The eighth annual Tribeca Film Festival, co-founded by Robert De Niro, Jane Rosenthal and Craig Hatkoff, and presented by founding sponsor American Express, announced the winners of its competition categories in NYC last night, 30 April 2009. This year’s Festival included 85 features and 47 short films from 36 countries. The world competition winners were chosen from 12 narrative and 12 documentary features from 17 countries. All films at Festival.
Two awards were given to honor New York films, which were chosen from eight narrative and seven documentary features. Awards were also given for the best narrative, best documentary and student visionary films in the Shorts competition. The winner of The Heineken Audience Award, determined by audience ballot votes throughout the Festival, will be announced tomorrow 2 May, at the Festival Wrap party. This is a capsule of the 2009 winners in the World Narrative Feature and Documentary Feature Competitions.
2009 World Narrative Feature Film Competition (Jurors Bradley Cooper, Richard Fischoff, Todd Haynes, Meg Ryan and Uma Thurman):
The Founders Award for Best Narrative Feature – ABOUT ELLY (Darbareye Elly), written and directed by Asghar Farhadi (Iran, Persian with English subtitles). Deceit and tragedy abound when friends take a Caspian Sea seaside mini-break in this mysterious and lush who-done-it. Farhadi received the Golden Bear in Berlin this year as best director of a feature film.
Best New Narrative Filmmaker – Rune Denstad Langlofor NORTH (Nord) (Norway, Norwegian with English subtitles). A former ski champion recovering from a mental breakdown learns he has a five-year-old son. He hops on his snowmobile with a batch of moonshine, and heads for his ex-girlfriend's home in Norway's Far North. His oddball encounters along the way make this fresh and original debut comedy both tender and amusing.
Best Actor in a Narrative Feature Film – Ciarán Hinds in THE ECLIPSE, written and directed by Conor McPherson (Ireland).
Best Actress in a Narrative Feature Film – Zoe Kazan in THE EXPLODING GIRL, written and directed by Bradley Rust Gray (USA).2009 World Documentary Feature Film Competition (Jurors Liz Garbus, Henry Louis Gates, Jr., Whoopi Goldberg, Morgan Spurlock and Brian Williams):
Best Documentary Feature – RACING DREAMS, directed by Marshall Curry (USA). Three adolescent go-kart racers (to auto racing as little league is to baseball) vie for the national go-kart championship. They, and their parents, will soon find out if they have the talent, dedication, and sponsorship dollars to one day become NASCAR superstars.
Best New Documentary Filmmaker – Ian Olds for FIXER: The Taking of Ajmal Naqshbandi (USA). In 2007, the Taliban kidnapped 24-year-old Naqshbandi, an Italian journalist, one of Afghanistan's best "fixers"—someone hired by foreign journalists to facilitate, translate, and gain access for their stories.
Special Jury Mention: DEFAMATION (Hashmatsa), directed by Yoav Shamir (Denmark, Austria, USA, Israel).
HBO acquired FIXER at the Festival, First Fun the anti-Semitic documentary DEFAMATION, and ESPN the baseball documentary THE LOST SON OF HAVANA. Slim sales for Tribeca at this post, but there may be subsequent acquisitions as a result of the Festival.
For all winners and more information about the films such as juror comments, cash awards, etc., click title of this post.
Whoopi Goldberg will host Tonys.
Regis gets Lifetime Emmy.Ah. The month of June will be here next week. Two of my favorite award shows come out of the gate in June - the Tony Awards (15 June, NYC) and the Daytime Emmy Awards (20 June, Hollywood).
The nominations for both organizations are in, and the hosts have been announced. Click here for the Tony nominations, and for the Daytime Emmy nominations. To find much more, and access official sites, click my 2009 Awards Page link on the right sidebar.
At the same time the Theatre Wing and the Television Academy are honoring their own in June, the film festival crowd tries to beat the heat in Wyoming (Jackson Hole), Scotland (Edinburgh), or on the beach in L.A. It's a great life, if you can live it. Should they prefer more exotic and hotter times with their movies, they may head for Shanghai. Or, later, to Sarajevo.
I'm now following so many film festivals that one page is not enough. So, for 2008, I'm splitting the coverage into at least three parts.
Part I began in Palm Springs, California, and ended in Cannes, France. Cannes closed this week, but you can read about it, and others during the first part of year, for as long as you like by clicking the link for Part I on the right sidebar.
Film Festivals Part II is now online, with lots of interesting festivals. A link is also on the sidebar.Part II begins with the Jackson Hole Festival and ends in early October with the 46th New York Film Festival in NYC. In between you'll find Montreal, Telluride, San Sebastian, and more.
Coming online in August will be Part III. It begins with Vancouver in September. I'm not sure where it will end. It may be necessary to add a Part IV. At any rate, watch this blog for notification when Part III is online sometime in August.
To get the overview of the film festivals I cover during a year, take a look at my Film Festivals Page 2007.
There was one glaring omission during the 80th Academy Awards® presentation show Sunday night. Whoopi Goldberg was not included in the montage of former hosts of the Academy Awards.The Oscar®-winning actress (GHOST, 1990) hosted the Awards in 1994, 1996, 1999 and 2002. Plus, she has two nominations, including one for THE COLOR PURPLE.She was consoled yesterday by her The View television co-hosts, Barbara Walters, Joy Behar, Elisabeth Hasselbeck, and Sherri Shepherd. Will AMPAS® offer an explanation?
The Academy did not give an explanation for the omission of actor Brad Renfro (THE CLIENT) in the Academy Awards tribute to 43 Hollywood figures who died this past year. Renfro died in January of a morphine overdose, but they did include Heath Ledger, who died from an overdose of prescription drugs one week later.
Speculation is rife that Renfro was omitted because his drug of choice was morphine, or because he was not considered as big a star as Ledger. Leslie Unger, Academy spokeswoman, offered only that they could not include everyone.
Oscar-nominated Roy Scheider (JAWS) was not included, but it was explained that Scheider's death, on 10 February, fell outside the time frame of the tribute video, which covered 1 February 2007 to 31 January 2008. No mention was made as to whether or not Scheider would be included next year.
