TRIBECA FILM FESTIVAL
Multiple locations
April 20-30, free – $365 (most events $23.88 – $43.45)
tribecafilm.com/festival
Tickets are still available for most of the special screenings, talks, and live performances at the 2017 Tribeca Film Festival, taking place at such locations as the BMCC Tribeca PAC, the SVA Theatre, the Beacon, Regal Cinemas Battery Park, Radio City, the Town Hall, Cinépolis Chelsea, and the Festival Hub at Spring Studios. The guest list is pretty impressive, including Dustin Hoffman, Barbra Streisand, Philip Glass, Common, Scarlett Johansson, Michael Moore, Kathryn Bigelow, Johnny Lydon, Lena Dunham, Kobe Bryant, Aretha Franklin, Errol Morris, Faith Evans, Zac Posen, Lil’ Kim, Alejandro González Iñárritu, Julian Schnabel, a Flock of Seagulls, Christopher Plummer, Taj Mahal, Jennifer Hudson, Quentin Tarantino, and Bruce Springsteen with Tom Hanks (which is sold out), among many others. Oh, and how about this gathering, celebrating the forty-fifth anniversary of The Godfather: Francis Ford Coppola, Al Pacino, James Caan, Robert Duvall, Diane Keaton, Talia Shire, and Robert De Niro.
Wednesday, April 19
Gala — Clive Davis: The Soundtrack of Our Lives (Chris Perkel, 2017), followed by live performances by Aretha Franklin, Jennifer Hudson, Earth Wind & Fire, Barry Manilow, Carly Simon, and Dionne Warwick, Radio City Music Hall, $56-$281, 7:00
Thursday, April 20
After the Movie: Bowling for Columbine (Michael Moore, 2002), followed by fifteenth anniversary conversation with Michael Moore and others, SVA Theatre 2 Beatrice, $23.88, 7:00
Retrospective Special Screenings: La Belle et la Bête (Jean Cocteau, 1942), with live musical accompaniment by members of the Philip Glass Ensemble, preceded by a conversation with Philip Glass and Errol Morris, Town Hall, $55-$85, 8:00
Friday, April 21
Tribeca Talks: Directors Series — Jon Favreau with Scarlett Johansson, SVA Theatre 1 Silas, rush, 5:00
Special Screenings: The Public Image Is Rotten (Tabbert Fiiller, 2017), followed by a conversation with director Tabbert Fiiller and John Lydon, Tribeca Festival Hub, sixth floor, $23.88, 8:45
Saturday, April 22
Shorts: Blues Planet: Triptych (Wyland, 2017), with live performance by Taj Mahal and the Wyland Blues Planet Band, Tribeca Festival Hub, sixth floor, $23.88, 2:00
Tribeca Talks: Directors Series — Alejandro González Iñárritu, SVA Theatre 1 Silas, rush, 2:30
Special Screenings: The Third Industrial Revolution (Eddy Moretti, 2017), followed by a conversation with director Eddy Moretti and Jeremy Rifkin, Tribeca Festival Hub, sixth floor, limited, 5:00
Special Screenings: House of Z (Sandy Chronopoulos, 2017), followed by a conversation with director Sandy Chronopoulos and film subject Zac Posen, SVA Theatre 1 Silas, $43.45, 8:00
Tribeca Talks: Virtual Reality — Kathryn Bigelow & Imraan Ismail: The Protectors: A Walk in the Ranger’s Shoes, screening and conversation with Kathryn Bigelow and Imraan Ismail, Tribeca Festival Hub, sixth floor, $43.45, 8:15
After the Movie: Awake, a Dream from Standing Rock (2017), followed by a conversation with filmmakers Josh Fox, James Spione, and Myron Dewey and special guests, Cinépolis Chelsea 7, rush, 8:30
Nelson George will team up with Common for a screening, discussion, and live performance at Tribeca on April 23
Sunday, April 23
Tribeca Talks: Master Class — Dolby: Image and Sound Master Class with Imogen Heap, Dolby Cinema at AMC Empire 2, free, 12 noon
Tribeca Talks: Storytellers — Kobe Bryant and Glen Keane with Michael Strahan, BMCC Tribeca PAC, $43.45, 4:30
Tribeca Talks: Podcasts — Live from the Tribeca Film Festival: Gilbert Gottfried’s Amazing Colossal Podcast!, with Gilbert Gottfried and Frank Santopadre, Regal Cinemas Battery Park 11-4, $43.45, 5:30
Tribeca Talks: Storytellers — Common with Nelson George, screening of Letter to the Free, followed by a conversation with Nelson George and a live performance by Common, Tribeca Festival Hub, sixth floor, $43.45, 8:00
Monday, April 24
Tribeca Talks: Directors Series — Noah Baumbach with Dustin Hoffman, BMCC Tribeca PAC, $43.45, 6:00
Tuesday, April 25
Tribeca Talks: Storytellers — Lena Dunham and Jenni Konner, Tribeca Festival Hub, sixth floor, $43.45, 6:00
Tribeca Talks: Directors Series — Paul Feig, BMCC Tribeca PAC, $43.45, 6:00
Special Screenings: Paris Can Wait (Eleanor Coppola, 2016), followed by French food pairings inspired by the film, BMCC Tribeca PAC, $43.45, 8:00
Pen pals Barbra Streisand and Robert Rodriguez will join together in conversation at the Tribeca Film Festival on April 29
Wednesday, April 26
Special Screenings: The Exception (David Leveaux, 2017), followed by a conversation with director David Leveaux and actor Christopher Plummer, BMCC Tribeca PAC, $23.88, 6:00
Special Screenings: From the Ashes (Michael Bonfiglio, 2017), introduced by Michael Bloomberg and followed by a discussion with director Michael Bonfiglio and special guests, Tribeca Festival Hub, sixth floor, rush, 6:00
Thursday, April 27
Gala — Can’t Stop, Won’t Stop: The Bad Boy Story (Daniel Kaufman, 2017), followed by a live concert featuring Combs and Mase, Lil’ Kim, and Faith Evans, Beacon, $71-$356, 8:00
Special Screenings — Warning: This Drug May Kill You (Perri Peltz, 2017), followed by a conversation with Dr. Nora Volkow, Dr. Andrew Kolodny, film subject Gail Cole, and producer Sascha Weiss, moderated by director Perri Peltz, SVA Theatre 2 Beatrice, $23.88, 8:45
Friday, April 28
Tribeca Talks: Storytellers — Bruce Springsteen with Tom Hanks, Beacon Theatre, 5:00
After the Movie: Reservoir Dogs (Quentin Tarantino, 1992), followed by twenty-fifth anniversary conversation with Quentin Tarantino and members of the cast, Beacon Theatre, $71-$356, 8:00
Special Screenings — Julian Schnabel: A Private Portrait (Pappi Corsicato, 2017), followed by a a conversation with director Pappi Corsicato and Julian Schnabel, SVA Theatre 1 Silas, $43.45, 8:30
The forty-fifth anniversary of THE GODFATHER will be celebrated at Radio City as part of the Tribeca Film Festival, with James Caan, Francis Ford Coppola, Al Pacino, and others
Saturday, April 29
Before the Movie: Aladdin (Ron Clements & John Musker, 1992), twenty-fifth anniversary, preceded by a live performance by Aladdin singing voice Brad Kane, BMCC Tribeca PAC, free, 10:00 am
After the Movie: The Godfather (Francis Ford Coppola, 1972) and The Godfather Part II (Francis Ford Coppola, 1974), followed by a forty-fifth anniversary conversation with Francis Ford Coppola, Al Pacino, James Caan, Robert Duvall, Diane Keaton, Talia Shire, and Robert De Niro, moderated by Taylor Hackford, Radio City Music Hall, $46-$131, 1:00
Tribeca Talks: Master Class — Production and Costume Design, with Kristi Zea, SVA Theatre 2 Beatrice, free, 3:00
Tribeca Talks: Storytellers — Barbra Streisand with Robert Rodriguez, BMCC Tribeca PAC, $43.45, 6:00
Tribeca N.O.W. Special Screenings — Out of This World: Female Filmmakers in Genre, screening and conversation with filmmakers Nicole Delaney, Vera Miao, and Arkasha Stevenson, Cinépolis Chelsea 7, $23.88, 6:00
After the Movie — Chris Gethard: Career Suicide (Kimberly Senior, 2017), followed by a conversation with Chris Gethard and fellow comedians Pete Holmes, Abbi Jacobson, and others, SVA Theatre 1 Silas, $23.88, 8:15
Sunday, April 30
Tribeca Talks: Master Class — Cinematography, with Ellen Kuras, SVA Theatre 2 Beatrice, free, 4:00 PM
Special Screenings: Dare to Be Different (Ellen Goldfarb, 2017), followed by live tribute to WLIR with a Flock of Seagulls, Dave Wakeling of the English Beat, and the Alarm, Tribeca Festival Hub, sixth floor, rush, 6:00
Tribeca N.O.W. Special Screenings: The New York Times’ Op-Docs (2017), followed by a conversation with filmmakers Andrea Meller, Megan Mylan, Marisa Pearl, and Gina Pollack, SVA Theatre 2 Beatrice, $23.88, 6:15
Tribeca Talks: Podcasts — Live from the Tribeca Film Festival: Slate’s Trumpcast, with Jamelle Bouie and Virginia Heffernan, hosted by Jacob Weisberg, SVA Theatre 1 Silas, $43.45, 8:15
On February 19, 1972, during a massive blizzard, thirty-three-year-old jazz trumpeter extraordinaire Lee Morgan was shot to death by his common-law wife, Helen, in Slugs’ Saloon on the Lower East Side. Swedish director, writer, and producer Kasper Collin takes viewers behind the scenes of the tragedy in the sensational documentary I Called Him Morgan. The Philadelphia-born Morgan was a young prodigy, studying with Clifford Brown, playing with Dizzy Gillespie’s orchestra when he was eighteen, and joining Art Blakey’s Jazz Messengers at twenty. Preferring the term “black classical music” to “jazz,” Morgan was caught up in a lifestyle of fast cars and drugs, ultimately hitting rock bottom until he was rescued by Helen Moore, thirteen years his elder, a farm girl from North Carolina who loved throwing parties in her adopted hometown of New York City and was a beloved fixture in the jazz community. Collin amasses an impressive roster of jazz greats who share their insights, including saxophonists Wayne Shorter, Bennie Maupin, and Billy Harper, drummers Albert “Tootie” Heath and Charli Persip, and bassists Larry Ridley, Jymie Merritt, and Paul West, along with Morgan neighbor Ron St. Clair, Helen’s son Al Harrison, and Morgan’s very close friend, Judith Johnson, many of whom are going on the record for the first time. “There was never no doubt in anybody’s mind: Lee was gonna be a star, Persip remembers. “They cared about each other. They loved each other,” Maupin says about Lee and Helen. There are also rare audio clips from an interview British writer and photographer Val Wilmer conducted with Morgan in October 1971 in Lee and Helen’s Bronx apartment. The film is anchored by a remarkable interview Helen gave writer, teacher, and jazz radio announcer Larry Reni Thomas in February 1996, a month before she died. “I will not sit here and tell you that I was so nice, because I was not,” she tells Thomas, speaking often in broken phrases. “One of the . . . will cut you. I was sharp. Yeah . . . I had to be. And I looked out for me.” It all culminates in a spellbinding, detailed account of the murder itself, told by numerous eyewitnesses with “Stagger Lee”-like swagger.
Yasujirō Ozu might not have been keen on the latest technology — he made silent films until 1936, and his first color film was in 1958, near the end of his career — but there’s nothing old-fashioned about his mastery of camera and storytelling, as evidenced by one of his lesser-known comedy-dramas, Passing Fancy. On March 19 at 4:30, Film Forum is screening a 35mm print of the 1933 masterpiece, accompanied by a live benshi performance by Ichiro Kataoka and composer and pianist Makia Matsumura. Takeshi Sakamato stars as Kihachi, a character that would go on to appear in such other Ozu works as A Story of Floating Weeds, An Inn in Tokyo, and Record of a Tenement Gentleman. The film opens at a rōkyoku performance, where the audience is sitting on the floor on a hot day, mopping their brows and fanning themselves; Kihachi has an ever-present cloth on his head, looking clownish, a small boy with an injured eye who turns out to be his son, Tomio (Tokkankozo), sleeping by him. Foreshadowing Bresson-ian precision, Ozu and cinematographers Hideo Shigehara and Shojiro Sugimoto follow a small, lost change purse as several men inspect it, hoping to find money in it, then toss it away when it comes up empty. The scene establishes the pace and tone of the film, identifies Kihachi as the protagonist, and shows that there will be limited translated text and dialogue; in fact, Ozu never reveals what happened to Tomio’s eye. After the performance, Kihachi and his friend and coworker at the local brewery, Jiro (Den Obinata), meet a destitute young woman named Harue (Nobuko Fushimi). An intertitle explains, “Everyone years for love. Love sets our thoughts in flight.” Kihachi, a poor, single father, helps Harue get a place to stay and a job with restaurant owner Otome (Chouko Iida), hoping that Harue will become interested in him, but she instead takes a liking to the younger Jiro, who wants nothing to do with the whole situation, believing that Harue is using them.