REFLECTIONS ON FILM CULTURE

Rushes: Tribeca | SFIFF | Zulawski

7.March.2012: Yesterday the Tribeca Film Festival announced the slate of films screening in its World Narrative and Documentary competitions, in addition to its out-of-competition Viewpoints section. The festival runs from April 18–29. Among the highlights of those films announced are the documentary Off Label by October Country team Michael Palmieri and Donal Mosher; the world premiere Bradley Rust Gray’s Jack and Diane; Eytan Fox’s follow-up to Yossi & Jagger, this one simply called Yossi; Edwin’s Postcards from the Zoo, which garnered raves at Berlinale; and the world premiere of The Fourth Dimension, an omnibus with one part directed by Harmony Korine. Indiewire’s Eric Kohn runs over the program with artistic director Frédéric Boyer, who left the Cannes Directors’ Fortnight to steer Tribeca, and director of programming Genna Terranova. “We do have a good representation from the U.S. in our competition,” Terranova says, and Boyer adds somewhat more pointedly, “I was surprised, really, because after Sundance, I didn’t imagine it was possible to get a good balance of cinema from the U.S. And we have.”

The San Francisco International Film Festival also announced the films playing in competition for the New Directors Prize and Golden Gate Awards for documentary features today. The latter also features Off Label in addition to Grant Gee’s Patience (After Sebald) about the writer W.G. Sebald; Gonçalo Tocha’s acclaimed portrait of the Azores island of Corvo, It’s the Earth not the Moon; and Golden Slumbers, Davy Chou’s poignant look at the rich legacy of Cambodian cinema that was lost during the Khmer Rouge years. The dramatic competition features the Brazilian film Neighboring Sounds, which was acquired by Cinema Guild yesterday, and Israeli filmmaker Nadav Lapid’s highly touted debut Policeman. SFIFF also announced yesterday that this year’s POV Award will go to documentary veteran Barbara Kopple. The festival will screen her Harlan County, USA in tribute.

The first North American retrospective of Polish filmmaker Andrzej Zulawski opens tonight at the Brooklyn Art Museum and on Friday at Los Angeles’s Cinefamily. Michał Oleszczyk contemplates opening night selection The Third Part of the Night for The House Next Door: “Andrzej Żuławski’s debut feature, released to a nationwide response of shock and awe in early 1972, seemed like an ominous comet zapping through the gray sky of Polish cinema. Based on the WWII experiences of its director’s father, beefed up with a hearty dose of apocalyptic visions, and sprinkled all over with casual hysteria, The Third Part of the Night was something new under the sun and moon alike.” Oleszczyk goes the distance on this retrospective, also turning in a stand-alone consideration of That Most Important Thing: Love as well as two broader roundups here and here. J. Hoberman spoke with Zulawski for his piece for The New York Times that “Exuding charm and urbanity on the phone, Mr. Zulawski is nonetheless an auteur to be approached with trepidation. His movies are seldom more than a step from some flaming abyss, with his actors (and audience) trembling on the edge. Typically shot with a frenzied, often subjective moving camera in saturated colors that have the over-bright feel of a chemically induced hallucination, these can be hard to watch and harder to forget.”

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