Claus Mueller

The Tribeca Festival 2021, lasting from June 9 – 20 with a full program, has been the first North American in-person film festival this year. This 20^th edition dropped “film” from its title reflecting the festival’s continued expansion into all fields of media production. Over 12 days, the Tribeca Festival consisted of online presentations, in-person screenings in all boroughs including outdoor venues with massive LED screens, covered more than 250 events with screenings, performances, and talks reaching one hundred thousand individuals, and one hundred fifteen thousand views from its Tribeca At Home platform. That platform was geo-blocked for US audiences only; there were no geo-blocking restrictions for credentialed and the international press. The programmatic expansion of the Tribeca Festival transcended traditional film productions and continued to fully embrace new distribution technologies and modes of storytelling. Evidently, some of the journalists covering Tribeca missed the shift, and the adaptive programming which has been part of Tribeca from its inception. Some were ill at ease with the new title of the festival, deplored the pervasive ambiguity of the fest, holding to the underlying expectation that, as one observer stated, Tribeca was supposed to be “delivering a roaring endorsement of movie goings triumphant return”. They missed the equal and often greater importance of episodic series run by major streamers like Netflix and Amazon which draw large streaming audiences and a younger audience frequently preferring interactive and immersive programs over feature films.

The period of large scale theatrical consumption of film productions and box office miracles with blockbusters has long been overdue to the rise of streaming films at home, the improvement of flatscreen sets with superb surround sound and image resolution, as well as the concomitant rapid decline of their costs. In a budget and coronavirus conscious time, these factors have resulted in a shift of viewing patterns. Some critics have a hard time adjusting to the changes. A well-known New York Times culture writer argued last year that the end of Daddy’s Cinema, or going to the movies, was tantamount to a termination of American culture. Most major festivals like the Berlinale, Sundance, SXSW, Hot Docs, and Tribeca adjusted years ago to new distribution and production technologies. In their programs they have included future oriented knowledge seminars for the industry, press, and interested publics exploring the application and impact of these technologies and new programming approaches. They reached new online audiences while keeping screening venues for select groups and have done very well this year as shown by growing professional and general audiences, expanded programs, and more sponsorship by media corporations.  Some other festivals have funding issues because revenues generated by membership fees, on-line ticket sales and events, as well as income from upscale consumer product vendors, and other sources do not match the high compensation for festival executives, programming costs, and the maintenance of large empty theaters.

In the early years of the Tribeca Film Festival, the close ties between the festival and the film industry were sometimes deplored because these links presumably threatened the independence of the festival  and did not match the upscale tastes of their target audience with cinephile overtones. These days, close industry and streaming platform ties are mandatory and virtually all festivals not linked to the media industry and its conglomerates crave for their support. In Europe, there is support from public broadcasters not available in the USA. Here, the most important streamers like Netflix and Amazon are involved in most US and Canadian film festivals.

Reliance on public funders, foundations, and individual sponsors has become problematic. From a funding perspective, the Tribeca Festival is in a very good shape as are Sundance, the Berlinale which is  also backed by large industrial corporations and generous governmental subsidies, the Canadian Hot Docs , New York Doc, and a few others. The recent demise of the Tribeca Film Institute and its ending for independent filmmakers has been criticized, but a new funding source is the Tribeca X Award for storytelling, acknowledging the intersection between advertising and entertainment.

Though not fully comprehensive, the Tribeca Festival Press and Industry Library lists a large number of productions including 121 films with 51 classified as feature documentaries, probably the most recognized section of the program. This year TF had a record number of 11,222 total submissions in all categories trying to get into the programs for feature films, short, the platform for independent film making, Tribeca Immersive for virtual and augmented reality projects, Tribeca Games with video game projects,  Tribeca Now, celebrating independent episodic work, the Tribeca X award, and features in the Tribeca Virtual film festival. The features program had 66 films by 81 filmmakers from 23 countries with a lineup of 56 world premieres.  

Among the special events held were screening and discussions of  Steven Soderbergh’s new crime drama No Sudden Move. This centerpiece Gala Selection also premiered July 1 on HBO Max. The 25^th anniversary of Joel Coen’s FARGO took place on June 18 and the closing night celebrated the first post-pandemic re-opening of Radio City Music with a full capacity audience of 5,400 screening the first  untitled documentary by Dave Chapelle, This Time This Place. The festival introduced the inaugural Harry Belafonte Voices for Social Justice Award given to the  political leader Stacey Abrahams, and the first-ever awards in the Podcast and Games categories, honoring several creators with a combined $165,000.00. The new Tribeca Podcast for the non-fiction narrative award went to Guardian of the River, its fiction narrative award to Vermont Avenue, and the first ever Tribeca Games award to NORCO from Geography of Robots. Among top honors for Feature films were The Ascension (Best Documentary Feature), The Novice (Funder’s Award for Best Narrative U.S. Feature), and Brighton Avenue (Best International Narrative Feature Film).

There were numerous outstanding feature films.

ASCENSION, 2021 USA

A documentary directed and edited by Jessica Kingdon, who also is  credited with Nathan Tuesdell for the cinematography. Kingdon is a New York based Chinese American filmmaker premiering her film at the 2021 Tribeca Festival, and received the Best Documentary Feature award. The title of the film referring to the movement to  a higher level is the perfect choice because it reflects Deng Xiaiuoping’s strategy to create a socialist market economy in China emphasizing raising the standard of living and consumption when he ran China from 1978-1990 without articulating the need for an authoritarian surveillance state embraced by the reigning president Xi JinPing. What is striking in Kingdon’s multifaceted observations of contemporary China is the focus on consumerism, upward mobility, and higher income, with apparent parallels to the consumer societies generally associated with advanced western countries. To date, these societies have retained a modicum of stability with the promise of high standards of living, disregarding their growing poverty. China has, however, drastically improved the standards of living of 800 million people. Still, by 2012 the, Gini coefficient measuring income inequality reached 0,55  in China while in the US it was 0.45 with 0 equaling total equality and 1 perfect inequality. Nonetheless income and lifestyles have become important components of a person’s identity in these countries and in China.  

Kingdon ends the film with a 1912 quote from a poem by her great grandfather, Zheng Ze, who observed, “I ascend and look far into my heart only to find that everywhere is already razed”. It closes the film and Kingdon’s perspective on China with a sobering footnote. The “good life” as only expressed in income, upward mobility, and possessions cherished by most of the population razes the moral basis holding society together. As Juergen Habermas suggested decades ago, once the political system fails to meet this expectation, the social integration of society is imperiled. In China, the current leadership tries to meet this challenge by adapting its market economy with socialist overtones to the shifting ideology of the Communist party and by strengthening traditional Confucian tenets of Chinese beliefs. With the advent of Xi, who believed that corruption was destroying the communist party, more than 1.5 million officials from all levels have been persecuted by Xi’s 2018  anticorruption drive, resulting in  several death penalties. Now, some western press track a new trend. As Li Yuan speculated in the business section of the New York Times on July 10  “China’s Youth are turning to Mao… attracting those frustrated with few opportunities”

These considerations are not the primary concern of Jessica Kingdon’s extraordinary documentary and transpire only on the margin. Workers complain about having to bribe their supervisors with sandwiches to get good assignments. A well-off group feasting in a fancy restaurant learns how food is prepared in Europe. Members of the group  confirm that China has become a global player because the current generation is better educated, though mostly trained in the west. There is agreement among them that people want the truth, but one person emphasizes that the government should just tell them the truth because it knows better. The president of the cosmetics Jala corporation based in Shanghai tells current and prospective employees that they have the right to become wealthy and those who fail should blame themselves and not society.

Ascension is an assemblage of many segments which show the recruitment of workers from the street. The propagation of work conditions and pay; the military style indoctrination of new workers to be productive and produce more. Numerous work settings and their assembly lines are depicted from cloth, toys, and pharma products to sex dolls, mostly employing female workers. Brief two day training seminars follow for individuals planning to work on their own through on-line internet sales. Instructors tell participants that they all can become rich if they brand themselves for the viewers and have appealing products, but  self-branding is essential.  There are images covering the training of men for jobs as bodyguards, and a sequence on the formation of butlers stressing the European style of  social interactions and manners. As an instructor articulates, those they will serve have become so wealthy that having a luxury car like a Mercedes or BMW is no longer sufficient as a symbol of success,  having a butler is the new symbol.  The trainees are told that they may have contempt for their employers but must always show them  a happy and satisfied face.  Ascension is appealing because without any commentary by Kingdon, the contextual visual documentation and spontaneous  statements by people from all walks of life provide rare insights into everyday existence in China. These people look for jobs, work on assembly lines, take seminars on how to get rich fast, plan to serve the rich as butlers, and celebrate their life in the professional class. They briefly present their views on how to make it in Chinese society. Apart from a few  marginal critical comments, those speaking remain in their personal universe.

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Receiving the best foreign documentary award in the Tribeca 2020 festival and numerous special jury prizes at Hot Docs and the Korean EIDF, the Mexican documentary 499 by  Rodrigo Reyes is an outstanding production because of its unique storytelling, superb cinematography, sound design, and an excellent acting performance by Eduardo San Juan Brena, the sole protagonist in 499 who remains unnamed in the film. In this original story, 499 years after the Spanish conquest of the Aztec rule, an unknown conquistador washes up on the Veracruz shore on the Mexican East Coast. He is in his original uniform and traces back the passage he took with other Spanish invaders in 1521 from the coast to the Aztec city of Tenochtitlan, now called Mexico City. The conquistador provides self-reflection, commentaries, and statements collected from people he encounters in an outstanding introduction to colonialism in Mexico and the country’s contemporary violence and poverty. As a traveler from the past, he remains a naive observer, but unwittingly focuses on the most poignant aspects of  today’s Mexico. The perspective offered by Reyes is as grim as were the conditions during the destruction of the Aztec people by the Spanish under Cortez. The conquest was carried out by a small number of conquistadors on horses, animals which terrified the Aztecs, and an army of indigenous people who had been recruited by our time traveler. These people took extreme revenge for their long slavery, victimization, blood sacrifices, and rapes.

Following the same route he took in 1521, our traveler explores the surprising changes in towns and villages but learns that today’s problems are as grim as those 500 years earlier during the Spanish  conquest.  Those governed, the indigenous people as well as other minority groups, are oppressed and suffer from imposed poverty and violence. They do experience corruption and victimization by the police, cartels, and the  government’s failure to protect them. Our traveler readily learns about  kidnaping, slaughter, the dismantling of bodies, and the plight of migrants leaving their homes. He concludes his diary, realizing that 500 years ago the indigenous people, or Indian as he called them in 1521, had souls that he had no right to enslave. God served as an excuse for oppressing and robbing  them.  The conquistador observes that the quest for more wealth by small elite groups does not provide a justification for oppression any more now than it did in 1521. 499 will be released this year in the USA  by  Cinema Guild with Reyes compelling insights into the socio-pathology of contemporary Mexico.

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NORTH BY CURRENT by filmmaker Angelo Madsen, now living in New York, offers a psycho-pathological view of his family in Michigan. The documentary had its North American premiere at the 2021 Tribeca Festival after screenings at the Berlinale, Sheffield, Frameline and other film festivals. Recording the views of relatives, siblings, parents, and other members of his family, Madsen does not engage in analytical statements or interpretations, but shows rather than tells, not questioning their opinions. He plays the difficult roles of the detached outside observer of the family, listening to what they say and asking few questions on his reluctant path to understanding the interpersonal dynamics. Family dislocations transpire, and their unusual patterns are evident to the audience. Despite all odds, the family has persisted as a surviving unit.  The documentary is a striking intimate view of what are assumed to be family dysfunctions.  Meeting the family members and listening to them becomes a moving and distressing experience.

Madsen’s endeavor was prompted by the sudden death of his two-year old niece, Kalla. Her father David was prosecuted and jailed after he was accused of child abuse and murder. The case remains open and David was released from jail.  For the filmmaker, sex is a principle force in the family. Jessie, Kalla’s mother, gets pregnant shortly after Kalla’s death and has three more children during the next few years. She moves in with her mother from time to time because David, an alcoholic, is abusive and beats her. She loses some of her teeth and Madsen suspects it was due to David.  The mother suggests that Jessie is emotionally and physically abusive yet admits that she is responsible for what is happening  to Jessie. Another loss was hidden to Madsen. Suddenly, he learns from his father, in a cold, detached manner  that Madsen had a young sister who died.  Despite the picture book images and disturbing comments  Madsen conveys, the family is holding on.

Kubrick by Kubrick, is a sharp, enlightening 2020 documentary directed by Gregory Monro.  Selected from last year’s Tribeca film festival program, this production is a first rate exploration of the life and artistic achievements of one of the most important modern filmmakers, Stanley Kubrick.  His 13 innovative features have probably had more impact on North-American filmmakers than productions by any other directors living in his time. Kubrick disliked the press, Hollywood’s mindless entertainment productions, and publicity. He agreed to very few interviews before he passed in March 1999 and refused to provide explanations of his films. As his wife of forty years and others close to him point out, what was written about him  being a recluse and obsessed with perfection had nothing to do with Kubrick’s real persona. One of the great merits of Monro’s film is to dismantle the popular stereotypes that have arisen about Kubrick and show his desire to explore the underbelly of our societies, as in the upscale sexual obsession of EYES WIDE SHUT or the superb but maligned  satirical A CLOCKWORK ORANGE. Kubrick had a primary concern with authenticity and truth, and welcomed  improvisations during production of his films. He remained committed to the filmmaking process to the  very end. Kubrick by Kubrick disputes the control freak depicted by the trade press frustrated by interview rejections.

Gregory Monro took the same approach to making his film that Kubrick had for his work. Monro  did exhaustive research on the source material and interviewed actors who had closely worked with Kubrick. The contribution of the French film critic Michel Ciment was crucial as he was one of the few friends Kubrick had for many years. Ciment  provided tape recordings of his talks with Kubrick and established the backbone of Kubrick by Kubrick. The public can listen for the first time to what Kubrick said about himself and his films. There were confirmations of Kubrick’s requests for seemingly endless takes as he pursued the perfect vision of his films, and of Hollywood questioning Kubrick’s insistence to use only using  natural light in Barry Lyndon. He solved that problem by shooting with special Zeiss Nasa lenses. What also transpired was his willingness to change the script, using actors’ and collaborators' ideas to effectuate it. In 2001: A Space Odyssey HAL learned about the astronaut’s plan to  shut him down by reading their lips, an idea suggested by a staff member.  Peter Seller as Dr. Strangelove raised his arm in a Nazi salute to Adolf Hitler while in the presidents’ crisis room was a spontaneous unscripted action by the actor.

Kubrick left Hollywood in 1961 for England with his third wife, German actress  Christiane Harlan, after some years in Beverly Hills and New York City. One reason he made the UK his home was Peter Seller not being able to leave England and Kubrick no longer considering New York to be a safe place. In England he was  living with his family, including three daughters, on an estate which he transformed  into his 24 hour work space. There he covered virtually all segments of  filmmaking including extensive background research and the technical phases from pre to post production. He assembled a large library of documentaries and films, carried out editing, and explored new filmmaking technologies, running the world from his space. All needed for his films was in his workspaces and if filming was required, he could do so near his home. There was no desire to engage in the social life immuring most celebrity directors and actors.  Despite his accolades, Kubrick remained tied to his concern with tradition. As Gregory Monro  quotes Kubrick, “ One of the things that characterizes some failures of 20^th century art is an obsession with total originality. Innovation means moving it forward, but not abandoning the classical form, the art form  you are working with”.

Claus Mueller

filmexchange@gmail.com