A number of eclectic surprises awaited ticketholders this week at the mid-festival point. Director José Padilha took some time to speak with us about Elite Squad, a gritty, hardnosed look at police corruption in present-day Rio, fresh from its Golden Bear–winning debut at the Berlin Film Festival. Next, digital-media artist Delphine Kreuter, whose provocative drama 57,000 Kilometers Between Us screened in the World Narrative Competition, shared her thoughts on art, mystery, and the Internet. And finally, writer-director Brian Hecker and his on-screen alter ego Steven Kaplan discussed Bart Got a Room, a John Hughes–esque story of dweeby prom-night desperation.
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Sports films have a distinguished lineage in film history, one honored in this year’s edition of the Tribeca/ESPN Sports Film Festival. Based on a popular novel, Ball Don’t Lie stars real-life streetball champ Grayson “The Professor” Boucher as a troubled teen whose passion for hoops helps him deal with a dark past. Director Brin Hill took a timeout to chat with us about Venice Beach, screenwriting, and his expert coaching of an all-star cast. We also chewed the fat (or was that tobacco?) with the makers of The Zen of Bobby V, a spirited documentary about former New York Mets manager Bobby Valentine and his quest to bring world-class Japanese teams into competition with American Big Leaguers.
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The art of skewering contemporary culture is an element of two films by directors we spoke with earlier today. First up was Joshua Seftel, whose cutting political satire War Inc. stars writer-producer-actor John Cusack as a corporate hit man adrift in the post-occupation hellhole of “Turaqistan,” with leftie journo Marisa Tomei and Arab pop star Hilary Duff as too-close associates. Next, we spoke with Tom Donahue and Paul H-O about their self-lacerating docu-diary, Guest of Cindy Sherman, a uniquely personal (and often hilarious) depiction of the ultra-pretentious new York art world.
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The trials and tribulations of the immigrant experience is a big theme at this year’s festival. We spoke with director Simon Brand about his Latin American box-office smash Paraiso Travel, about a penniless Colombian man searching for his girlfriend in Queens after their perilous, traumatic trek to the States. Then Kief Davison dropped by to chat about his heart-wrenching docu-biography Kassim the Dream, the story of renowned boxer Kassim “The Dream” Ouma, a former child soldier from Uganda who became the world junior middleweight boxing champion.
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Today, we caught with up with two filmmakers whose dramatic features deal with psychic wounds, albeit in vastly different ways. Richard Ledes and actor Elliott Gould graciously made time to discuss The Caller, the noirish tale of two men—a corporate whistleblower (Frank Langella) and the private detective hired to kill him (Gould)—who discover they have a lot more in common than an employer. Later, producer Domenico Procacci and director Antonello Grimaldi stopped by to chat with us about their award-winning new film, Quiet Chaos, the story of a father’s radically solitary struggle with grief, starring celebrated writer-director Nanni Moretti (The Son’s Room).
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On our first day at Tribeca, we spoke with John Walter about Theater of War, a film that goes behind the scenes of the Public Theater’s 2006 production of Mother Courage, starring Meryl Streep and Kevin Kline, to examine the turbulent life and still-relevant ideas of brilliant German playwright Bertolt Brecht. Next, we chatted with James Westby, writer-director of The Auteur, a hilarious send-up about a pretentious Italian porn director looking to reunite with his long-ago leading man, now a dorky reality-TV host, for his greatest epic yet: Full Metal Jackoff.
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