Although the Tribeca Film Festival does not have a formal market, the sheer number of World and International Premieres has upped the acquisitions quotient for films participating in the program. In the past week, a number of deals were announced that have given the Festival more “industry cred”.  IFC Entertainment has acquired North American rights to Luis Piedrahita and Rodrigo Sopena's FERMAT’S ROOM. The Spanish drama tells the story of four mathematicians who do ...

 Wednesday, April 30------Aside from a multitude of premiere screenings and a rash of industry parties, the Tribeca Film Festival is delivering celebrities and filmmakers up close and personal in a series of special events.In a number of different discussion serires, the Festival has explored issues and trends in society and the entertainment industry with some of the biggest names in film, literature and media.  The series includes a new program, “Behind the Screens: films and conversation...

Tuesday, April 29----Just in case you thought the Tribeca Film Festival was only about movies, the Tribeca Music Lounge opens tonight at the Canal Room, featuring cutting-edge music performances from some of New York and America's most interesting new music artists. Be there or be square. ...

 Monday, April 28---------One of the great pleasures of attending a film festival is the serendipity that often occurs when one sees one film after another, finding thematic connections or differences between them that delight the soul and stimulate the mind. I had just such an occurrence the other day, seeing two British films back to back. It just happened that the films were screening after one another, but it made me realize how much I love and appreciate both the high and the low in Britis...

 Sunday, April 27------It is undoubtedly one of the seminal films of the 1960s and a harbinger of the sci-fi and special effects-laden films of such blockbusters as the STAR WARS series, CLOSE ENCOUNTERS OF THE THIRD KIND and BLADE RUNNER. It is the grand-daddy of "trippy" special effects films.....2001: A SPACE ODYSSEY, a masterpiece from directing legend Stanley Kubrick that is being revived on its 40th anniversary at the Tribeca Film Festival.2001: A SPACE ODYSSEY was one of th...