Before shooting A Kid From Coney Island, a documentary on former NBA star Stephon Marbury, Chike Ozah knew little about the man, apart from a few specific facts. "I knew how much of a beast he was as a basketball player, coming out of class at '96. I knew that much about him," the doc's co-director told Deadline…
Only three months ago, Guy Nattiv won his first Oscar for a short film entitled Skin, offering the best possible lead-up for his feature of the name same, out this July. Rooted in a jaw-dropping performance by Jamie Bell, the feature centers on Bryon Widner, a tattoo-covered skinhead, who decides to turn his back on…
In February of 2018, when a gunman opened fire at Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida—leaving 17 dead, and another 17 injured—documentarians Jake Lefferman and Emily Taguchi went down to Florida with a set of questions in mind, which would inform their Tribeca doc, After Parkland.
"Emily and I have both…
The second feature from Ani Simon-Kennedy, The Short History of the Long Road was informed by the extreme income inequality seen in the United States, a country where many people struggle to survive without a safety net. "Because there is no system in place to catch people when housing isn’t a basic right, and health…
Carlos Mirabella-Davis’s thriller Swallow follows a current day upper middle class housewife, Hunter, who lives on the Hudson River in a glass house and learns that she’s pregnant. But there’s a catch: She’s not all that happy with her marriage to posh husband Richie. So unhappy that Hunter begins to swallow objects…
The feature version of a 2015 short which premiered at Cannes, Sonejuhi Sinha’s Stray Dolls was informed by the director’s experience volunteering for the Women’s Prison Association, at a time when she was “researching stories around women and crime, and how that takes place in America.”
During this period, Sinha…
The first feature from writer/director Kevin McMullin, Low Tide was inspired by the director’s childhood in the Jersey Shore, and the evocative imagery of a place he knew well. “There’s this wonderful town, Point Pleasant Beach, specifically, where there's this old fishing harbor and industrial shipping yards, and…
For seven or so years, Mark Webber has been refining a new mode of filmmaking he terms "reality cinema," an approach to the form he took to new places with his latest feature, The Place of No Words.
Starring Webber, wife Teresa Palmer, his son Bodhi Palmer, and Nicole Elizabeth Berger, the film centers on a terminally…
Over the years since that fateful summer of 1969, when Charles Manson and his followers killed seven innocents in cold blood, there have been no shortage of films made about the subject. Nestled deep within the American psyche, the infamous cult leader passed away in 2017, though he will undoubtedly endure as a figure…
For Hong Chau and Sarah Gadon, stars of American Woman, there were myriad reasons to sign on to the Tribeca pic, starting with the director behind it.
A six-time Emmy nominee known for her work as a writer and executive producer—on such series as Mad Menand The Romanoffs—Semi Chellas had almost 30 years of experience…
During the summer of 2014, Rania Attieh and Daniel Garcia went down to Argentina, to cut their Independent Spirit Award-winning H., stumbling in the process on the idea for their next feature. Titled Initials S.G., this film would evoke their experience of the World Cup, during which an entire city rallied behind its…
The first feature from Katharine O'Brien, Lost Transmissions presents a nuanced portrait of mental illness and the impact it has, both on those in its grip, and those who are looking on.
Loosely inspired by events in O'Brien's life, the pic centers on acclaimed music producer Theo Ross (Simon Pegg), who goes off his…