Tribeca Festival 2024: Best Movies to Watch

June 4, 202424 Mins Read

The late-spring festival season rolls on with the 2024 edition of Tribeca Festival, bringing fresh films, new TV, cutting-edge tech and gaming, and starry talks to New York City. Now in its 23rd year, the festival founded by Robert De Niro, Jane Rosenthal, and Craig Hatkoff is a platform for emerging voices and promising works on the hunt for distribution, along with world and North American premieres of titles with more established bona fides that nonetheless share a special connection to New York.

Running June 5-16, Tribeca kicks off with the world premiere of Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy and Trish Dalton’s fashion documentary “Diane von Furstenberg: Woman in Charge,” about the life and career of the Belgian-born sartorial icon and mogul. The opening night film sets the tone for a festival teeming with nonfiction titles, from other celebrity portraits like “LIZA: A Truly Terrific Absolutely True Story” and “Elizabeth Taylor: The Lost Tapes,” two showcases of screen legends confronting fame in the 1970s. But Tribeca’s documentary spotlight extends globally, with documentaries hailing from Kenya and Vietnam to the Indigenous corners of the American Northwest. Overall, this year’s Tribeca boasts films from 48 countries.

The festival’s slate of more than 100 films includes plenty of indie fiction premieres, too, with new movies featuring the likes of Kristen Stewart, Michael Cera, Christopher Abbott, Carrie Coon, Lily Gladstone, and many more indie and studio favorites. Tribeca also premieres a quintet of shorts generated by text-to-video AI model Sora, including a film from “Nanny” director Nikyatu Jusu.

Meanwhile, this year’s jurors across the sections include Jusu, David O. Russell, Selma Blair, Asghar Farhadi, Kim Cattrall, Griffin Dunne, Chinonye Chukwu, Noah Hawley, Nisha Pahuja, Sheila Nevins, Francesca Scorsese, Clara McGregor, W. Kamau Bell, Effie T. Brown, and more.

Below, IndieWire picks 30 films you ought to see at this year’s Tribeca. Head to the 2024 Tribeca Festival Film Guide on its website for ticketing information.

Samantha Bergeson, Kate Erbland, David Ehrlich, Jim Hemphill, and Christian Zilko contributed to this story.

‘Adult Best Friends’ (US Narrative Competition)

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‘Adult Best Friends’ poses the age-old question to a new crop of millennials: What do you do when your childhood bestie seems to have surpassed you in all milestone moments? Nothing quite throws a friendship into limbo as one pal getting engaged, and for Katie (Katie Corwin), even though she’s the one with the ring on her finger, her paranoia over whether or not her best friend Delaney (Delaney Buffett, who also directs) feels left out leads to a last minute girls trip to reaffirm their bond. Zachary Quinto, Mason Gooding, Cazzie David, Casey Wilson, and Alexander Hodge co-star in the cringe comedy about getting in one last tween-inspired adventure before reaching the final frontier of adulthood: getting married. Real-life best friends and onscreen co-leads Corwin and Buffett co-wrote the script. —SB
‘Bad Actor: A Hollywood Ponzi Scheme’ (Documentary Competition)

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Remember Zachary Horwitz, aka Zach Avery, the D-list action ‘actor’ arrested by the FBI in 2021 when it was revealed his movie career was part of a Ponzi scheme that defrauded investors of $227 million? He lied about doing business with the likes of HBO and Netflix and forged distribution contacts on movies his company, 1nMM Productions, purported to acquire but never actually did. Joslyn Jensen’s documentary re-examines the wild case through victim testimonies and clips from his so-called filmography. Horwitz’s audacious fraudster scheme earned him a 20-year prison sentence and here illuminates the desperation of trying to make it in an industry where hangers-on lurk at every corner. —RL
‘Brats’ (Spotlight)

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Any movie fan who grew up in the 1980s can probably remember the moment they first heard the term ‘brat pack’ in reference to the group of young actors (Emilio Estevez, Judd Nelson, Ally Sheedy, Rob Lowe, Demi Moore, Andrew McCarthy, etc.) then emerging as stars in movies like ‘The Breakfast Club’ and ‘St. Elmo’s Fire.’ McCarthy sure remembers it — he remembers how the term caught fire after journalist David Blum first coined it in an article for New York magazine, and he remembers the detrimental impact Blum’s article and its fallout had on his career and those of many of his peers. In an effort to make peace with the label, McCarthy sets out to interview his former costars as well as Brat Pack-adjacent figures like Lea Thompson and ‘Pretty in Pink’ director Howard Deutch, and the results are hilarious, touching, and revelatory — and essential viewing for anyone who loves the movies the Brat Pack actors created. Bonus points to McCarthy for including an interview with IndieWire’s own Kate Erbland, whose encyclopedic knowledge of 1980s cinema is put to fine use here. —JH
‘Darkest Miriam’ (Viewpoints)

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Maybe the most unfortunate part about the 900-year wait for the second season of ‘Severance’ is that audiences have been deprived a chance to see more of breakout star Britt Lower. That’s about to change in a big way (with some help from executive producer Charlie Kaufman), as Lower takes the lead with a revealing lead performance in Naomi Jaye’s wry but recessive character study ‘Darkest Miriam,’ in which she plays a grieving Toronto librarian who surrounds herself with other people’s stories in order to avoid reckoning with her own. Things begin to change for Miriam when a casual encounter with a mysterious foreign cab driver — played by the great ‘Synonyms’ actor Tom Mercier — explodes into something a lot more intense, allowing Lower to slip her way through rich, poetic, and appropriately dark shrouds of feeling as her character is forced to re-evaluate the role that death plays in her life. This movie won’t make the wait for ‘Severance’ any shorter, but it will make it a bit more bearable. —DE
‘A Desert’ (Midnight)

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Joshua Erkman’s feature debut ‘A Desert’ is a genre hybrid that takes a chaotic road trip across the American Southwest. Blending noir, horror, and the underbelly of Americana, the film follows Kai Lennox as a past-his-prime photographer looking for inspiration in deserted landscapes and abandoned roadside structures. But events take a hairpin turn after a pit stop at a motel — never somewhere you want to wind up in a horror movie — introduces him to a dangerous younger couple. ‘A Desert’ features a score from garage rock psychedelic singer/songwriter Ty Segall and cinematography by Jay Keitel, known for ‘She Dies Tomorrow’ and TV’s ‘The Girlfriend Experience.’ —RL
‘Elizabeth Taylor: The Lost Tapes’ (Spotlight Documentary)

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Elizabeth Taylor lived a life under the microscope in ways that presaged the tabloid-feeding celebrity frenzy of today, when personal tragedies turn into scandals that outshine an artist’s work. Nanette Burstein’s ‘Elizabeth Taylor: The Lost Tapes’ gives the Oscar-winning actress a rare behind-the-veil voice, guiding us from her early life to life in the ‘70s with Richard Burton, whom she married twice after first meeting on the set of ‘Cleopatra,’ Burton shaking from a bender-related hangover. Working from the archives of journalist Richard Meryman, this must-see for old Hollywood fans features voiceover audio recordings from Taylor herself, dishing and imbibing with her close friend Roddy MacDowell, whom she met as a child on the set of 1943’s ‘Lassie Come Home.’ Across film clips and behind-the-scenes footage, Taylor goes deep on her favorite (‘Suddenly, Last Summer’) and least favorite projects (‘BUtterfield 8,’ which won her an Oscar after a very public health debacle on ‘Cleopatra’) and romantic relationships (including blowing up Debbie Reynold’s marriage to Eddie Fisher, whom Taylor admits to never truly loving). —RL
‘Federer: Twelve Final Days’ (Spotlight Documentary)

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After deciding that he wanted someone to document the final event of his illustrious career, tennis legend Roger Federer naturally went ahead and hired a filmmaker who’s dedicated his life to profiling the greatest athletes in modern history: ‘Senna,’ ‘Ronaldo,’ and ‘Diego Maradona’ director Asif Kapadia. In ‘Federer: Twelve Final Days,’ Kapadia and his camera follow the king of Wimbledon as he announces his retirement to the world and then — with the kind of self-mythologizing gusto that only a true GOAT could pull off — stages a new tournament that allows him to reunite with all of his greatest rivals. The result doesn’t reveal anything about Federer that fans don’t already know, but it entertainingly confirms that he lives his life with the same grace that he brought to the court. —DE
‘The French Italian’ (US Narrative Competition)

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Stand-up comedian Catherine Cohen has made a splashy name for herself in recent years, with her signature tone a mix of Megan Stalter meets Lena Dunham. No wonder, then, that Cohen’s obvious big break comes in the form of Rachel Wolther’s ‘Girls’-esque comedy ‘The French Italian,’ which pairs Cohen with ‘SNL’ alum Aristotle Athari as roommates who decamp upstate from their Brooklyn brownstone and craft an unhinged off-Broadway play about how much they hated their former neighbor, who had an addiction to off-tune karaoke. Oh, and said neighbor will star in their vengeful play…If this sounds like ‘A Different Man’ meets ‘Search Party,’ that’s by design. Writer/director Wolther has assembled a cast of who’s-who rising stars, including ‘Euphoria’ alum Chloe Cherry, Jon Rudnitsky, Ruby McCollister, and Ikechukwu Ufomadu. ‘The French Italian’ is the Gen Z answer to growing up, with a song or two thrown in for good measure. —SB
‘The Freshly Cut Grass’ (International Narrative Competition)

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Martin Scorsese, ever on the trail of rising global female filmmakers like Alice Rohrwacher (‘Happy as Lazzaro’) and Antoneta Alamat Kusijanović (‘Murina’), executive produces Argentine filmmaker Celina Murga’s relationship drama ‘The Freshly Cut Grass.’ Her 2023 drama ‘Ana and the Others,’ still awaiting U.S. distribution, compelled Scorsese to team up with her on this frank depiction of a marriage going cold. Geology professor Natalia (Marina de Tavira of ‘Roma’ fame) longs for her grad student Gonzalo (Emanuel Parga). Meanwhile, another academic, Pablo (Joaquin Furriel), takes up an affair with a student (Veronica Gerez). This adult drama finds two characters at a crossroads, and both up against gender expectations at home while balancing secret lives at work. What’s more compelling than an affair spinning out of control? Two of them. —RL
‘Griffin in Summer’ (US Narrative Competition)

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Any teenaged queer person stuck between adolescence and adulthood has been there before: forming their first crush on an older person who takes them under their wing. Writer/director Nicholas Colia’s ‘Griffin in Summer’ stars Everett Blunck as Griffin, a 14-year-old working precociously on a play that crosses ‘Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf’ with ‘American Beauty.’ And for a certain generation of culturally obsessed young gays living vicariously through the art they consume and make, we’ve all been there, too. Griffin finds his eye drifting toward handyman Brad (Owen Teague), a failed New York performance artist in whom the teen finds a kindred soul, and an object of unrequited love. Set over a pivotal summer in Griffin’s life, ‘Griffin in Summer’ co-stars Melanie Lynskey, Abby Ryder Fortson, and Kathryn Newton. —RL
‘Hacking Hate’ (Documentary Competition)

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Simon Klose’s documentary world premiere ‘Hacking Hate’ dives into the online hate cultures that radicalize individuals into taking their xenophobia and hate speech off the internet and into the real world. The film unfolds through the eyes of Swedish journalist My Vingren, dubbed by some as the ‘real life Girl with the Dragon Tattoo,’ as she goes undercover, posing as a white supremacist, to infiltrate extreme right recruiting campaigns. Her investigation leads her to whistleblower Anika Collier Navaroli, the force behind getting Trump kicked of X, née Twitter, and to Imran Ahmed, whom Elon Musk sued after the researcher exposed hate speech being promoted on the platform. —RL
‘Hunters on a White Field’ (International Narrative Competition)

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A long hunting trip in a deep forest sounds like a great idea until you realize there aren’t any animals to shoot. That’s the predicament faced by the three men at the center of ‘Hunters on a White Field,’ Sarah Gyllenstierna’s directorial debut that explores what happens when an intense male hunting rivalry refuses to be dulled by a mysterious disappearance of all the forest’s wildlife. The Swedish thriller’s combination of dark humor and an incomprehensible mystery could turn it into one of the most unforgettable movies on this year’s Tribeca lineup. —CZ
‘Jazzy’ (US Narrative Competition)

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Filmmaker Morrisa Maltz is crafting herself — and growing body of fans — her very own cinematic universe, this one rooted in the Native American experience and highlighted by a dedication to honest storytelling that is both thrilling and very necessary these days. Maltz follows up her indie hit ‘The Unknown Country’ with this spiritual successor, which turns its attention to the eponymous ‘Jazzy,’ young rising star Jasmine Bearkiller Shangreaux. In this new film, young Jazzy must contend with all sorts of growing pains, made all the worse by the imminent departure of her best friend. Of course, ‘The Unknown Country’ star Lily Gladstone appears again, in addition to her producing duties. —KE
‘The Knife’ (US Narrative Competition)

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Former NFL defensive back Nnamdi Asomugha pivoted to acting in the late-aughts, with eventual roles in films like ‘Crown Heights’ and ‘The Good Nurse.’ He’s making another career change with his feature directing debut ‘The Knife,’ which he also stars in and co-wrote with Mark Duplass. In this tense thriller of moral dilemmas Asomugha, Chris’ (Asomugha) American Dream is upended by a stranger who shows up at their house and is later found by authorities unconscious, a knife in her hand. Melissa Leo joins the cast as a detective closing in on the secret loyalties forming within Chris’ family, including his wife Alex (Aja Naomi King) and young daughters (Aiden and Amari Price). Executive-produced by the Duplass brothers, ‘The Knife’ features cinematography from Alejandro Mejia, who lensed 2024 Sundance Grand Jury Prize winner ‘In the Summers,’ also playing Tribeca. —RL
‘Lake George’ (Spotlight Narrative)

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What’s a respectable film festival without a new Carrie Coon film? Jeffrey Reiner’s ‘comedic neo-noir’ manages to check that box and up that film nerd ante with yet another always-welcome star: Shea Whigham. Now you’re talking. Reiner, best known for a truly enviable array of TV credits (from ‘Homeland’ to ‘High Fidelity,’ ‘Friday Night Lights’ to ‘The Affair’) returns to his big screen roots with a clever-sounding twist on the classic ‘oops, someone hired a hitman to kill you’ trope. This one seems to borrow a bit from ‘Strangers on a Train,’ as the prey (Coon) offers to join forces with her would-be killer (Whigham) to turn the tables on the baddies that hired him in the first place. Sounds like a pretty good deal to us, and with two beloved stars in the leading roles, we’re expecting all sorts of fireworks and fun, and dare we say it, maybe even some well-won truths to boot. Now that’s a meal. —KE
‘LIZA: A Truly Terrific Absolutely True Story’ (Spotlight Documentary)

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The first definitive documentary about the stage and screen icon and daughter of Judy Garland, ‘LIZA: A Truly Terrific Absolutely True Story’ hails from director Bruce David Klein and includes never-seen 1970s footage of Liza Minnelli – including a deep dive into her 1972 ‘Ring Them Bells’ Carnegie Hall concert from 1972, where the movie gets its title. ‘LIZA’ corrects and expands upon the record of Minnelli’s life, born right from the start in the spotlight, from the death of her mother to the gossip rag scandals that followed them both throughout their careers. The film features recent interviews with Minnelli, as well as testimony from Mia Farrow, Ben Vereen, and her ‘Cabaret’ co-star Joel Grey. —RL
‘Made in England’ (Spotlight Documentary)

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America’s greatest director and most passionate cinephile provides a guided tour through the work of the filmmakers who influenced him more than any other — what could be a bigger gift for movie fans? In collaboration with director David Hinton, Martin Scorsese explores the movies of British legends Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger (‘The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp,’ ’Black Narcissus,’ ’The Red Shoes’) and takes a deep dive into their collaboration, combining extensive archival material with his own personal observations about their work and what it has meant to him over the years. Scorsese’s previous documentaries on the cinema like ‘My Voyage to Italy’ and ‘A Personal Journey With Martin Scorsese Through American Movies’ provide the best kind of film education; they’re movies rich in information that are also lively, inspiring, and passionate. Anyone who has heard Scorsese’s commentaries and interviews on the Criterion editions of Powell and Pressburger’s work knows he’s as enthusiastic and knowledgeable about their filmographies as he is about anyone’s, meaning that ‘Made in England’ promises to be his most exhilarating documentary yet. —JH
‘Mars’ (Midnight)

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From viral hits like ‘The Grapist’ and ‘Gallon of PCP’ to brilliant deep cuts such as ‘Pussy Salad,’ ‘The Whitest Kids U’Know’ produced some of the most beloved comedy sketches of the 21st century during the sketch show’s five season run on IFC. Now, over a decade after the show’s conclusion, the sketch troupe has reunited one final time to produce the animated film ‘Mars.’ The movie, which originated as a borderline unfilmable live action script before the six comedians realized they could re-tool it as an animated film, was funded entirely through fan donations and revenue from Twitch streams during the COVID-19 pandemic. The film follows a dentist who fears that his life hasn’t contained enough adventure and decides to enter a sweepstakes to take a private flight to Mars funded by an eccentric billionaire named Elron Branson. The outrageous sci-fi comedy will be the final ‘Whitest Kids U’Know’ project due to the tragic death of co-founder Trevor Moore in 2021. But Moore had finished recording his dialogue before his death, so the chance to see the ensemble perform together one final time will be a can’t-miss opportunity for ‘Whitest Kids U’Know’ fans. —CZ
‘Rent Free’ (US Narrative Competition)

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Following the Tribeca success of his 2022 debut ‘Three Headed Beast,’ Fernando Andres is back at the festival with another project about young people navigating unconventional living situations. ‘Rent Free’ stars Jacob Roberts and David Treviño as two young Texans whose dreams of moving to New York to pursue fortune and glory are squashed by their inability to find a place to crash. Stranded in Austin, they embark on a challenge to spend an entire year couch-surfing between their friends’ apartments without paying any rent. The lighthearted comedy could emerge as the latest indie hangout movie hit if it receives a strong reception at the festival. —CZ
‘McVeigh’ (Spotlight Narrative)

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California-raised filmmaker Mike Ott’s cinema of the American West and Middle — from 2010’s ‘Littlerock’ to ‘California Dreams’ — always finds the director taking a ground-level look at contemporary life in the U.S. with a soft spot for its castaways, drifters, and fringe characters. For ‘McVeigh,’ his first feature in seven years, Ott directs ‘Game of Thrones’ star Alfie Allen as one of the most notorious domestic terrorists in U.S. history, namely the Gulf War veteran behind the Oklahoma City bombing of 1995. Without sentimentality or sensationalizing, Ott follows McVeigh on his day-to-day in the lead-up to the terrorist attack, with Brett Gelman co-starring as co-conspirator and former roommate Terry Nichols. Ashley Benson, Anthony Carrigan, and Tracy Letts co-star. —RL
‘Missing from Fire Trail Road’ (Spotlight Documentary)

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With support from Lily Gladstone, documentary filmmaker Sabrina Van Tassel (‘The State of Texas vs. Melissa’) details the 2020 disappearance of Mary Ellen Johnson-Davis, a Native American woman who vanished on the eve of Thanksgiving from the Tulalip Reservation in Washington. But Van Tassel’s investigation exposes the plight of hundreds of Indigenous women whose disappearances in the U.S.A. go unexplored or accounted for. With testimony from Indigenous activist Deborah Parker to U.S. Secretary of the Interior Deb Haaland, ‘Missing from Fire Trail Road’ comes with a social mandate: with the hope to advance new laws and safety measures to protect Indigenous women. Van Tassel’s ‘Texas vs. Melissa,’ a 2020 Tribeca premiere, helped exonerate the first Hispanic woman on death road, saving her life just 48 hours before her execution date. —RL
‘New Wave’ (Documentary Competition)

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Filmmaker Elizabeth Ai embarks on a journey into the 1980s musical phenomenon known as New Wave as seen through the eyes of rebellious Vietnamese teenagers in Orange County, Calif. The Euro synth sounds and punk-rock, goth aesthetics, for these countercultural youth, became masks for deeper traumas as the movie segues into examining the after-effects of the Vietnam War on U.S. soil for second-generation Vietnamese kids. Ai joins forces with New Wave faces like Lynda Trang Đài and Ian ‘DJ BPM’ Nguyen for a documentary love letter to her community and how its consumption of pop culture shaped defiant attitudes that still resonate today. —RL
‘Quad Gods’ (Documentary Competition)

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Jess Jacklin’s documentary feature debut, ‘Quad Gods’ chronicles the first-ever esports team made of players with quadriplegia. New Yorkers Blake, Prentice, and Richard meet while in a Mount Sinai Hospital neuro-rehabilitation lab before forming the team they dub as the Quad Gods. Working with adaptive technology, the trio become fierce competitors amid a fast-forming friendship, with the esports team becoming another aspect of their neurological rehab process. The portrait is executive-produced by Oscar nominees Rachel Grady and Heidi Ewing as the three players challenge stereotypes of ableism in the gaming and sports spaces. The film will later premiere on HBO. —RL
‘Sabbath Queen’ (Documentary Competition)

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Sandi DuBowski’s 2001 nonfiction classic ‘Trembling Before G-d’ chronicled a community of queer Orthodox Jews reconciling their sexual identity with their faith. In 2008, he released ‘Jihad for Love,’ similarly looking at the tensions between Islam and homosexuality. If you’re wondering what the Jewish-raised filmmaker has been up to in the past couple decades, he’s spent more than 21 years filming ‘Sabbath Queen.’ The documentary world premiere follows Rabbi Amichai Lau-Lavie on his wild journey from rejecting his Orthodox destiny to becoming a drag queen and founder of Lab/Shul, a God-optional, all-are-welcome experimental congregation. —RL
‘Sacramento’ (US Narrative Competition)

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It feels like just yesterday that Michael Cera was starring in movies about the difficult transition from high school to college. Now, as our bones grind to dust inside our bodies, he’s starring in movies about the crushing psychic weight of becoming a father; it’s a good thing that Michael Angarano’s ‘Sacramento’ is such a light and breezy road comedy, otherwise the ‘‘It’s been almost 20 years since Superbad’ came out!?’ might be too much to take in such a concentrated form. Cera plays a spiraling Los Angeles dad-to-be who’s whisked away from his very pregnant wife (Kristen Stewart) for an impromptu road trip to the capital of California when his old, semi-estranged friend (Angarano) shows up with a crisis of his own. Panic attacks, a very funny bit about human remains, and a wonderfully exasperated comic performance from Angarano’s real-life partner Maya Erskine ensues, as two thirty-something men do their best to make peace with the ‘hellscape of unpredictability’ that is being responsible to other people in this world. —DE
‘Searching for Amani’ (Viewpoints)

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In Swahili, the word ‘Amani’ translates to ‘peace.’ In Nicole Gormley and Debra Aroko’s Kenyan set documentary ‘Searching for Amani,’ 13-year old Simon Ali is an aspiring journalist looking for his own peace: to solve the mysterious murder of his father in one of Kenya’s largest wildlife conservancies. As a draught ravages his country, Simon discovers how closely his father’s death is linked to not only climate change, but a more complex web of imperial conflict. Along their perilous way, he’s aided by his best friend Haron to uncover how close to home a devastating geopolitical conflict actually is. —RL
‘Slave Play. Not a Movie. A Play.’ (Spotlight Documentary)

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Jeremy O. Harris’ provocative, decorum-defiling 2018 play ‘Slave Play’ took Off-Broadway by the collar before moving to the Great White Way twice, in 2019 and 2021, with a West End premiere in London set for this summer. The three-act play follows three interracial couples subjecting themselves to ‘Antebellum Sexual Performance Therapy’ when the Black partners no longer feel attracted to their white lovers. The 12-time Tony nominee (though it lost all of them) shocked audiences with its contemporary spin on the history of slavery in America and its no-holds-barred depiction of sexual slavery role play. Now, Harris directs his own documentary about the play’s making, with new interviews and behind-the-scenes workshop footage that dive into the making of a New York theatre sensation. —RL
‘Some Rain Must Fall’ (International Narrative Competition)

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Qiu Yang’s 2017 ‘A Gentle Night,’ about a mother looking for her daughter in an unnamed Chinese city, won the Palme d’Or for Best Short Film at Cannes. Yang’s shorts regularly win festival prizes, and now he comes to Tribeca after his debut feature ‘Some Rain Must Fall’ won the Special Jury Prize in the 2024 Berlinale’s Encounters section. The Mandarin-language feature follows a mother and housewife whose life falls out of orbit after she accidentally injures the grandmother of her teen daughter’s lesser-privileged classmate. The incident leads Cai on a journey to confront what she really wants out of life, and the precariousness of her class position. —RL
‘Swimming Home’ (International Narrative Competition

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British first-time feature director Justin Anderson’s Rotterdam premiere stars the indie dream cast of Christopher Abbott and Mackenzie Davis as a couple whose marriage is foundering when they find a naked stranger, Kitti (Ariane Labed, the Greek-French actress who broke out of ‘Attenberg’ and ‘The Lobster’), floating in the pool of their getaway villa. The unexpected guest exposes the already present fissures in poet Joe and war correspondent Isabel’s relationship. In the tradition of films like ‘La Piscine’ and ‘A Bigger Splash,’ the clay-and-dust-hued feature promises to be a languid psychosexual tale in the Mediterranean. —RL
‘Vulcanizadora’ (US Narrative Competition)

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Here’s a handy rule of thumb when it comes to sizing up a new movie from Joel Potrykus, the undisputed maestro of ‘metal slackerism’: The more benign the premise sounds, the more terrified you should be of what’s in store. Anyone who’s seen 2018’s unforgettable ‘Relaxer,’ a single-location comedy about a guy who dares his brother not to get up from the couch until he beats level 256 of ‘Pac-Man,’ knows exactly what I mean. With that in mind, Tribeca Festival audiences should be on high alert — and extremely excited — for Potrykus ‘Vulcanizadora,’ which co-stars the filmmaker and his forever muse Joshua Burge as two friends who (gulp) go for a walk in the woods. Needless to say, it does not end normally for either of them, as the casual banter that carries these characters throughout the first half of the story eventually reaches a head, and that head is then placed inside a bizarre metallic device that… well, you should really find out for yourself, as Potrykus again serves up a singular experience by taking a simple idea to its logical conclusion, and then a lot further. —DE