film

Tribeca Film Festival 2014: What stood out?

The Tribeca Film Festival was off to an exciting opening night with the premier of the Documentary based on Queens New York rapper Nas.

The Tribeca Film Festival was off to an exciting opening night with the premier of the Documentary based on Queens New York rapper Nas. The documentary, Time is Illmatic, followed Nas’ life and entrance into the arena of rap commemorating the 20 year anniversary of the release of the iconic album, Illmatic.

The international film festival held in the Big Apple is a 12-day long event which ran from April 16th to the 27th, premiering a variety of documentaries narratives features and more from all over the world.

The festival did not shy away from a range of challenging yet diverse topics, giving us varied and entertaining offerings while covering activism human rights issues music sports and much more.  The Tribeca Film Festival is definitely a platform to showcase talent, giving story tellers the opportunity to showcase whatever it is they would like to share with the world, be it from a new comer or a household name.

No topic off limit

Premiering was a documentary called Food Chain directed by Sanjay Rawal and executive producer Hollywood actress Eva Longoria. After came Mala Mala, a human rights documentary directed by Dan Sickles and Antonio Santini about the transgender community in Puerto Rico. Also included was a UK documentary called Virunga directed by Orlando von Einsiedel about the endangered mountain gorillas.

It was not all serious though – the festival was littered with gala competitions and special screenings entitled Tribeca Talks, where panellists consisting of directors, screen writer, actors and actresses enlightened the public and members of the press on the concept and approach of the various productions and screenings they were involved in.

No party like a Tribeca party

No festival – especially one of this magnitude – would be complete without the red carpet and this year’s Tribeca’s red carpet was littered with celebrities from the world of sports, music, film and theatre supporting numerous screenings.

Stars such as Sex In The City actress Kim Cattrall, House of Cards actor Kevin Spacey, British actress Annabel Scholey and others supported the documentary on of the play In The Wings On a World Stage directed by Sam Mendes.

Whoopi Goldberg and Quincy Jones supported screenings like Keep On Keepin’ On, a documentary about a famous Jazz legend and a blind piano protégé. Music legend Sting also graced the Tribeca red carpet alongside Director Spike Lee and Hollywood actor Robert De Niro who is one of the creators of the Tribeca film festival.

See you next year

If you have a love for everything connected to storytelling, whether the format is documentary, comedy, a drama or sports and human rights or activism, this festival will definitely fulfil your needs. An added bonus is that not only is it entertaining, it’s educational, with information pertaining to behind the scenes as well as in front or behind the camera.

For information on where these films, documentaries, features and all international presentations can be viewed, released and so much more, go to the Tribeca Film Festival website and revel in all the creativity on offer until next year.

What do you think? Have your say in the comments section below.