Tribeca triple threat – 11 films where the star is also the writer & director

All About Nina
Feature Narrative
Country: USA
Director: Eva Vives
Writer: Eva Vives
Starring: Mary Elizabeth Winstead, Common (also starring in Blue Night), Chace Crawford, Clea DuVall, Kate del Castillo, Beau Bridges, Eva Vives
Nina Geld’s passion and talent have made her a rising star in the comedy scene, but she’s an emotional mess offstage. When a new professional opportunity coincides with a romantic one, she is forced to reckon with the intersection of her life and her art
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Little Woods
Feature Narrative
Country: USA
Director: Nia DaCosta
Writer: Nia DaCosta
Starring: Tessa Thompson, Lily James, Luke Kirby, James Badge Dale, Lance Reddick, Nia DaCosta
In this dramatic thriller set in the fracking boomtown of Little Woods, North Dakota, two estranged sisters are driven to extremes when their mother dies, leaving them with one week to pay back her mortgage.
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The Party’s Just Beginning
Feature Narrative
Country: Scotland
Director: Karen Gillan
Writer: Karen Gillan
Starring: Rachel Jackson, Jamie Quinn, Siobhan Redmond, Paul Higgins, Matthew Beard, Lee Pace, Karen Gillan
Lucy is a sharp-witted, foul-mouthed, heavy-drinking twenty-something who is still reeling from a recent loss. This surreal coming-of-age tale is a love letter to Gillan’s hometown in the Scottish Highlands.
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M
Feature Narrative
Country: France
Director: Sara Forestier
Writer: Sara Forestier
Starring: Liv Andren, Jean-Pierre Léaud, Redouanne Harjane, Sara Forestier
Written by, directed by, and starring César Award winner Sara Forestier, this steamy drama explores the passionate relationship between a girl with a crippling speech impediment and an undereducated drag racer.
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Diane
Feature Narrative
Country: USA
Director: Kent Jones
Writer: Kent Jones
Starring: Mary Kay Place, Jake Lacy, Estelle Parsons, Andrea Martin, Deirdre O’Connell, Glynis O’Connor, Phyllis Somerville, Joyce Van Patten, Kent Jones
Diane is a devoted friend and caretaker, particularly to her drug-addicted son. But as those around her begin to drift away in the last quarter of her life, she is left to reckon with past choices and long-dormant memories in this haunting character study.
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Duck Butter
Feature Narrative
Country: USA
Director: Miguel Arteta
Writer: Alia Shawkat, Miguel Arteta
Starring: Alia Shawkat, Laia Costa, Hong Chau, Kate Berlant, Kumail Nanjiani, Mark Duplass, Jay Duplass, Lindsay Burdge, Miguel Arteta
Two women, jaded by dishonest and broken relationships, make a pact to spend 24 uninterrupted hours together, having sex on the hour. Their romantic experiment intends to create a new form of intimacy, but it doesn’t quite go as planned.
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Distributed by: The Orchard


Ghostbox Cowboy
Feature Narrative
Country: USA, China
Director: John Maringouin
Writer: John Maringouin
Starring: David Zellner, Robert Longstreet, Johnny Robichaux, Vincent Xie, Carrie Gege Zhang, John Maringouin
In this darkly comedic morality tale, tech entrepreneur Jimmy Van Horn arrives in China armed with an invention and confidence, only to learn that being American is not enough to succeed.
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Maine
Feature Narrative
Country: USA
Director: Matthew Brown
Writer: Matthew Brown
Starring: Laia Costa, Thomas Mann, Matthew Brown
A married woman’s journey of self-discovery and introspection while solo-hiking the Appalachian Trail ends up sidetracked when she encounters a lone hiker.
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Song of Back and Neck
Feature Narrative
Country: USA
Director: Paul Lieberstein
Writer: Paul Lieberstein
Starring: Paul Feig, Robert Pine, Brian d’Arcy James, Clark Duke, Rosemarie DeWitt, Paul Lieberstein
A hapless man seeking treatment for his crippling back pain discovers a very unusual talent and unexpected love in this inventive romantic comedy from writer-director-star Paul Lieberstein (The Office).
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Surviving Theater 9
Short Narrative
Country: USA
Director: Tim McGrath
Writer: Tim McGrath
Starring: Stacey Oristano, Tim McGrath, Luke Columbero, Brittany Ishibashi, Chelsey Crisp, Corben Bernsen
After the mass shooting at a midnight screening of The Dark Knight Rises in Aurora, Colorado, filmmaker Tim McGrath and his fellow survivors offer an inside look in this intriguing and inspiring movie.
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The 716th
Short Narrative
Country: USA
Director: Andrew Bowen
Writer: Andrew Bowen
Starring: Taj Speights, Lauren McFall, John Asher, Andrew Bowen
Left to die at the hands of her enemies. When a small shuttle piloted by an unlikely hero arrives to save them, a poorly planned, at times comical rescue sends these outcasts on an unexpected adventure.
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10 Feature Narratives by Female Directors on Liz’s watchlist at the Tribeca Film Festival

This year’s festival demographic for female directors has gone up to 46%. That is huge. Here are 10 feature-length narratives by female directors that I am looking forward to catching. Bonus: Most of these films also focus on a female protagonist.

All About Nina
Feature Narrative
Country: USA
Director: Eva Vives
Writer: Eva Vives
Starring: Mary Elizabeth Winstead, Common, Chace Crawford, Clea DuVall, Kate del Castillo, Beau Bridges, Eva Vives
Nina Geld’s passion and talent have made her a rising star in the comedy scene, but she’s an emotional mess offstage. When a new professional opportunity coincides with a romantic one, she is forced to reckon with the intersection of her life and her art

Click for tickets


Daughter of Mine (Figlia mia)
Feature Narrative
Country: Italy, Germany, Switzerland
Director: Laura Bispuri
Writer: Laura Bispuri, Francesca Manieri
Starring: Michele Carboni, Udo Kier, Sara Casu, Alba Rohrwacher, Valeria Golino
On the windswept coast of Sardinia, two women compete for the affections of 10-year old Vittoria: her troubled, alcoholic birth mother Angelica and her doting adoptive mother Tina.

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Dead Women Walking
Feature Narrative
Country: USA
Director: Hagar Ben-Asher
Writer: Hagar Ben-Asher
Starring: and Ashton Sanders, June Carryl, Colleen Camp, Lynn Collins, Dot Marie Jones, Dale Dickey
Nine vignettes depict the stages leading to execution for women on death row in this emotional account of the human toll of the death penalty—on both the inmates and those they encounter in their final hours.

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Egg
Feature Narrative
Country: USA
Director: Marianna Palka
Writer: Risa Mickenberg
Starring: Gbenga Akinnagbe, David Alan Basche, Alysia Reiner, Anna Camp, Christina Hendricks
In provocateur Marianna Palka’s sharp and unflinching satire, two couples and a surrogate lay bare the complications, contradictions, heartbreak, and absurdities implicit in how we think about motherhood. Click for tickets


Lemonade (Luna de Miere)
Feature Narrative
Country: Romania, Canada, Germany, Sweden
Director: Ioana Uricaru
Writer: Tatiana Ionașcu, Ioana Uricaru
Starring: Ruxandra Maniu, Milan Hurduc, Dylan Scott Smith, Steve Bacic, Mălina Manovici
Mara hopes to move her son from Romania to the U.S. and obtain a green card. But bureaucratic processes give way to authoritarian nightmares in this simmering social drama about American immigration and the institutional corruption of power.

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Little Woods
Feature Narrative
Country: USA
Director: Nia DaCosta
Writer: Nia DaCosta
Starring: Tessa Thompson, Lily James, Luke Kirby, James Badge Dale, Lance Reddick, Nia DaCosta
In this dramatic thriller set in the fracking boomtown of Little Woods, North Dakota, two estranged sisters are driven to extremes when their mother dies, leaving them with one week to pay back her mortgage.

Click for tickets


Mapplethorpe
Feature Narrative
Country: USA
Director: Ondi Timoner
Writer: Ondi Timoner
Starring: Mark Moses, McKinley Belcher III, Brandon Sklenar, John Benjamin Hickey, Marianne Rendón, Matt Smith
In the late 1960s, art-school dropout Robert Mapplethorpe moves into the Chelsea Hotel with dreams of stardom. He quickly becomes the enfant terrible of the photography world as the downtown counterculture of 1970s New York reaches its zenith.

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O.G.
Feature Narrative
Country: USA
Director: Madeleine Sackler
Writer: Stephen Belber
Starring: David Patrick Kell, Boyd Holbrook, Mare Winningham, Theothus Carter, William Fichtner, Jeffrey Wright
An inmate entering the final weeks of a twenty-plus-year sentence must navigate between old loyalties and a new protégé, while he also grapples with the looming uncertainty of his return to life outside bars.

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Slut in a Good Way
Feature Narrative
Country: Canada
Director: Sophie Lorain
Writer: Catherine Léger
Starring: Vassili Schneider, Anthony Therrien, Alex Godbout, Romane Denis, Rose Adam, Marguerite Bouchard
Three 17-year-old girlfriends get a job at the Toy Depot for the holiday season and become smitten with the guys who work alongside them in this charming teen sex comedy.

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Untogether
Feature Narrative
Country: USA
Director: Emma Forrest
Writer: Emma Forrest
Starring: Scott Caan, Jennifer Grey, Alice Eve, Billy Crystal, Ben Mendelsohn, Lola Kirke, Jemima Kirke, Jamie Dornan
Former writing prodigy Andrea tries not to fall for her one-night stand, while her sister Lisa throws herself into a newfound religious zeal (and the arms of her charismatic rabbi) to avoid the truth about her current relationship in this multi-character romantic drama.

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