More Tribeca: Gates, Gore, Barrymore

By S.T. VanAirsdale

The Tribeca Film Festival dropped a trio of notes over the Reeler HQ transom this morning, informing us that on opening night, April 25, Al Gore will host a green-themed evening of short-film premieres underwritten by the SOS (SaveOurSelves) Campaign. Meanwhile, as reported here last month, the new Drew Barrymore/Eric Bana gambling drama Lucky You will premiere May 1, with the stars joining director Curtis Hanson and co-stars Robert Duvall and Debra Messing among other boldface names in attendance. Finally, the closing-night event will feature the premiere of The Gates, Albert Maysles' chronicle of the 2005 Christo and Jeanne-Claude project that screend at last year's fest as a work-in-progress.

While I have to acknowledge being way, way over Al Gore and anything Inconvenient Truth-related, the potential for the as-yet-to-be determined shorts program is more than a little intriguing:

SOS has commissioned 60 award-winning filmmakers from wide-ranging genres and mediums, including feature films, documentaries, music videos, commercials and animation to create provocative shorts of no more than 10 minutes in length. The films range in tone from factual and dramatic to fictional and comedic. ... SOS has engaged many of the industry’s most prominent filmmakers including:

--Jonathan Glazer, Director, Birth, Sexy Beast;
--Kevin MacDonald, Director, Last King of Scotland;
--Abel Ferrera, Director, King of New York;
--Heidi Ewing and Rachel Grady, Directors, Oscar-nominated Jesus Camp;
--Aardman Animation, Producers, Wallace and Gromit;
--Amy Berg, Director, Oscar-nominated Deliver Us From Evil; and
--Ari Sandel, Director, Oscar-winning West Bank Story.

I'd watch anything by Glazer or Ewing and Grady, but the actuality of an environmentally-themed Abel Ferrara film is kind of breathtaking. I totally lack the imagination required to think of how this piece could possibly go, though graphic penguin-on-human violence would be a convenient, compelling Ms. 45 updating I would pay almost anything to see. At any rate, we'll bring you more as we have it.

Posted at April 5, 2007 11:34 AM