2008 Tribeca Film Festival Guide

Faubourg Tremé is the birth place of both American Jazz and the Civil Right's movement, but this little known New Orleans neighborhood is not a place you learn about in schools. Filmmakers Dawn Lodgson and Lolis Eric Elie change that with this intimate portrait of vibrant community. Documenting Elie's restoration of a classic house in Tremé, the film captures not only one man's journey of discovery, but provides a fascinating piece of American history. Faubourg Tremé introduces prominent residents -- writers, musicians, historians -- years before Hurricane Katrina and follows their heartbreaking stories through the storm's devastating aftermath.

The mercurial Isild le Besco is one of France's most alluring actresses. With her impressive second feature film, le Besco is on track to become of the nation's most talented filmmakers as well. Screening in The Discovery Section, Charly tells the story of Nicolas, a fourteen year old boy who flees his foster home for the seaside where he meets the enigmatic redheaded Charly, who takes the adolescent into her trailer.

From the opening scenes, in which Pietro (Nanni Moretti) saves a woman from drowning only to find his wife Laura dead in their garden with a broken bowl of cantaloupe next to her body, Antonello Grimaldi's Quiet Chaos gets the ingredients just right, without ever overplaying his hand. Melancholic but lively, the Italian film (based on the novel by Sandro Veronesi) is a sweet crowd-pleaser that earns its emotions. Quiet Chaos screens in the World Narrative Feature Competition.

David Mamet's martial art's drama Redbelt makes its premiere as part of the ESPN Sports section of the Tribeca fest. You may walk out of the theater desperately trying to piece together the elements of the complicated plot -- does it all come down to a con involving fabric prices? -- but the action is enthralling. Chiwetel Ejiofor gives a riveting performance as a jujitsu master trying to maintain his honor. The ensemble cast also includes a jittery Emily Mortimer, Tim Allen as a tough guy movie star, Mamet regular Rebecca Pidgeon, and rising star Alice Braga as the martial arts instructor's beautiful wife.

It's been nearly a decade, but renegade filmmaker Harmony Korine (Kids, Gummo) is back with a new film, and it's as strange as you would expect -- but also filled with lovely tender moments. Diego Luno stars as an unhappy Michael Jackson impersonator whose world opens up when he meets a kindred spirit in the form of Marilyn Monroe (Samantha Morton) who whisks him away to an isle filled with lookalikes: Shirley Temple, Charlie Chaplin, Abraham Lincoln, and Sammy Davis Jr. are all there, tending to a flock of sheep.

Guy Maddin’s delirious, wildly entertaining exploration of the enduring ties that bind him to the quirky city of his birth. Equal parts mystical rumination and personal history, city chronicle and deranged post-Freudian proletarian fantasy, Maddin, as in his recent fever-dream fiction The Saddest Music In The World, blends local myth with childhood trauma to create a wholly unique – and playfully suspect – work of documentary film.

James Marsh, (Wisconsin Death Trip) directs Man on Wire, the story of Philippe Petit, who thrilled the world in the summer of 1974 when he snuck to the top of the World Trade Center towers and performed the greatest high wire walk in history.

After the triumph of The Diving Bell and the Butterfly, the acclaimed artist/filmmaker Julian Schnabel is back with the documentary Lou Reed's Berlin. Filmed over the course of Reed's five-night stand at St. Ann's, Lou Reed's Berlin revels in the hypnotic majesty of these dark, orchestral songs, which include classics such as "How Do You Think It Feels" and "The Kids." Emmanuelle Seigner appears on stage, playing the album's central character, Caroline, in the impressionistic stage projections filmed by Schnabel's daughter, Lola.

A witty, illuminating look at celebrity, male anxiety, and art, Paul H-O and Tom Donahue's insider documentary on artist Cindy Sherman and her relationship with unexpected Paul H-O. Filmed over the course of 15 years, Guest of Cindy Sherman includes interviews with a veritable who's who of the art and entertainment world including Roberta Smith, Ingrid Sischy, John Waters, Robert Longo, Carol Kane, David Furnish, Danny DeVito, Molly Ringwald, and Eric Fischl.

Any independent film Julianne Moore graces, we recommend seeing. In Tom Kalin's Savage Grace, Moore stars as Mother Barbara, a glittering but troubled socialite whose eccentricities chip away at her already failing relationship with her aloof husband. A tale of decadence and dysfunction among the postwar international elite, the story is based upon the acclaimed exposé of the notorious Baekeland scandal in 1960's Europe.