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| Trish Dalton and Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy’s Diane von Furstenberg: Woman In Charge will open the 23rd edition of the Tribeca Festival. Photo: Anne Katrin Titze |
In the Spotlight Documentary program Kelly Anderson (Chair of the Department of Film and Media Studies at Hunter College, CUNY) and Jay Arthur Sterrenberg’s (co-founder of the Meerkat Media Collective) Emergent City on the Sunset Park community efforts to reign in the developers of the waterfront property now known as Industry City in Brooklyn, New York and Dana Flor’s 1-800-ON-HER-OWN on the professional and personal journey singer/songwriter/activist Ani DiFranco (who is currently starring on Broadway in Anäis Mitchell’s Hadestown) has taken to remain an independent voice in the music world, plus in the Midnight section Veronika Franz and Severin Fiala’s The Devil's Bath (Des Teufels Bad) starring Anja Plaschg (who is also the composer as Soap&Skin), shot by Martin Gschlacht (Silver Bear winner in the 2024 Berlin Film Festival), executive produced by Ulrich Seidl (Rimini and Sparta) and Bettina Brokemper (Margarethe von Trotta’s Ingeborg Bachmann - Journey Into the Desert starring Vicky Krieps and Ronald Zehrfeld) are three early bird highlights of the 23rd edition of the Tribeca Film Festival.
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| Severin Fiala and Veronika Franz’s The Devil’s Bath is a highlight of the Tribeca Festival Photo: Anne Katrin Titze |
Trish Dalton and Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy’s Diane von Furstenberg: Woman In Charge World Premiere with interviews from Oprah Winfrey, Marc Jacobs, Edward Eninful, Hillary Rodham Clinton, (narrator of Simon Trevor’s White Gold) Gloria Steinem, and Fran Lebowitz is the Tribeca Festival Opening Night Gala selection screening on Wednesday, June 5 at 7:00pm - OKX Theater at BMCC Tribeca Performing Arts Center. .
After the World Premiere of Emergent City, filmmakers Kelly Anderson and Jay Arthur Sterrenberg, plus Carlos Menchaca (former Councilmember, District 38), Marcela Mitaynes (Assemblymember, 51st District of New York), and Elizabeth Yeampierre (Executive Director, UPROSE) will participate in a Q&A..
Following the World Premiere screening of 1-800-ON-HER-OWN Ani DiFranco and Dana Flor will participate in a Q&A.
Veronika Franz and Severin Fiala will participate in a post-screening Q&A following the International Premiere of The Devil’s Bath.
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| Emergent City |
Emergent City
As if emerging out of a pre-historic ocean, the industrial waterfront area of Sunset Park, Brooklyn receives star treatment in Kelly Anderson and Jay Arthur Sterrenberg’s documentary. From being a great industry hub known as Bush Terminal from the early 20th century to being referenced by some as “the coolest place to be” in 2013, Brooklyn has gone through a long and storied history of change. Industry City is New York’s largest privately owned industrial property and its story over the last decade turns out to be a perfect mirror to many of the developments going on around the US and worldwide. Rezoning, the process of democracy, community building and destruction, gentrification and green energy, city council work, endless town hall meetings, real estate speculation, luxury hotel threats, green jobs, small business interests, and Goldilockian compromises - Shakespearean in dimension, this deeply urban cautionary tale of a film has it all.
The World Premiere of Emergent City is on Tuesday, June 11 at 8:30pm - Village East by Angelika. Additional screenings on Wednesday, June 12 at 8:45pm - Village East by Angelika; Thursday, June 13 at 3:15pm - Village East by Angelika
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| 1-800-ON-HER-OWN |
1-800-ON-HER-OWN
During a talk at The New School in New York with Cecile Richards, former president of Planned Parenthood, Ani DiFranco, legs folded up on her chair, recounts a woman during a Q& A at a jazz festival complaining about the “invisibility” of middle aged women. “And I was like, who are you invisible to? Invisible as a sex object?” “How liberating” is her profound response. Dana Flor’s documentary follows the fiercely independent performer on tour from a pre-pandemic world into lockdown with her husband and their two children in New Orleans, and back on the road again, while interspersing clips from the singer’s past performances and television appearances since the 1990s. What becomes clear is how different tour experiences are for men and women, and what the cost is to stick to your beliefs. When the pandemic hits, she is happy about the break from touring and opens her house to the cameras that capture a lot, from the kids [with very long Covid hair] on the trampoline in the yard, to dog Poncho’s free-spirited run of the grounds and his dramatic upset stomach moment. A room with boxes of DVDs and “stuff signed by Bob Dylan” is another challenge for her to take on. “I’m a performer who doesn’t like being looked at,” she says on the way to a photoshoot for which she brought face powder from 20 years ago.
The World Premiere of 1-800-ON-HER-OWN is on Monday, June 10 at 5:30pm - OKX Theater at BMCC Tribeca Performing Arts Center. Additional screenings on Tuesday, June 11 at 2:15pm - Village East by Angelika; Thursday, June 13 at 2:15pm - Village East by Angelika
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| The Devil's Bath |
The Devil's Bath
Agnes (Anja Plaschg), wearing a thick brown woolen sweater, braids a fragile wreath for her hair and wraps her precious collection of dried grasses, insects and shells into a kerchief. This is her wedding day and together with her mother, brother, and a chicken, they are off through the woods to celebrate. Wolf (David Scheid),the groom, drinks and laughs with his male friends until it is time to lead Agnes to their new abode, a gloomy old stone hut, dark and uninviting, and so costly that it ate up everything they had, including the dowry. “Don’t worry, I’ll go for lumber,” he says, but the troubles have only just begun. The horror in Veronika Franz and Severin Fiala’s third feature together is very much of this world and rooted in a belief system that brought hundreds of women “weary of this life” to commit acts of murder and confess, so as to be forgiven and spared eternal condemnation. Based on historical records from mid-18th century Upper Austria, The Devil’s Bath drops us into a rural society with strict codes governing the here and the hereafter. A baby cries, as its older brother conducts a shadow play on the laundry hung out to dry in the sun. He is called back into the house by an adult male voice, while the mother picks up the infant and walks with it through the forest up to a waterfall.
The International Premiere of The Devil's Bath is on Saturday, June 9 at 9:00pm - Village East by Angelika. Additional screenings on Sunday, June 9 at 9:00pm - AMC 19th St. East 6; Thursday, June 13 at 9:15pm - AMC 19th St. East 6 - The Devil’s Bath will open at IFC Center in New York on Friday, June 21 and will arrive on Shudder starting Friday, June 28.
The Tribeca Festival runs from Wednesday June 5 through Sunday, June 16.
