3/8/2009

in

The slimmed-down lineup for this year's Tribeca Film Festival was released.

Andrew Randall

According to Reuters, budget cuts have been made at the Tribeca Film Festival due to the current U.S. recession. The slimmed-down lineup was unveiled Monday, proclaiming Woody Allen's return to directing in New York after a five-year absence.  
  
Tribeca's executive director, Nancy Schafer, said of this year's festival, "With the current economic climate being what it is we had to look closely at our expenses for this year's festival."  
  
The total lineup will consist of 86 films from April 22 to May 3. Last year, the festival had 120 films on the roster. The number of sponsors and theaters has been reduced.  
  
The festival, co-founded by actor Robert De Niro, in order to rehabilitate the Tribeca neighborhood after the attacks of September 11, will include films from the U.S., Iran, Ireland, Australia and Brazil.  
  
Allen, originally from New York, will be premiering his new film, *Whatever Works*, starring Larry David.  
  
Some films that have premiered at Tribeca go on to success. Last year's Oscar-winning documentary, *Man On Wire*, screened at Tribeca last year.  
  
Documentaries are a large part of the Tribeca Film Festival. This year a documentary, *Garapa*, directed by Jose Padilha, is about chronic hunger in Brazilian families.  
  
U.S. documentaries being shown are *Transcendent Man*, about futurist and inventor Ray Kurzweil on the impending fusion of humans and super-intelligent machines, and Oscar-nominated Marshall Curry's *Racing Dreams*, which follows three teenage go-kart racers.  
  
The fiction section has entries from Irish playwright and screenwriter Conor Macpherson, *The Eclipse*, about a widower whose life converges with two authors, as well as American director Bette Gordon, *Handsome Harry*.  
  
*About Elly*, an Iranian film that tells the fictional story of a reunion of old college friends that ends in disaster, will make its American premiere.  
  
The emerging filmmakers section includes *American Casino*, a documentary about the collapse of Wall Street at the expense of working Americans, and *Burning Down the House: The Story of CBGB*, about the shuttering of the iconic New York music spot.