From Robert Mugabe to Ray Liotta – That’s a Wrap at the Tribeca Film Festival

New York took center stage in the opening and closing films of the 14th annual Tribeca Film Festival, however the winning films rounded things out with stories from much further afield.

The Saturday Night Live documentary Live From New York! kicked off the proceedings, demonstrating how the landmark comedy show has both responded to the times and occasionally had a hand in shaping them over the 40 years it’s been on air.

Tribeca Recap: Code Looks at the Lack of Women in Computer Science

Why is there such a dearth of women in computer science and other high-tech fields? Director/producer Robin Hauser Reynolds searches for the answers in CODE: Debugging the Gender Gap, which made its world premiere at the Tribeca Film Festival.

Two years ago Reynolds received a call from her daughter, who had become so discouraged by her male-dominated computer science classes at college (she was one of only two female students),

Tribeca 2015: Tim Blake Nelson on Writing/Directing/Producing Anesthesia

Writer/director Tim Blake Nelson’s ensemble drama Anesthesia premiered Wednesday night at the Tribeca Film Festival. A fitting setting for the New Yorker’s latest film about the intersecting lives of erudite city-dwellers who are united by a violent crime. The film, which explores the different ways we attempt to numb our pain, was filmed on location in New York, with an impressive cast of mostly New York-based actors, including Glenn Close, Sam Waterston, Gretchen Mol,

Tribeca 2014: David Simon, Beau Willimon, Nate Silver & Anne Thompson Talk Stories

We all know that our shopping habits are fodder for various entities looking to target their advertising and increase their profits, but the same kind of Big Data is being used by media and entertainment entities, from HBO and Netflix to the New York Times and Fox News, to figure out who we are, what we read and watch, and what, perhaps, we want next. "Does betting on the ‘wisdom of crowds’ bode well or ill for future innovation in film,

Tribeca 2014: Kelly Reichardt’s Tense, Thrilling Night Moves

A group of environmental activists watch a somber film about the slaughter of the planet. A woman’s voice narrates the horrors of mankind's insatiable greed—eroding beaches, melting ice caps, deforestation, and carbon emissions to name a few of our sins, with a call to action as well. "Let the revolution begin…for the future, for the people, and for the planet."

This film-within-the-film ends to a smattering of clapping. The filmmaker is present, and she's asked to answer questions from the group.

Tribeca 2014: Writer/Director Angus MacLachlan’s Goodbye to All That

Writer-director Angus MacLachlan’s Goodbye to All That includes one of the more frank and pathos-free sex scenes in recent memory. Otto Wall (Paul Schneider) and Mildred (Ashley Hinshaw), who recently met on the online dating service OkCupid, sit opposite one another on chairs, naked. They are describing, with exacting detail, what they’d like to do to each other. Otto’s wife has recently left him, and he’s experimenting for the first time in his life with online dating.

2014 Tribeca Film Festival at a Glance—5 Female Directors to Watch

The 2014 Tribeca Film Festival began yesterday, and as we plotted out which films we were going to see (festivals are all about painful choices—too many good films, too few hours in the day), we were struck by how many exciting projects were helmed by female directors. From Johanna Hamilton’s riveting documentary 1971 (which we included in our list of 5 Hot Docs in yesterday’s piece) to Israeli director Talya Lavie’s narrative feature Zero Motivation, 

Film Festivals Decoder: A Look At The World’s Top Film Fests

Sure, Sundance and Cannes have become household names, but did you know that there are nearly 4,000 film festivals held around the world every year? (There’s even a Moustache Film Festival in Portland, Maine.) The top-tier festivals have a glamorous reputation, but even at the ritziest ones, you’ll find up-and-coming independent filmmakers, film school students and everyday cinema enthusiasts rubbing elbows with A-list actors, producers and directors.

Last week marked the start of the 2012 Venice Film Festival and The Telluride Film Festival–and that's  just the beginning of what will likely be the most dynamic film fest season to date.