Tribeca Film Festival…Nine to Watch
The Tribeca Film Festival is back-and slowly learning from its many mistakes. After raising ticket prices to $18 last year, the fest will settle for a slightly better $15 (and less). After spreading itself too thin, it will cluster most of its screenings in Tribeca and around Union Square. Most important, the bloated festival has once again trimmed its often-spotty lineup, from its peak of almost 200 features to a mere 120. But are they any good? Well, we’ve seen more than half of the festival’s films and found at least nine sure bets. Tickets go on sale April 19.
Gunnin’ For That #1 Spot
Filmmaker Adam Yauch’s first non-Beastie Boys project is a funked-up, fast-paced doc that uses 2006’s “Elite 24″ all-star game at Harlem’s Rucker Park to highlight eight high-school superstars (likely lottery picks Michael Beasley and Kevin Love, and top Brooklyn prospect Lance Stephenson, among them). It’s as much a snapshot of the contemporary basketball scene as it is a love letter to the famed uptown court. The soundtrack is, predictably, killer.
Kassim the Dream
Kief Davidson’s gorgeously shot documentary gives us horror mixed with hope: Ugandan boxer Kassim Ouma was kidnapped and forced into guerrilla warfare as a child, deserted the Ugandan Army as a young man, and then came to America, where he battled his way toward becoming a boxing champion. Kassim is both relentlessly upbeat and totally unable to shake his murderous past. The film provides no easy judgments-just the conflicted, charismatic figure at its center.
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