Gotham Alumni at 2023 Tribeca Festival
by Gotham on May 31, 2023 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 nine Gotham-supported projects at this year’s festival!
Bad Like Brooklyn Dancehall
Bad Like Brooklyn Dancehall explores the ‘80s and ‘90s emergence of dancehall as Jamaican immigrants brought the music, dancing, and vibes of their home to New York City. Nicknamed the 15th Parish of Jamaica, New York City became home to an influential movement that saw dancehall rise alongside hip-hop and eventually spread across the country.
Directed by Ben DiGiacomo and Dutty Vannier; written by Amy DiGiacomo; produced by Amy DiGiacomo, Jay Will, Ben DiGiacomo, Ramfis Myrthil, and AJ Leon.
Gotham Alum: Bad Like Brooklyn Dancehall is a recipient of the 2022 DCP Gotham Award.
Breaking the News
As Donald Trump was getting sworn in as President and the Women’s March set an angry, outspoken tone for the country’s discourse, journalist Emily Ramshaw decided to meet the moment by launching The 19th. Named after the Nineteenth Amendment, The 19th became the first nonprofit, nonpartisan news agency in the United States. Its mission is to focus on the impact of national politics and policy on women. However, by the time Emily and co-founder Amanda Zamora had secured funding and officially launched The 19th’s news site, the pandemic hit — and the very fabric of society went into a tailspin. Breaking the News immerses its audience in the lives and steadfast pursuits of the members of The 19th — women and LGBTQ+ journalists — as they struggle to launch the agency and work to gain traction for their newsroom amidst shuttered news outlets and an upended America.
Directed by Heather Courtney, Princess A. Hairston, and Chelsea Hernandez; written by Jamie Boyle; produced by Diane Quon, Heather Courtney, Princess A. Hairston, and Chelsea Hernandez.
Screening in the Documentary Competition.
Gotham Alum: Breaking the News is an alumnus of the 2021 Gotham Week Project Market.
The Graduates
Genevieve (Mina Sundwall) is up against an unsettling senior year as she faces the one-year mark of a tragic school shooting that took her boyfriend. What should be a time of growth, anticipation, and pride is marred with trauma and loss that feels like purgatory rather than progress. As she gets closer to graduation, decisions seem impotent. That feeling is collectively shared by her friend Ben (Alex R. Hibbert) who transferred schools, her mother (Maria Dizzia) and the school basketball coach, heartbreakingly played by John Cho.
Written and directed by Hannah Peterson; produced by Josh Peters, Saba Zerehi, Taylor Shung, and Jessamine Burgum.
Screening in the U.S. Narrative Competition.
The Gotham is proud to co-host the screenings of The Graduates. The film premieres in person on Saturday, June 10, and its encore screenings are on June 11 and June 12.
Gotham Alum: The Graduates is an alumnus of the 2019 Gotham Week Project Market
Hey Viktor!
It’s been 25 years since all eyes were on the Cree kid from Edmonton who made it big with a starring role in the indie hit Smoke Signals. Now grown up, former child actor Cody Lightning is deep in the bottle and down on his luck, basking in past glories via faded VHS tapes and endlessly rewriting zombie-priest scripts with creative partner Kate (Hannah Cheesman). When his friends stage an intervention, Cody seizes the moment — and camera crew — to take one last shot at producing Smoke Signals 2. With backing from a psycho investor and in hot pursuit of Adam Beach’s wig to tie the film together, Lightning’s deliriously dysfunctional set becomes a mess of unresolved tension and self-destruction, leading to a long-overdue reckoning with the community that raised him.
Directed by Cody Lightning; written by Cody Lightning and Samuel Miller; and produced by Samuel Miller, Blackhorse Lowe, Joshua Jackson, Kyle Thomas, Sara Corry, and Blake McWilliam.
The Gotham is proud to co-host the screenings of Hey Viktor!. The film premieres in person on Thursday, June 8, and its encore screenings are on June 9 and June 17.
Screening in the Viewpoints section.
Gotham Alum: Hey Victor! is an alumnus of the 2022 First Look program.
Lost Soulz
Sol (Sauve Sidle) is an aspiring young rapper living with his best friend Wesley (Siyanda Stillwell), whose family has embraced him as a brother. After a raucous night causes Wesley to overdose, Sol abandons him at a house party, and eventually chooses to leave home for good and join a touring group of hip-hop artists. As they travel across Texas creating and performing, he discovers who he is as an artist and person. Set to a lo-fi, genre-bending hip-hop soundtrack, Katherine Propper creates a hazy and enigmatic energy that compliments her leading man’s guilt and desire for friendship and belonging.
Screening in the U.S. Narrative Competition.
Written and directed by Katherine Propper; produced by Andres Figueredo Thomson and Juan Carlos Figueredo Thomson.
Gotham Alum: Lost Soulz is an alumnus of the 2022 Gotham Week Project Market.
Mountains
Xavier Sr. works in demolition and dreams of buying a new house for his wife Esperance, who works as a seamstress. They are Haitian immigrants living in Miami, and deeply entwined with their local community, participating in street parades, communions, and games of dominoes. Their adult son Xavier Jr., on the other hand, is a college dropout who has had to move back home. While his parents speak Creole, Junior predominantly responds in English, reflecting his wish to fit into his chosen society. Even so, he mines his Haitian background for material for a nightly stand-up routine that he keeps secret. Different generational experiences are sensitively portrayed in Monica Sorelle’s visually arresting feature debut, which paints a loving portrait of a community being slowly chipped away by gentrification.
Directed by Monica Sorelle, written by Monica Sorelle and Robert Colom, and produced by Robert Colom.
The Gotham is proud to co-host the screenings of Mountains. The film premieres in person on Friday, June 9, and its encore screenings are on June 10 and June 16.
Screening in the U.S. Narrative Competition.
Gotham Alum: Mountains is an alumnus of the 2021 and 2022 Gotham Week Project Market.
Playland
The ghosts of barflies’ past haunt Playland, “a transdisciplinary work of queer bricolage” by filmmaker Georden West. The film takes place inside the empty husk of the Playland Café, Boston’s oldest and most notorious gay hangout space. The cafe shut down in the late ‘90s, but West stages one last bawdy night on the town for the generations of drag queens, disco DJs, leatherdykes, and sissies who made Playland their home, creating an atemporal zone where queer ancestors can come out to play.
Written and directed by Georden West; produced by Russell Sheaffer, Hannah McSwiggen, and Danielle Cooper.
The Gotham is proud to co-host the screenings of Playland. The film premieres in person on Friday, June 9, and its encore screenings are on June 10 and June 16.
Screening in the Viewpoints section.
Gotham Alum: Playland is an alumnus of the 2022 Gotham Week Project Market.
Q
Jude, a Lebanese-American cinematographer and filmmaker, has always known her mother Hiba to be a woman devoted to her Muslim faith. After growing up in a tight-knit family in the United States, Jude is now living back in Lebanon. The opportunity arises to spend time with her inscrutable mother to better understand Hiba’s spiritual devotion — specifically, her fervent commitment to an all-female religious order that has been operating clandestinely for decades. When she’s not teaching the Quran to students or taking part in poetry readings with peers, Hiba strictly obeys the detailed writings of the Anisa (the leader of the order) who instills in her followers the need to closely observe and practice full days of prayer. Jude pursues a cautious but determined questioning of this religious order’s stranglehold on her mother’s attention and blind devotion — a devotion that ends up causing an emotional rupture within their family.
Directed, written, and produced by Jude Chehab.
Screening in the Documentary Competition.
Gotham Alum: Q is an alumnus of the 2021 Gotham Documentary Feature Lab and 2021 Gotham Week Project Market.
A Revolution on Canvas
In this hybrid political thriller and verité portrait documentary, Sara Nodjoumi, working with co-director and husband, Till Schauder, makes her directorial debut with this personal film, diving into the mystery surrounding the disappearance of more than 100 “treasonous” paintings by her father, seminal Iranian modern artist Nickzad Nodjoumi.
Directed and produced by Sara Nodjoumi and Till Schauder.
Screening in the Spotlight Documentary section.
Gotham Alum: A Revolution on Canvas is an alumnus of the 2020 Gotham Week Project Market and is fiscally sponsored by The Gotham.