2023 Tribeca Festival: More highlights, in-person screenings and streaming

As the 2023 Tribeca Festival winds down its in-person screenings and events in New York City on Sunday, the festival will continue with presentations of many festival programs via streaming platforms from June 19 through July 2.

With a hefty roster this year — 109 feature films, along with programs of short films and TV — this 22nd edition of the festival will be capped with a musical performance by Carlos Santana on June 17, following the world premiere of the documentary “Carlos.” 

See below for reviews of some recent debuts. To read additional reviews, check out part one of our festival coverage.  

The podium of an orchestra conductor has been a predominantly male realm. Even today, the community of female conductors is small, fiercely trying to make a living in a notoriously sexist profession. Winning La Maestra conducting competition in Paris, which is confined to female candidates, is, therefore, an achievement beyond excellence — it’s a statement of valuation.

Director Maggie Contreras’ intimate documentary closely follows five women competing at the 2022 La Maestra: Mélisse, a French-born music teacher in Iowa, whose return to Paris, where she was once sexually abused, stirs feelings of PTSD; Zoe, a Greek conductor once fired for being pregnant, and whose far-flung travels for conducting gigs separate her from her small children; Tamara, an Atlanta native who fears starting a family might block her career; Ustina, a Ukrainian torn about being away from her homeland and family during the start of the Russian invasion; and Anna, a Polish conductor following in her conductor-father’s footsteps.

While absorbing and filled with exquisite musicianship, Contreras’ film presents the competition itself almost as a sidebar to her real purpose: exposing the ambitions, talents, personal struggles and very real sense of sisterhood felt among the women. It is invigorating, and at times disheartening, as even a competition that professes to honor women isn’t immune from sexism (one woman eliminated is told by a judge that she should have smiled more). Produced by David Letterman’s Worldwide Pants. 88 mins. In English and Greek with English subtitles. Screens in-person June 15. 

Patricia Field isn’t comfortable with the appellation “costume designer.” The woman who helped define fashion in New York’s club scene in the 1970s and ’80s, and who later conjured the looks of “Sex and the City,” “The Devil Wears Prada,” “Ugly Betty” and “Emily in Paris,” sees herself more as a stylist — a finder of colors and patterns, to be paired with characters, that evoke drama, personality and emotion.

Michael Selditch’s affectionate portrait is a happy hour-and-a-half spent with the fashion trailblazer and her friends, colleagues and devoted fans, who remember the drama at Field’s New York boutiques; the public’s fascination with Carrie Bradshaw’s attire; and the ever-changing demands of fashion — and one woman’s stalwart predilection to go beyond cutting edge. 100 mins. Screens in-person June 15, 17, 18.

“Rule of Two Walls” (World Premiere)

Defiance in the face of extreme violence is not just a coping mechanism. In some respects, the response of Ukrainian artists to Russia’s brutal and inhumane invasion of their homeland is to pay witness and homage to a people and culture that the Kremlin seeks to eviscerate. They do so by erecting art exhibits, singing protest songs and pasting posters onto walls, spreading messages of a nation that will not acquiesce.

Director David Gutnik and his colleagues also turn the camera and microphone onto themselves, as they describe wielding the tools of cinema in defensive measures. A valuable addition to the pool of documentary films telling the horrific truths of the war for Ukraine’s survival. Executive producer: Liev Schreiber. In English, Ukrainian and Russian with English subtitles. 76 mins. Screens in-person June 16, 18.

Watch a trailer for “Rule of Two Walls” below:

“Afire” (New York Premiere)

Reminiscent of the ruminatively passionate works of Eric Rohmer, this latest film by German director Christian Petzold centers on Leon, a writer struggling to finish a manuscript who journeys to a friend’s country house near the Baltic Sea, where the glow from distant wildfires presents a palpable threat. But perhaps a more ominous threat in Leon’s mind is Nadja, a woman unexpectedly staying in the same house, whose mere presence (not to mention her noisy nocturnal assignations) drives Leon to distraction.

In his films “Barbara,” “Phoenix” and “Transit,” Petzold has been a remarkable storyteller of characters seeking escape from stifling or dangerous political environments, sometimes at the cost of their own identities. In “Afire,” Leon’s struggle is to justify his identity as a writer — one who learns that his own imagination may be less compelling than the raw materials of life surrounding him.

There are fine performances all around, including Thomas Schubert as Leon, Paula Beer as Nadja, and Matthias Brandt as Leon’s editor, who tells the young man what he fears most: his book is awful. Indeed, an “X” scrawled across a manuscript page might be the most potent comic-horror image on screens this year. Winner of the Silver Bear Grand Jury Prize at the 2023 Berlin International Film Festival. In German with English subtitles. 102 mins. Screens in-person June 17, 18, with a theatrical release July 14.

In this documentary that makes personal the damaging effects of climate change, a drought has created turmoil for pastoral communities in Kenya dependent upon grazing livestock. The drought has also stirred ethnic fighting between tribes over scarce resources, with a police force inadequate at keeping the peace between them. Kole, a young orphan tasked as a shepherd, questions his purpose as neighboring tribes steal goats from one another, leading to bloodshed.

The stunning cinematography captures not only the fragile beauty of Kenyan landscapes, but also the harsh reality of life among the Turkana-Ngaremara people, as village elders read a goat’s entrails to ascertain when rain might return, or when blood must be spilled.

Producers Samuel Ekomol (a cousin of Kole) and Naomi Kambura and co-director Moses Thuranira were each raised in the region, and have experienced firsthand the violence of tribal conflict. Co-director Andrew H. Brown was editor of the National Geographic/Disney+ documentary “Path of the Panther.” Together they forge a powerful personal statement on maintaining tradition, and peace, in a world teetering off-balance. In Swahili and other, with English subtitles. 82 mins. Screens in-person June 17. Streaming available June 19-July 2.

Immersive

Virtual and augmented reality art installations and games are being presented through June 17 at the Tribeca Festival headquarters at Spring Studios. The best of these demonstrate intriguing new uses of technology in storytelling.

360-degree recordings, in which a VR-equipped viewer is “surrounded” by the camera’s subjects, are especially beneficial to dance performances and performance art, such as “Over the Rainbow,” from Taiwan. At the same time that dancers circle the viewer, the confined physical sets through which director Craig Quintero transports us present an intriguing commentary on physical space and the separation between performer and audience. At the same time, the limitations of VR (a seated viewer can’t necessarily see around objects or a partially-open doorway) shows that, when it comes to storytelling in motion, there is no more freeing instrument than a moving camera.      

The Iranian-born artist Shirin Neshat’s intriguing “The Fury” uses two formats to tell its story about the emotional scars of sexual exploitation on a woman in an Iranian prison. In one part, a 360-degree color recording, a bruised and bloodied woman performs a dance encircled by intimidating military officers. In the second part, a black-and-white video installation shown on two monitors, the woman reprises her dance in prison and escapes, only to find herself on a New York City street, where a crowd who witnesses her begins to express themselves empathetically in dance. The companion pieces’ differing formats prompt differing emotional responses by the viewer to the states of confinement and freedom.

“In Search of Time,” a meditation on memory, uses AI to enhance and accentuate its cinematography, creating a look that is similar to rotoscope animation. Chapter 1 of “Maya,” an interactive VR presentation, tells a fable about a South Asian girl growing up in London who evolves into a female superhero after experiencing her first period. The animation is vibrant as the viewer is transported through a cultural odyssey of shame, isolation, and empowerment.

For more information about films, immersive exhibits, special events and ticketing, visit the Tribeca Festival website.