The last few weeks have been the Tribeca Film Festival, originally founded by Robert De Niro and friends to revitalise the Tribeca area of Manhattan after the September 11, 2001 bombing of the World Trade Centre.
The festival is spread out over several areas of the city and there are hundreds of films to see - and if you go pensioner style to the matinees it's also an absolute bargain.
We got the grey-rinse 3-pack on which we could see three matinees of our choice. Since we are ladies of leisure, this suited us perfectly.
Our first film was a doco called 'The Other City' about the AIDS epidemic in Washington D.C. which due to archaic laws banning needle exchanges has the highest infected population in the U.S and the highest rate of new infections. It was a bit of a tear jerker.
Our second film, also a doco was called 'Monica and David' about two people with down syndrome who fall in love and get married. The movie chronicles their early married live together and was a bit of tear jerker....but this time it was happy tears.
Our third film was a screening of shorts, one of which was an Australian entry called 'The Wake'. The two highlights of this session were 1) a great lesbian short about a girl who fakes a suicide attempt to get the attention of her ex whom she's hasn't gotten over. Strangely this was a hilarious movie despite the subject matter and 2) hearing a hush come over the crowd and whispers that Robert De Niro himself had snuck in in the dark.
After all the films there was question time with the film maker and sometimes the actors too. I was completely amazed at how quickly some of the short films were made. I am almost inspired to pick up the handy-cam myself. Surely it can't be that hard!!!
You should give it a go. Hubba's friend E has a video camera and they have spent several saturday afternoons making films with no dialogue.
ReplyDeleteTHey've been very good at not saying anything either as they are planning a soundtrack overlay (maybe music from their own band).