By [From April 19th to the 29th, Flixist will bring you live coverage of the 2012 Tribeca Film Festival in New York City. Keep an eye out for news, features, interviews, videos, and reviews of some of the most anticipated films to hit the festival circuit in 2012.]
Over the last week, we’ve let you know about various short films and feature-length films available to stream as part of the Tribeca Online Film Festival. There are now four more short documentaries from the Focus Forward series available online. Each of these newly available documentaries is around three minutes long. Their titles are All Hail the Beat, The Bionic Eye, The Honor Code, and Solar Roadways.
Read synopses for the four recently added Focus Forward films after the cut. If any other Tribeca Film Festival features or shorts become available online, we’ll be sure to let you know.
All Hail the Beat
SYNOPSIS: All Hail the Beat celebrates a rhythm machine deemed obsolete in 1984 but still influential until to this day. The Roland TR-808 existed from 1980 to 1984. In that brief time span it was embraced by hip hop and helped inspire the creation of new dance music genres (electro boogie, techno) as we hear in testimony from innovators D-Nice, formerly of Boogie Down Productions, Arthur Baker, producer of the classic “Planet Rock” for Afrika Bambaataa & the Soul Sonic Force, and Juan Atkins, credited with creating the Detroit techno sound. Editor Waajeed, who is also a well known hip hop producer himself, has created a sonic tapestry of 808 beats that runs underneath the film, as if the device itself is giving commentary on its history.
The Bionic Eye
SYNOPSIS: Dr. Joseph Rizzo and Prof. John Wyatt co-founded the Boston Retinal Implant Project. It’s a Harvard/M.I.T. collaboration whose “Bionic Eye” technology is aimed at restoring sight to patients who suffer from degenerative blindness. They have invented a microelectronic retinal implant that restores vision to patients, particularly those with age-related macular degeneration and blindness.
The Honor Code
SYNOPSIS: The Honor Code illustrates the ideas of philosopher Kwame Anthony Appiah who believes honor is the key to lasting social change from within. With a storyteller’s flair and a philosopher’s rigor, Appiah shows how the concept of honor propelled moral revolutions in the past and can do so in the future too.
Solar Roadways
SYNOPSIS: Scott, an Idaho engineer, was pained to see that the US alone used 3,741 Billion kWh of electricity per year, and nothing is being done. He and his wife came up with a real solution: cover roads with solar panels, collecting energy from the sun and providing to the areas around.
