The legendary Austin hospitality is especially extended to first-time filmmakers. That’s what the Emerging Visions section is about—highlighting the talent making the move from attention-getting short to career-making features. In with a chance this time around are documentaries tackling topics like Bill Hicks and bears, as well as features revolving around mung beans and android love.
Remember 2008? Man, wasn’t that a time! We were all running around, registering to vote, filled with hope in our hearts, shouting “Yes, we can!” at the top of their lungs … 2010 and the suck has set in. That hasn’t stopped director Jeff Deutchman, so inspired by the spirit of the times that he made this documentary on what people were doing the day Barack Obama was elected president.
For many, getting to work means jumping into the car and enduring a slow commute to the infernal chatter of morning zoo radio. Problem is, all this four-wheeled to-ing and fro-ing is killing our planet by degrees. Monteith McCollum took his cameras and went looking for those who do it differently. He found a quartet of characters who have taken to the pavement and waterways to get to work.
Spring is busting out all over, even if Squally is currently looking out at several inches of snow at this writing. While the past few months have offered slim pickings for cineastes on a budget, March comes in with returning masters and new discoveries. So many, in fact, that we’ve extended our usual handful to a mighty six. Among the delights in store: Zoe Kazan, fascist mistresses, Lolitas in platforms, and Ben Stiller turning his neuroses up to 11. Sorry funseekers, no Hot Tub Time Machine. Click on the titles for trailers and more.
The Exploding Girl
Release date: March 12 The pitch: Ivy (Zoe Kazan) juggles a distant boyfriend and a close pal while taking a break from college. Fun fact: Writer-director Bradley Rust Gray is married to Treeless Mountain helmer So Yong Kim! Why it could be great: Zoe Kazan’s had us since her delicate turn in Me and Orson Welles. And who doesn’t like a summer-set mood piece released in the middle of March? Why it could suck: Oh.
Green Zone
Release date: March 12 The pitch: Matt Damon reunites with director Paul Greengrass to fight the war in Iraq. Based on the acclaimed book Imperial Life in the Emerald City by Rajiv Chandrasekaran. Fun fact: Greengrass collaborated with onetime M15 agent Peter Wright on Spycatcher, a 1987 bestseller which lifted the lid on Britain’s Secret Service. Why it could be great: Damon and Greengrass’s Bourne films made palm’s sweat glands work overtime. Why it could suck: Iraq? Again?
The Berlin Film Festival is often overshadowed by Cannes Film Festival as it’s very difficult to dock a yacht in Berlin. It’s endured for 60 years, though, as an early warning system for the best of the year’s international art house fare. The Competition strand features those films vying for the Golden Bear, which in past years has gone to Jose Padilha’s The Elite Squad and Claudia Llosa’s The Milk of Sorrow. The field’s first half features Japanese war stories, the making of one of the worst films ever made, criminals old and young and the returns of Polanski, Baumbach and Popogrebsky.
Bal (Honey)
Turkish director Semih Kaplanoglu’s fifth film is a father/son story set in the remote mountains. Young Yusuf is ostracized at school for his stammer, but worships his beekeeper dad, who tends to a network of precarious treetop hives. When his father is called away on business, Yusuf follows him into the forest.
Kyatapira (Caterpillar)
Lieutenant Kurokawa returns from the front of the second Sino-Japanese War. He’s had his arms and legs blown off. Shigeko is expected to dutifully attend to her immobile war hero husband. Director Koji Wakamatsu’s previous film, the acclaimed United Red Army, still awaits release in the U.S. Based on the story by Edogawa Rampo, which was censored by the Japanese authorities in 1939.
Slacker malcontent played by Ben Stiller in code: yellow dimwit mode romances Greta Gerwig. It’s Noah Baumbah, so the real question will be if the characters are utterly unlikeable as in Margot at the Wedding or somewhat bearable as in The Squid and the Whale.
The second in our intermittent series of trailers from the Tribeca Film Festival. In the current load, a Colombian woman walks New York’s mean streets, Danes take a fistful of Prozac, Soderbergh takes on sex, Argentine women go outlaw, a babysitter takes a bad call, the British make fun of Americans (and themselves), Spencer Tracy argues for the monkeys, Eric Bana goes all J.G. Ballard on us, and there’s a lot of midget-on-Mr. Met violence.
Entre Nos (Gloria La Morte and Paola Mendoza, 2009)
An immigrant mother must look after her children in the big city when dad runs out on the family.
SquallyShowers 