The Tribeca Festival, presented by OKX, brings artists and diverse audiences together to celebrate storytelling in all its forms, including film, TV, music, audio storytelling, games, and XR. With strong roots in independent film, Tribeca is synonymous with creative expression and entertainment. Tribeca champions emerging and established voices, discovers award-winning talent, curates innovative experiences, and introduces new ideas through exclusive premieres, exhibitions, conversations, and live performances. – By Gregg W. Morris
PUNCH 9 FOR HAROLD WASHINGTON is an enthralling cinematic tour de force about Chicago’s first African American Hizzoner, who was a riveting political tour de force. By Gregg W. Morris
Eighten-plus-minutes of exquisite black and white imagery of the gruesome and the horrific rendered beautifully in a narrative using folklore about the ungodly desolation caused by Super Typhoon Yolanda AKA Super Typhoon Haiyan, a Category 5 mega-monster that started laying siege to the Philippines Visayas group of islands, the country’s central region, population 17 million people, November 26, 2013. It shook the Philippines to its roots. This stunning film short is winning one award after another. By Gregg W. Morris
The 2020 festival includes 107 feature-length documentaries among over 200 films and dozens of events. Included are 23 World Premieres, 12 international or North American premieres, and 7 US premieres. Fifty-seven features (53 percent of the lineup) are directed or co-directed by women and 36 by BIPOC directors (34 percent of the feature program).
From WORD Editor Gregg W. Morris: Because the itinerary is so huge, the list for the 11th edition is being published in several parts.
Winner of the Best Documentary Feature at the 2018 Los Angeles Film Festival and made its New York City premiere at DOC NYC. Debuts Tuesday, January 8, 2019, on Digital, Cable and Satellite.
Directed by Sally Rubin and Ashley York
Cast – bell hooks, Amythyst Kiah, Frank X Walker, Crystal Good, Ronny Cox, Billy Redden, Michael Apted, Silas House
1:25:1 Run Time
What the Filmmakers Say
Since the presidential election, cultural divide in America has been the source of riveting and visceral discussions and arguments. Stereotyping and slurs are rampant, finger-pointing and name-calling abound. hillbilly is a personal and political journey by the filmmakers into the heart of the Appalachian coalfields, exploring the role of media misrepresentation in their creation of the iconic American “hillbilly,” and examining the social, cultural, and political underpinnings of this infamous stereotype.
hillbilly will surprise if not shock imaginations because of its revelations, such as the renown artists, poets, activists, queer musicians, “Affrilachian” poets, and intersectional feminists who are unexpected voices emerging from this historically misunderstood region. Author, feminist, and social activist bell hooks is a hillbilly.
Gregg W. Morris can be reached at gmorris@hunter.cuny.edi
This year’s series of dispatches from the front lines of nonfiction cinema features intimate portraits of artists, depictions of social upheaval, and much more.
Twenty-five features include new films from Sean Baker, Noah Baumbach, Serge Bozon, Robin Campillo, Claire Denis, Arnaud Desplechin, Philippe Garrel, Greta Gerwig, Alain Gomis, Valeska Grisebach, Luca Guadagnino, Agnieszka Holland, Hong Sang-soo, Aki Kaurismäki, Kiyoshi Kurosawa, Lucrecia Martel, Ruben Östlund, Dee Rees, Joachim Trier, Agnès Varda & JR, and Chloé Zhao
News stories with big headlines are still frequent in Milwaukee, and national stories are not unusual even now about April 30, 2014, when Dontre Hamilton, 31, black and unarmed, died in a hail of 14 bullets fired by a Milwaukee police officer, white.
