The annual Tribeca Film Festival is back, running until Sunday 16 June at various venues across New York City. Now in its 23rd year, it kicked off last night with the world premiere of Diane Von Furstenberg: Woman in Charge, a documentary portrait of the iconic fashion designer.
This year boasts a particularly strong line-up of films – including, significantly, buzzy documentaries centring Serena Williams and Roger Federer. Here are a few other highlights.
Brats
Actor Andrew McCarthy, an ’80s teen-film icon, directed this interrogation into how the moniker the Brat Pack was cavalierly applied to a group of young rising actors in 1985 – and how it’s stuck with them since, for good and ill. Just spending 90 minutes alongside McCarthy, a fixture in so many classic movies that have continued to resonate with generations of viewers, in the present is a thrill in itself, as it is when he visits the homes of people like Rob Lowe, Demi Moore, Ally Sheedy, and Emilio Estevez – some of whom he hasn’t seen in three decades. I’d honestly watch a 90-minute slideshow of photos of those young golden gods from that time – and I’m rewatching St Elmo’s Fire posthaste.
Bitterroot
This meditative film by writer-director Vera Brunner-Sung focuses on the steady day-to-day life of an impassive middle-aged Montana man undergoing a quiet crisis. Lead actor Wa Yang turns in an impressive performance as a man struggling to balance tradition and individualism; one long unbroken shot of him singing Paul Young’s “Everytime You Go Away” at a karaoke bar speaks volumes. Filmed on location in Missoula, Montana, and made in collaboration with the local Hmong American community (with the Hmong language heard through much of the film), it’s a well observed and considered glimpse at a culture still too rarely depicted on screen.
Witches
Using her own intensely personal story as a through line, writer-director Elizabeth Sankey draws a line from today’s immense guilt and shame around issues of motherhood and mental health to how society accused those who expressed similar sentiments of being witches centuries ago. After Sankey became a mother, her life turned into a kind of horror film, her mind possessed by hideous thoughts; she found solace in a network of women with similar perinatal mental-health issues whom she came to see as a coven. She marshals a staggering array of meticulously edited TV and movie clips as a powerful indictment of not only the medical establishment but the media as well.
The Wasp
You won’t be able to look away as Oscar nominee Naomie Harris and Game of Thrones standout Natalie Dormer go toe to toe in this taut and twisty psychological thriller adapted from Morgan Lloyd Malcolm’s 2015 play. They play two estranged childhood friends who reconnect under, let’s just say, unusual circumstances. It’s a brilliant showcase for two British acting powerhouses not seen frequently enough on screen.
New Wave
Elizabeth Ai’s new documentary uses a very personal lens to examine the infectiously danceable music of a specific time (the 1980s), place (Orange County, California), and community (young Vietnamese Americans who fled their homeland during that country’s war with America). Fans called the music that blared out of the era’s Toyota Supras New Wave, but it was actually Eurodisco covered by Vietnamese singers, and foremost among them was Lynda Trang Đài, a provocative performer dubbed the Vietnamese Madonna. Per the film, the music signified freedom and escape for a generation of refugees struggling with life in a new land, including connecting to their hard-working, often absent parents (who carried traumas of their own). Revealing a subculture little known to outsiders, the film soars in its glimpses of the past, most notably the archival performances and photo montages; the period’s outrageous hair must be seen to be believed.
Darkest Miriam
This dark, quirky charmer stars Severance’s Britt Lower as a lonely Toronto library worker, safely ensconced among the stacks and a motley group of library frequenters, who begins a new romance. Writer-director Naomi Jaye has crafted a handsome and strange contemplation of grief, strongly evocative of the work of Charlie Kaufman – who happens to be among the executive producers.
Diane Von Furstenberg: Woman in Charge
Two-time Oscar winner Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy provides a whirlwind look at the long and fascinating life of the irrepressible designer and bon vivant, from her youth as the daughter of a Holocaust survivor to her jet-setting life as a bona fide princess and the empire built on her iconic wrap dress. Today the 77-year-old is well respected as a trailblazer and true fashion icon who, unlike most women, as one friend says in the film, “was never afraid of wanting too much”. The film features interviews with no less than Oprah, Hillary Clinton, Marc Jacobs, Anderson Cooper, Karlie Kloss, and Edward Enninful – and that’s just within the first three minutes.
Some Rain Must Fall
Beautifully framed and masterfully lit, this impressive, unsettling debut from Chinese filmmaker Qiu Yang tells the story of a middle-aged, middle-class wife and mother who finds herself at a breaking point after she accidentally injures an older woman.