Film Festivals

[caption id="attachment_2732" align="alignnone" width="550"]Babygirl[/caption]

The 2012 Tribeca Film Festival (TFF) today unveiled the lineup and programming for the third edition of Tribeca Online Film Festival. Audiences across the country will get front row access to the exclusive Festival content and hear filmmakers and industry leaders talking about the future of the industry as TFF’s 11th edition runs concurrently in lower Manhattan from April 18 to 29.

Four world premiere feature selections from the 2012 Tribeca Film Festival, and five short films, three of which are world premieres, will be available during the online Festival.

Online viewers will be able to vote for the Best Tribeca Online Feature Film, a prize of $10,000, and the Best Tribeca Online Short Film, a prize of $5,000. Winners will be announced at the Tribeca Film Festival Awards on April 26. There will also be a social voting competition, based solely on popularity: the number of “likes” that film accrues on the Tribeca Online Film Festival film detail page. The feature film and the short film that drive the most Facebook likes on the page will each receive a separate $500 prize. Winners will be announced on April 30.

The complete list of feature films streamed on the Tribeca Online Film Festival is as follows:

Babygirl, directed and written by Macdara Vallely. (Ireland, USA) – World Premiere, Viewpoints. For as long as she can remember, Bronx teenager Lena has watched her mom Lucy squander her life on a series of deadbeat men. When Victor, her mom’s latest boy toy, starts hitting on Lena, she sets up a trap to expose Victor for the creep he is… but the plan backfires. Macdara Vallely crafts a heartfelt drama about the emotional highs and lows in the moment between childhood and adulthood.

[caption id="attachment_2733" align="alignnone" width="550"]On The Mat[/caption]

On The Mat, directed and written by Fredric Golding. (USA) – World Premiere, Viewpoints and Tribeca/ESPN Sports Film Festival. Achieving greatness in high school wrestling requires a level of devotion unmatched perhaps by any other sport. That greatness has become a yearly expectation at Lake Stevens High, winner of seven Washington state championships in the past 10 years. Narrated by Lake Stevens wrestling alum Chris Pratt (Moneyball), this riveting documentary follows the team over the course of a season as they fight through injuries and academic issues to maintain their school’s legacy.

[caption id="attachment_2734" align="alignnone" width="550"]The Russian Winter[/caption]

The Russian Winter, directed by Petter Ringbom. (Russia) – World Premiere, Spotlight. Brooklyn-born John Forté was a Grammy-nominated musician in The Fugees at 21 and a federal prison inmate at 26. When his prison sentence was remarkably commuted in 2008, Forté was given a second chance to share his talents with the world. Chronicling his concert tour across Russia, this inspirational documentary takes us on Forté’s personal journey—one that’s as much about having his voice heard as having his music heard. In English, Russian with subtitles.

[caption id="attachment_2735" align="alignnone" width="550"]Town of Runners[/caption]

Town of Runners, directed by Jerry Rothwell. (UK) – World Premiere, Viewpoints. Over the past two decades the small, rural Ethiopian town of Bekoji has been the unlikely home to numerous Olympic champion long-distance runners, whose athletic success has paved the way for a generation of young Ethiopians searching for a better future. With a keen artistic eye, TFF award winner Jerry Rothwell (Donor Unknown) follows two teenage track hopefuls who face the challenge of growing up and striving for greatness in a developing nation. In Amharic, Oromo with subtitles.

The short films streaming on Tribeca Online are:

BFF (World Premiere) Directed and written by Neil LaBute. Jack and Jill have been “best friends forever,” and when Jill suspects that her boyfriend is cheating on her, Jack offers to help her.

CatCam (New York Premiere) Directed by Seth Keal. German engineer Jürgen Perthold was intrigued about where his newly adopted stray, Mr. Lee, disappeared to for days on end, so he developed the CatCam to help solve the mystery.

Scenes from a Visit to Japan (World Premiere) Directed and written by Joel Schlemowitz. An experimental film invoking diverse cultural landscapes, suggesting a collective struggle of humanity between apocalyptic visions of the past, present, and future, and the redemptive power of the human spirit.

Transmission (International Premiere) Directed and written by Zak Hilditch. Following a deadly pandemic that has decimated the world’s population, a father drives his nine-year-old daughter from the west coast of Australia to the safe zone.

Doggy Bags (World Premiere) Directed and written by Edward Burns. A young man suspects the girl he is dating to be hiding a secret after she routinely orders massive amounts of food to go. Produced by American Express as a result of the 2011 My Movie Pitch contest. This film is ineligible for awards.

Nine additional short films will be made available through FOCUS FORWARD – Short Films, Big Ideas, a partnership between GE and CINELAN. Five will premiere on tribecafilm.com beginning today, April 9, when the Tribeca Online Film Festival site goes live. The last four, which are world premieres, will debut on tribecafilm.com on April 25, simultaneous with their TFF premieres at Tribeca Cinemas. The four world premiere films are directed by Nelson George, Katy Chevigny, Steven Cantor, and Michèle Ohayon. Each film is three minutes long and tells an amazing story of innovators making our world a better place.

Select events will be streamed live as part of the Tribeca Online Film Festival, with TFF’s many other events, Q&As and conversations being captured on video for dynamic segments to be posted each day on tribecafilm.com, giving online audiences a comprehensive Festival experience. Among the live events scheduled are:

April 19 at 3pm EDT – A celebration of Universal Studios 100th Anniversary, featuring Robert De Niro, Meryl Streep, and Judd Apatow sharing their favorite moments and memories from Universal’s extraordinary history.

April 26 at 7pm EDT – TFF Awards Night, saluting the best of the Festival;

April 27 at 11am EDT – Tribeca Disruptive Innovation Awards, celebrating innovation across the media, entertainment and technology spectrum.

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Tribeca today announced two new forward-looking events to take place during the Tribeca Film Festival (TFF) that will assemble a first-rate collection of thought leaders spanning the worlds of film, media, gaming, technology and society. The Tribeca Film Institute’s Interactive Day will explore the future of storytelling in the digital age, through an all-day conference on April 23, made possible by the Ford Foundation. Tribeca’s long-running Future of Film blog will expand its successful online offerings with a Lunchtime Series with daily talks and presentations related to platforms, technology, and trends that are changing the art and business of film.

On April 23, the TFI Interactive Day, programmed with XO Labs, will bring together leading thinkers from the fields of media, entertainment, education and technology to share their insights and inspire content creators to rethink paradigms. The day will explore the digital media ecosystem. Conversations will range from an interactive case study of the multi-platform rollout of HBO’s Game of Thrones to the signature insights of The Onion’s Digital Director Baratunde Thurston to a conversation about the funding of transmedia projects. The event will take place from 9:30 am – 4:30pm at the IAC Building and is open to all TFF badge holders and invited guests.

“In a world where the lines between audience and creator are increasingly blurred, every sector of the communications industry is undergoing somewhat of an identity crisis. As the only formalized funder of independent, non-fiction transmedia in the US, we are excited to welcome the brightest thinkers and doers from across the spectrum to help us differentiate the substance from the hype,” said Beth Janson, Executive Director of the Tribeca Film Institute.

The Future of Film Lunch Series, hosted by and taking place at 92YTribeca, features notable speakers such as Paranormal Activity producer Jason Blum, Tumblr founder David Karp and College Humor and Vimeo founder Ricky Van Veen. The series will take place on April 23-26 from 12 p.m. to 1:30 p.m., with two sessions daily, each 30 minutes followed by an audience Q&A; these events will be highlighted via daily video segments on tribecafilm.com and throughout TFF.

Our Future of Film blog has been an important tool in nurturing a steady, year-round dialogue on the changes in our industry. As we continue to drive this conversation year round and grow the community of contributors our Future of Film speaker series is a great platform to hear from industry pros who are experiencing the changes first hand,” said Matt Spangler , Tribeca Enterprises, EVP Marketing and Content. “The live event and video content created by this terrific lineup of speakers will offer unique perspectives for our audience on where film is headed.”

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The Tribeca Film Festival (TFF), in association with noted Harvard Business School Professor Clay Christensen and the Disruptor Foundation, announced it will hold the third annual Tribeca Disruptive Innovation Awards, hosted by NYU Stern School of Business, on April 27. The 11th edition of TFF runs April 18 to 29.

Lifetime Achievement Awards will be given to Jack Dorsey, founder of Twitter and Square, and John Wood, founder of Room to Read. Wood has opened over 13,500 libraries around the world at a cost of $5,000 per library. The Book of the Year honor will go to Thinking, Fast and Slow by Nobel Laureate Daniel Kahneman. DARPA (Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency) will be returning this year with Agency Program Manager Dr. Gill Pratt showcasing the Hummingbird, DARPA’s prototype nano-drone, as well as a new prototype making its debut from DARPA’s M3 program—the Cheetah. The roster of other award winners is a colorful and eclectic group spanning several realms of culture and society, among them pop superstar Justin Bieber and manager Scooter Braun, honored for the historic discovery of Bieber on YouTube and his subsequent social media rise; producer Rick Rubin, for founding Def Jam Records 30 years ago in an NYU dorm room; and oncologist Steven A. Curley for his advances in cancer treatments.

After publishing his best-selling book The Innovators Dilemma in 1997, Christensen moved to center stage as one of the world’s leading experts on innovation; the book presented his startling theory of disruptive innovation. It since has become one of the business world’s most important theories, and explains why great companies fail: They are frequently decimated by “two guys in a garage” who develop a simpler, cheaper, more accessible product or service that is “good enough to get the job done.” Forbes magazine recently hailed Christensen as “one of the world’s most important business theorists of the past 50 years.” This year Thinkers 50 recognized Christensen as the most influential business thinker in the world.

“Last year’s awards shined a spotlight on fascinating exceptions to the original theory,” Christensen said. “Theorists and practitioners alike must vigilantly hunt for anomalies, explanations, and narratives that help keep the theory fresh. I am thrilled to join Tribeca in celebrating this year’s honorees, who are propelling us toward Disruptive Innovation 2.0.”

Honorees receive Disruptor Awards nicknamed Maslow’s Silver Hammer, in honor of psychologist Abe Maslow, who created the famous hierarchy of human needs. One of Maslow’s most famous quotes—“When your only tool is a hammer, every problem starts looking like a nail”—embodies the spirit of the Awards and symbolizes the need for new approaches to old problems.

The Awards Ceremony, moderated by journalist and public health advocate Perri Peltz and Tribeca co-founder Craig Hatkoff and supported by Accenture, aims to showcase applications of and advancements in disruptive innovation theory that have spread far beyond the original technology and industrial realms. It is now being applied to vexing societal problems such as healthcare, education, philanthropy, politics, religion and spirituality. But its impact is nowhere more pronounced than in the fields of media, arts and entertainment. The original theory is undergoing its own evolution, impacted by the Internet and connection technologies, open-source business models, and platforms that democratize content creation and attract new audiences. Christensen will address the new insights and lenses in his opening remarks on Disruptive Innovation 2.0.

“Since its inception, Tribeca has been a living laboratory for disruptive innovation, where technology, business, culture and storytelling collide,” said TFF co-founder Craig Hatkoff. “This event, expanded for 2012, intends to shed light on the chaos of rapidly changing technologies and business models. We are beginning to see how identity-based goods, services and experiences create a powerful, yet predictable, array of resistances that change the dynamics of disruptive innovations.”

“We are delighted to host the third annual Disruptive Innovation Awards at the Paulson Auditorium, at NYU Stern School of Business,” said Peter Henry, Dean of NYU Stern School of Business.  “At NYU Stern, we prize innovation and disruptive thinking for their power to create value.  We are delighted that our students will share in this great learning experience.”

The 2012 Tribeca Disruptive Innovation Award honorees are as follows:

Lifetime Achievement Award – Jack Dorsey, Co-Founder and Chairman, Twitter & Co-Founder, CEO, Square – Originally from St. Louis, Dorsey had an early fascination with mass-transit and how cities function, which led him to Manhattan and programming real-time messaging systems for couriers, taxis, and emergency vehicles. Through this work, Dorsey witnessed thousands of workers in the field constantly updating where they were and what they were doing; Twitter is a constrained simplification designed for general usage and extended by the millions of people who make it their own every day. As part of Dorsey’s continued devotion to simplifying the complex and making technology accessible to everyone, everywhere, he co-founded Square in 2009. Square enables anyone to accept credit card payments on their mobile device and has empowered more than 1 million individuals and merchants in the U.S. to start and grow a business.

Lifetime Achievement Award – John Wood, Founder and Board Co-Chair, Room to Read – Wood’s organization focuses on improving literacy and gender equality in education in the developing world. Since 2000, they have established over 13,500 libraries, 1,600 schools and distributed over 10 million books, impacting over 6 million children in the developing world.

Dr. Patricia Bath, President, American Institute for the Prevention of Blindness – When Dr. Bath became the first person to demonstrate Laserphaco cataract surgery she also became the first African American woman to receive a medical patent. She recently published “ilaser,” an educational science App designed to inspire the next generation of inventors. Her next mission: “to help the blind see.”

Justin Bieber, Global Superstar, and Scooter Braun, Music Manager and Entrepreneur – In the first major discovery of an artist on YouTube, videos posted by Bieber and seen by Braun on YouTube led to an unprecedented success story that disrupted the traditional gatekeepers of the music industry. Bieber has sold more than 15 million albums worldwide to date and has amassed more than 2.7 billion video views on YouTube, plus more than 41 million Facebook fans and more than 18 million Twitter followers. The Bieber phenomenon shows that emerging talent can now be sourced online, flattening the hierarchical structure and the barriers to entry.

Ed Burns, Writer, Director, Actor, Newlyweds – When a feature film can be shot on a micro-budget of $9,000 with no fixed sets, in live environments and on a small HD camera, watch out. Burns’ Newlyweds is a case in point. Shot in the neighborhood of Tribeca, it was the Closing Night film at the 2011 TFF and was later acquired and released by distribution label Tribeca Film. Newlyweds shows how disruptive innovation for independent filmmakers has arrived and is challenging the economics of the more traditional business model.

Kevin Carroll, MS, CP, FAAOP, Vice President of Prosthetics for Hanger Clinic & Dan Strzempka, CPO, Area Practice Manager for Hanger Clinic – Carroll and Strzempka worked with engineers to develop WintersGel™, a unique prosthetic liner that serves as the critical interface between delicate skin and prosthetic devices. First developed for a tail-less dolphin at Clearwater Marine Aquarium (and dramatized in 2011 hit movie Dolphin Tale), WintersGel has since been adapted for human use, providing comfort and gentle adhesion to thousands of amputees nationwide.

Rachael Chong, Founder & CEO, Catchafire Inc, – Chong created an online matching service for social entrepreneurs and non-profits in need of pro-bono professional services, engaging a network of professionals seeking worthy projects for the public good.

Steven A. Curley, M.D., Professor of Surgical Oncology, M. D., F.A.C.S. Anderson Cancer Center – Kanzius Cancer Research Foundation – Curley led the development of a promising, non-invasive nano-particle radio-wave cancer treatment that fries hyper-targeted cancer cells.

Marci Harris, Founder & CEO, POPVOX – Harris introduced an innovative, distributed solution for online, grassroots advocacy. The platform organizes citizens around important issue, disrupting the traditional lobbying industry.

Hummingbird, developed by DARPA’s Nano Air Vehicle (NAV) program, Dr. Gill Pratt, DARPA Program Manager and AeroVironment, Matt Keennon, Project Manager — The latest in nano-drone technology, the Hummingbird brings strategic surprise to a new level of realism. The life-size prototype uses flapping wings for propulsion and control. Carrying a video camera and downlink, it has a wingspan of 16 cm (9.5 in) and weighs just 19 grams (0.66 oz). It can hover for 8 minutes, remaining stable in gusts up to 5 mph, and reach up to 11 mph in forward flight.

Cheetah, developed by DARPA’s M3 (Maximum Mobility and Manipulation) program, Dr. Gill Pratt, Program Manager and Boston Dynamics, Dr. Marc Raibert, Project Manager — Robots hold great promise for improving both the safety and productivity of human beings. But, compared to humans present day robots have poor mobility. The goal of the Cheetah prototype, which recently broke the speed record for legged robots, is to develop and test technologies that will enable future robots to assist humans in missions (e.g. scouting, search and rescue) where the robot must travel across rough terrain at high speed with high energentic efficiency.

Jason Kottke, Designer & Blogger, Kottke.org – A pioneering blogger since 1998, Kottke used crowd funding to keep his blog running and has created one of the most influential voices on the Internet through consistent yet eclectic curation.

Nigel Jacob & Chris Osgood, Co-Chair, Mayor’s Office of New Urban Mechanics, Street Bump App – City of Boston’s newest mobile phone app designed to help Boston residents improve their neighborhoods. Taking advantage of the sensors on smart phones, Street Bump will provide the City with a near-real time picture of Boston’s road conditions and the location of its potholes.

Bre Pettis, Co-Founder & CEO, MakerBot Industries —  – With “The Replicator,” a desktop 3D printer that can make objects about the size of a loaf of bread, Bre Pettis has created an entire ecosystem for desktop 3D printing, a cutting-edge consumer brand, and a flourishing open source design community on Thingiverse.com. MakerBot offers a simpler, more affordable, 3D desktop printer, giving consumers access to 3D printing for under $2,000.

Pat Metheny and Linda Manzer – Legendary jazz guitarist Metheny and pioneering designer Manzer have had a three-decade collaboration, which began with the creation of the 42-string Pikasso guitar in 1984. It has a special feature known as “The Wedge,” a tapered body shape that makes the side closest to the player thinner than the side that rests on the player’s knee. That design makes the top lean back toward the player for a more aerial view of the strings. 

L. Rafael Reif, Provost, MITx, (Eric Grimson, Chancellor of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, accepting on Reif’s behalf) – Reif launched online learning initiative MITx, which makes more than 2,500 MIT courses available online, free to anyone in the world.

Jacqueline Novogratz, CEO, Acumen Fund – Novogratz created a new philanthropic business model for patient, disciplined investment in disruptive innovations in emerging markets. Acumen Fund’s mission is to create a world beyond poverty by investing in social enterprises, emerging leaders, and breakthrough ideas. It invests patient capital to identify, strengthen and scale business models that effectively serve the poor. And it champions the spread of this approach as a complement to traditional aid, which can create dependence, or pure market approaches, which can bypass the actual needs of the poor.

Mark Johnson, Co-Director & Producer and Whitney Kroenke, Executive Director, Playing for Change, – Johnson and Kroenke created a multimedia phenomenon  uniting musicians, stars and unknowns from around the world demolishing the notion of time and space in bone-tingling renditions of our most cherished music, captured  on film on a shoestring budget. Upon completion of a second Playing For Change film, Playing For Change: Peace Through Music, the team decided to create the Playing For Change Foundation, which aims to create positive change through music and arts education.

Alec Ross, Senior Advisor for Innovation, U.S. Department of State – Ross serves as Senior Advisor for Innovation to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, where he is tasked with maximizing the potential of technology and innovation in service of America’s diplomatic goals and stewarding Secretary of State Clinton’s 21st Century Statecraft agenda. In this role, Alec helps ensure America’s leadership and advances the State Department’s interests on a range of issues from Internet Freedom to disaster response to responding to regional conflicts.

Rick Rubin, Def Jam – One of the world’s most influential record producers, Rubin has worked with artists as diverse as the Beastie Boys, Adele, Jay-Z, and Johnny Cash. Rubin co-founded Def Jam Records in his NYU dorm room in 1982, and, by fusing rock with hip hop, he broke the rules and a niche market became mainstream – proving that disruptive, innovative ideas and taste can create empires.

Donald S. Siegel, Dean and Professor, School of Business, University at Albany, SUNY, for the Small Enterprise Economic Development (SEED) Program – SEED links faculty, staff and graduate students from the UAlbany School of Social Welfare, the UAlbany School of Business and its Small Business Development Center (SBDC) to local entrepreneurs. It has $2.5 million in financial support from SEFCU and $96,700 from the Empire State Development Corporation. It is designed to stimulate the creation and growth of small businesses in New York’s Capital Region.

Tiffany Shlain, director of acclaimed documentary, Connected: An Autoblogography about Love, Death & Technology – Shlain is an award-winning filmmaker and founder of The Webby Awards. She created disruptive innovation both in the way she made Connected and the way she is using the social media itself to further the conversation about its subject: “connectedness” in the 21st century.

Stanford University Office of Technology Licensing (accepted on Stanford’s behalf by Katharine Ku, Director, Technology Licensing & Luis Mejia, Senior Licensing Associate) – For more than 40 years, OTL’s goal has been to successfully transfer Stanford cutting edge technology to industry via both start-ups and existing companies. Notable Stanford licenses include the exclusive license to Google and the 440 nonexclusive licenses to the basic gene-splicing patents. To date, OTL has received over 8,900 inventions that resulted in 3000 licenses and $1.4B in royalty revenue.

James P. Steyer, Founder and CEO, Common Sense Media – Steyer created and runs Common Sense Media, the nation’s leading advocacy organization for kids and media. He is also a founding board member of the Center for the Next Generation, a nonpartisan organization supporting programs and policies that benefit the next generation of young Americans, and author of Talking Back to Facebook Published this year by Scribner, the book is a timely look at how digital media is affecting our children’s social, emotional and cognitive development.

Thomas Suarez, Founder and Chief Engineer of CarrotCorp, Inc., App Creator, TEDx speaker – Suarez is hardly an average sixth-grader. The 12-year-old app developer has started a movement for app clubs for schools. Thomas’ inspirational TEDx talk has attracted nearly 2 million online views.

Peter Thum, CEO & Co-Founder, Fonderie 47 – Fonderie 47 transforms AK47s from war zones in Africa into branded jewelry, watches and accessories with prices ranging from the thousands into hundreds of thousands. The sale of each piece of their jewelry funds the destruction of more weapons in Africa.

Jourdan Urbach, Executive Director, Children Helping Children/Concerts for a Cure
Executive Director, International Coalition of College Philanthropists Goodwill Ambassador and Artist-in-Residence, UN Arts for Peace – Urbach is a 20-year-old, award-winning, Juilliard-trained violin virtuoso, a composer/film scorer, a Yale University senior and Founder/Executive Director of Concerts for a Cure. He stands alone as the only young, classical music star who has ever devoted himself to touring the country for the express purpose of performing Concerts for a Cure, raising $5 million to date to fight pediatric and neurological disease.

Yvette J. Alberdingk Thijm, Executive Director, WITNESS – Co-founded in 1992 by advocate and musician Peter Gabriel, WITNESS was created in the aftermath of the Rodney King incident, in which a bystander recorded police brutality. Its founding vision sought to amplify grassroots voices through stories and transform them into powerful agents of change. Today—20 years later—WITNESS has partnered with more than 300 human rights groups in over 80 countries, trained over 3,000 human rights defenders and citizen activists, and supported the inclusion of video in over 100 campaigns, increasing their visibility and impact globally. With grassroots partners, it changes laws, reverses policies, holds perpetrators accountable, and improves the lives of the vulnerable and oppressed among us. WITNESS engages millions of ordinary citizens in the struggles for human rights taking place every day all over the world.

Book of the Year – Thinking, Fast and Slow by Daniel Kahnehman. Princeton University’s Kahneman is a renowned psychologist who won the Nobel Prize for Economics. Our understanding of the world is formed by two modalities of thought: System 1 is the fast, intuitive, emotional, unconscious processing of data and information for decision making; System 2 is rational, deep thought, reflective and studied. Making good decisions consistently—micro or macro—cannot rely on solely on System 1 or System 2. Most people are prone to either System 1 or System 2 with different biases, strengths and weaknesses; understanding this insight will help shape the conversation how to merge these two styles into one brain and get the best of both worlds.

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