The 2018 Tribeca Film Festival gets underway tonight, running from April 18th through the 29th. The 17th year of the festival will showcase 93 feature films from more than 103 filmmakers, as well as TV premieres, shorts, virtual reality showcases, and a spotlight on games and gaming. Jesse Lab and I will be in attendance, catching a lot of these movies (not all 93, though) over the next week and a half. The first reviews will be going up next week, so keep an eye out for them.
Heading into the festival, there are a couple of movies that have really caught our eye. Below are six films from this year’s Tribeca Film Festival that Jesse and I are most looking forward to.
Braid
And now here’s easily my most anticipated movie of the festival, Braid! I don’t normally get giddy about a movie or its premise, but Braid just screams creativity and is something, truly, truly bizarre. I guess I just like movies that go completely off the deep end. Braid revolves around two women who are drug dealers that get caught and are on the run from the cops and their dealer, so they decide to hide out and recuperate their losses with a mutual childhood friend, an agoraphobic woman who is insanely wealthy. She’s also delusional as all hell, so in order for the girls to rob her, they need to play along with her insane fantasies until they can get at her money. And those fantasies? Well, if they’re anything like the poster, you should be very afraid.
High concept horror films don’t come by all that often, and I’m getting a lot of Neon Demon vibes from Braid. The press materials look stylish as all hell and the production design looks slick. If Braid can match its premise with some unbelievable visuals, then I’ll fall head over heels for it. Also, fun fact of the day! Braid is the first movie ever to be completely funded by Cryptocurrencies. Doesn’t impact my opinion of the movie, but that’s just a nifty little trivia fact for anyone who cares. — Jesse Lab
Cargo
I’ve always liked Martin Freeman. Ever since the The Office UK, Freeman’s excelled at playing the likable and often set-upon everyman. There’s so much sympathy in one of his looks, whether he’s being downtrodden, bemused, or frustrated. He was the one thing that made The Hobbit films tolerable. In Ben Howling and Yolanda Ramke’s Cargo, Freeman’s an everyman trying to help his wife and baby daughter survive in the Australian outback during a global zombie outbreak. At some point, a ticking clock scenario is introduced, making the plight of this family that much more harrowing.
So, let’s get this straight: it’s Martian Freeman in a zombie movie set against the gorgeous yet harsh backdrop of the Australian outback. That checks a lot of my boxes, and I wonder how Freeman’s everyman-ness will lend sympathy and kindness to the film. Sign me up. — Hubert Vigilla
Disobedience
Ever since catching Gloria years ago, I’ve been eager to see more of Sebastian Lelio’s work. He’s one of Chile’s leading filmmakers in recent years. A Fantastic Woman is one of my favorite films released this year, and Lelio’s dropping the English-language film Disobedience just weeks afterward. With muted grays and an overriding seriousness, the film explores a scandalous love triangle in the Jewish Orthodox community. There’s something about stories of exclusion in very insular communities that I find compelling.
Disobedience has played at other festivals, and stars Rachel Weisz, Rachel McAdams, and Alessandro Nivola have all been praised for their performances. It will be out in limited release by the end of April, though I would like to catch it a bit early if possible. — Hubert Vigilla
The Miseducation of Cameron Post
Winner of the Grand Jury Prize at this year’s Sundance Film Festival, The Miseducation of Cameron Post is about a teenage girl getting sent to gay conversion camp. It’s something that’s come back into the news since our current Vice President seems to support certain forms of gay conversion therapy. I’m curious how this will be depicted and explored on screen since the film has also been billed as both a coming-of-age story and an LGBT version of One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest.
Since it’s set in the early 1990s, I wonder how that era will be depicted, especially given the prevailing views on homosexuality back then. This all makes me want to rewatch But I’m a Cheerleader for the first time in forever. — Hubert Vigilla
Slut in a Good Way
If there’s one kind of film I don’t think we get enough of here in the States, it’s movies that talk about sex openly and honestly. Americans have a weird relationship when it comes to the subject and sex and violence. One topic is a part of life and is necessary for any life to continue on, yet Americans have a horrible fear of showing sex, genitals, breasts, or anything sexually without fearing that it’ll offend someone. On the other hand, violence, which is generally abnormal and something that is a product of conflict and negativity, if praised and shown in all its gory, icky, brutal goodness. Hypocrisy? Probably.
But that’s why Slut in a Good Way is so fascinating to me. It’s a movie that shows that sex can be liberating and beautiful. It’s a story about a woman who finds her place in the world through sex and uses it as a tool that defines her as an independent woman. Now I’m sure that the other characters are going to tear her down for this, but it’s not every day you get to see a movie about sex in such an open and positive light. — Jesse Lab
You Shall Not Sleep
Now here’s a weird horror movie that I can strangely get behind. The premise surrounds an actress who decides to go into a deep method program where she gets placed inside of a psychiatric hospital with other actors and are all sleep deprived. It’s supposed to be a revolutionary acting program, but as time goes on and the actors become more sleep deprived, things get… weird for them. Hallucinations, paranoia, and they still have to perform a play at the end of the day. I have no idea what’s going to happen, but just based on the premise alone and watching characters slowly lose their minds, color me intrigued. — Jesse Lab
