Tribeca Film Festival 2005

[Michael Wisniewski]

Any recommendations for entries to see this year? There are so many to choose from.

The German film, 7 Zwerge (dwarves) looks good. And I'm gonna see Infection for sure, because I'm a fan of Japanese horror/sc-fi.

[Michael Wisniewski]

Rats, okay apparently no one here went to the Festival.

All the Sci-Fi/Horror I saw was great. This is the stuff that makes you want to shoot for a higher level of filmmaking. Watching these films reminded me of when I was younger and we used to watch the Bones Brigade and other skateboarding videos to get pumped up, then we'd go out and skate up a storm. This festival works the same way for filmmaking.

Lion's Gate is following on the heels of the The Ring and The Grudge, and presented some really amazing horror movies. I generally prefer the originals, but from what I saw, I bet we see some American translations. One odd thing, many of the titles get translated into one word titles: Infection, Shutter, Reeker, Premonition, Nightwatch etc. but they were all really good.

Modify was another one that showed people who did extreme modifications to their bodies, very cool and creepy at the same time. Good, inventive, and fun filmmaking all around.

|The best thing I saw|
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I had the good fortune to get dragged into a "work in progress" documentary on the legendary film teacher Alexander Mackendrick who founded the Cal Arts film program.

After seeing this, I am completely in awe of Mackendrick. He not only gets it, but he gets you to "get it" too. Just amazing. Much of the documentary was interviews of his former students relating all the stuff they learned from him.

After the first 15 seconds, I was sitting on the edge of my seat, this is the stuff you're always looking for and can glean here and there through books and experience, but it's presented in a coherent well thought out way, from the mind of a master teacher. I'm absolutely jealous of anyone who was able to take his classes or be mentored by him. And I know this sounds like hyperbole, but in this case it really is a film school for the $10 I paid to get in.

Here's the catch, the documentary probably won't be finished for a few years. Paul Cronin, the filmmaker will have an accompanying book out later this year. Unfortunately, as Mackendrick pointed out, the minute you start writing about filmmaking, you're already in the wrong medium.

Hopefully, they'll release this documentary sooner than later for the good of the filmmaking community.