Gotham Alumni at the 2022 Tribeca Festival
by Gotham on June 7, 2022 in Alumni on Screen
The Tribeca Festival brings artists and diverse audiences together to celebrate storytelling in all its forms, including film, TV, VR, gaming, music, and online work. With strong roots in independent film, Tribeca is a platform for creative expression and immersive entertainment. Tribeca champions emerging and established voices; discovers award-winning filmmakers and creators; curates innovative experiences; and introduces new technology and ideas through premieres, exhibitions, talks, and live performances. Congrats to all eleven Gotham-supported projects at this year’s festival!
An Act of Worship
In An Act of Worship Pakistani-American filmmaker Nausheen Dadabhoy weaves a glorious tapestry of personal stories, verite, archival footage, and home movies together, to open a window into the world of Muslim Americans. Due to their first-hand knowledge and intimate access to the Muslim community, the filmmaking team is able to take charge of the account, which has previously been shaped by outsiders.
Directed by Nausheen Dadabhoy and produced Sofian Khan, Kristi Jacobson, and Heba Elorbany.
Screening in the Documentary Competition.
Gotham Alum: An Act of Worship is an alumnus of the 2018 Gotham Week Project Market.
After Sherman
Ambitiously structured and expressionistic, After Sherman tells a story of legacy in the context of Black history and the unrelenting unease that looms when this history is placed within the aggregate American experience. Jon Sesrie Goff‘s feature debut, the documentary comprises intimate accounts of the lives of the Black community in the filmmaker’s Black Belt hometown, on land that has been in his family for 150 years, where they were once enslaved. Now transformed, primarily on the backs and resourcefulness of Black people, and thriving as a wedding destination, it stands as a reminder of the painful, cross-generational consequences of racism, and a validation of life’s beauty.
Directed and written by Jon-Sesrie Goff, produced by blair dorosh-walther, Madeleine Hunt-Ehrlich, and Jon-Sesrie Goff.
Screening in Tribeca Critics’ Week.
Gotham Alum: After Sherman is an alumnus of the 2020 Gotham Week Project Market
Beba
An intimate, impressionistic coming of age tale, Beba is a bildungsroman for the modern era. We follow Afro-Latina filmmaker Rebeca Hunt, the titular Beba, as she takes us on the journey through her experience growing up as “the poorest people on the Upper West Side.” As we watch Beba mature, we experience all the disparate experiences that make up her personhood, from General Trujillo’s ethnic cleansing of father’s homeland of the Dominican Republic to the ivy-marked walls of white privilege at Bard College. Throughout it all, Beba remains at the center, struggling to reckon with the world around her and find her place in it.
Directed and written by Rebeca Huntt and produced by Rebeca Huntt and Sofia Geld.
Screening in Tribeca Critics’ Week.
Gotham Alum: Beba is an alumnus of the 2020 Documentary Feature Lab.
Blessed Boys
In a sunny district of Naples, Italy where everyone knows each other, two inseparable friends live in the sheltered bubble of neighborhood life until their fraternal friendship is put to the test. Mario (Vincenzo Antonucci) and Lino (Francesco Pellegrino) are two eighteen-year-olds, born and raised in the Sanitá quarter of Naples, who have not yet stepped out of their small town. When Lino’s little sister convinces the locals that she has performed a miracle and starts being worshipped as a living Saint, Lino’s fate abruptly changes. Freed from the pressure of being financially responsible for his mother and sister, for the first time he’s able to imagine a life for himself outside of the four walls of his family home. Meanwhile, Mario is experiencing a growing attraction to his friend that so far has gone unnoticed.
Screening as a Tribeca Online Premiere.
Directed by Silvia Brunelli; written by Silvia Brunelli and Francesca Scanu; and produced by Valentina Quarantini.
Gotham Alum: Blessed Boys is an alumnus of the 2020 Biennale College-Cinema.
Body Parts
For too long cinema has been dominated by the male gaze. This insightful, revealing documentary, shows the evolution of desire and “sex” on-screen from a female perspective––allowing women to reclaim the parts of themselves that have been objectified and exploited for decades. Illuminating the closely-held secrets of a tight-lipped industry still ruled by capitalism, patriarchy, and white supremacy, Body Parts uncovers the often invisible processes involved in creating intimacy for mainstream American film and television, the toll these scenes exact on those directly involved, and the impact on women and girls in the real world.
Directed by Kristy Guevara-Flanagan and produced by Helen Hood-Scheer.
Screening in the Spotlight Documentary section.
Gotham Alum: Body Parts is an alumnus of the 2018 Gotham Week Project Market.
Fashion Reimagined
The daughter of environmental activists who raised her on a remote eco-friendly homestead, Mother of Pearl designer Amy Powney has always felt out of place in the fashion world. Fashion Reimagined follows Powney’s trajectory from outsider to industry leader as she sets out to create a collection that’s ethical and sustainable at every level, from fiber to finished garment. Powney’s journey will take her from idyllic Uruguayan sheep pastures to an Austrian garment factory powered by steam, exposing the mind-boggling complexity and waste of the global supply chain at every turn.
Directed by Becky Hunter and produced by Becky Hutner, Linsday Lowe, and Andrea van Beuren.
The Gotham is proud to co-host the screenings of Fashioned Reimagined. The film premieres in person on Saturday, June 11, and its encore screenings are on June 12 and June 17.
Screening in the Spotlight Documentary section.
Gotham Alum: Fashion Reimagined is an alumnus of the 2020 Gotham Week Project Market.
Karaoke
A comedy about a married middle-class suburban couple in their 60s who are drawn to their new neighbor, a charismatic bachelor who has karaoke evenings at his apartment.
Written and directed by Moshe Rosenthal and produced by Efrat Cohen.
The Gotham is proud to co-host the screenings of Karaoke. The film premieres in person on Friday, June 10, and its encore screenings are on June 11 and June 16. The film also will be available for Tribeca at Home, and will begin screening online on Sunday, June 12.
Screening in the International Narrative Competition.
Gotham Alum: Karaoke is an alumnus of the 2020 Gotham Week Project Market.
Our Father the Devil
Marie Cissé works as the head chef at a retirement home in small-town France. Her easy day-to-day life spent caring for residents, hanging out with her co-worker and best friend Nadia, and teasing a potential new romance is disrupted by the arrival of Father Patrick, an African priest whom she recognizes from a terrifying episode in her homeland. As he further endears himself to the residents and staff, Marie is forced to decide how best to deal with this reminder of her troubled past.
Written and directed by Ellie Foumbi and produced by Ellie Foumbi and Joseph Mastantuono.
Screening in the Viewpoints section.
Gotham Alum: Our Father the Devil is an alumnus of the 2020 Biennale College-Cinema and the 2020 Gotham Week Project Market.
A Rising Fury
Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine on February 24th, 2022 caught the world by surprise and seized our attention, but the war’s roots were laid far earlier. Filmed over eight years, A Rising Fury tracks the evolution of the conflict in Ukraine, from the 2013 Maidan Revolution in Kyiv, Ukraine to today. The documentary intimately accompanies Pavlo, a young idealist who enlists in the Ukrainian army to defend his country following Russia’s invasion of the Donbas and Crimea regions in 2014. In this vicious struggle between two culturally intertwined nations where friends can suddenly become foes, Pavlo finds himself on the opposite side of the battlefield from many he once considered allies as he fervently acts to defend his country’s independence, sovereignty, and democracy.
Directed by Lesya Kalynska and Ruslan Batytskyi; written by Lesya Kalynska; produced by TJ Collins, Jonathan Borge Lie, Lesya Kalynska, and Ruslan Batytskyi.
The Gotham is proud to co-host the screenings of A Rising Fury. The film will premiere during at Tribeca at Home, where it will begin screening online on Friday, June 10.
Screening as a Tribeca Online Premiere.
Gotham Alum: A Rising Fury is an alumnus of the 2016 Gotham Week Project Market.
Sansón and Me
Tribeca alum Rodrigo Reyes returns with a deeply compassionate and aesthetically adventurous exploration of a young immigrant’s journey from coastal Mexico to prison in California. Reyes first met Sansón as the court interpreter at the trial in which Sansón was ultimately sentenced to life imprisonment for his role in a gang-related murder. Haunted by that initial encounter and drawn by Sansón’s earnestness and their common roots as migrants from Mexico, Reyes reached out to Sansón to explore telling his story.
Directed by Rodrigo Reyes and produced by Su Kim.
Screening in the Viewpoints section.
Gotham Alum: Sansón and Me is an alumnus of the 2021 Gotham Week Project Market.
You Can Live Forever
In the early 1990s, queer teenager Jaime is sent to live with her devout Jehovah’s Witness relatives after the death of her father. Early on Jaime makes an unexpected connection with Marike, the daughter of a prominent Witness elder. The two are instantly drawn to each other, and begin a secret, unspoken relationship. But when their attraction becomes too obvious to hide, the community moves to separate the two, forcing them each to make a terrible choice between faith and love.
Written and directed by Sarah Watts and Mark Slutsky, produced by Robert Vroom.
The Gotham is proud to co-host the screenings of You Can Live Forever. The film premieres in person on Saturday, June 11, and its encore screenings are on June 12 and June 14. The film also will be available for Tribeca at Home, and will begin screening online on Saturday, June 13.
Screening in the Viewpoints section.
Gotham Alum: You Can Live Forever is an alumnus of the 2020 Gotham Week Project Market.