8 movies from 2018 Tribeca Film Festival Available on Netflix, hulu, HBO or Showtime

Just 1 year later, there are so many movies that are now available to stream from last year’s Tribeca Film Festival. There’s something for everyone in here whether it be the young women who dreamed up Frankenstein or a desperate man stopping at nothing to save his child.

All About Nina (2018)
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
[Streaming: Netflix] [Rent or Buy]


Cargo (2018)
In the aftermath of a global pandemic, Andy (Martin Freeman) is focused on keeping his wife and their infant daughter alive as they travel across the Australian Outback. A terrible accident, however, forces him to set off on foot: A zombie bite has given Andy a mere 48 hours before he, too, is undead. Andy struggles to both find a refuge for his child and stave off the disease as the clock runs out on his humanity. On his journey, Andy crosses paths with an indigenous youngster, Thoomi (Simone Landers), who brings him into her Aboriginal community and offers a much-needed bit of hope: Her people may have a cure for the sickness.

Filmmakers Ben Howling and Yolanda Ramke defy genre fans’ zombie-based expectations with their co-directing debut. Cargo pulls no punches in its intensity, yet the duo’s thoughtful film offers a deep, emotional meditation on intimate issues, like a parent’s love, as well as larger themes, like environmental protection and cultural strife. Injecting fresh life into zombie cinema’s often cold bloodstream, Cargo is tailor-made for sophisticated horror fans.–Matt Barone

[Streaming: Netflix]
Review by: Melissa Hanson


Duck Butter (2018)
When Naima (Alia Shawkat) and Sergio (Laia Costa) meet at a club, they hit it off instantly, connecting over their disdain for the dishonesty they have experienced in their respective romantic relationships. High on their fast chemistry, the two women concoct a romantic experiment: They plan to spend the next 24 hours together, having sex on the hour. Above all, they commit to perfect honesty with each other, a theoretical remedy to the deceit they believe to be an element of modern relationships. But their relationship in a vacuum doesn’t go as planned, and soon the weight of their commitment begins to close in, threatening the ideals of the daylong experiment and their chances for a romantic future tomorrow.

The latest film from Miguel Arteta, the director behind Beatriz at Dinner and The Good Girl, Duck Butter is a blistering look at intimacy in a pressure cooker. Co-written by Shawkat and executive produced by the Duplass Brothers, the film offers a searing interrogation of modern romance, with all its dizzying highs and heartbreaking betrayals, all packed into an intense 24 hours.—Cara Cusumano

[Streaming: Netflix] [Rent or Buy]
TFF Award: Best Actress, Alia Shawkat


In a Relationship (2018)
Long-term couple Owen and Hallie are breaking up—or maybe not?—and just as their relationship reaches a turning point, Matt and Willa embark on a romance of their own. A funny and deeply felt chronicle of one summer in the lives of two couples in Los Angeles.
[Streaming: hulu, hoopla] [Rent or Buy]


Mapplethorpe (2018)
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.
[Streaming: HBO, kanopy] [Rent or Buy]
TFF Award: Narrative Second Place


Mary Shelley (2018)
Raised by her kindly bookseller father and tormented by a villainous stepmother, young Mary Wollstonecraft (Elle Fanning) longs for a life bigger than her sheltered upbringing. As she embarks on a whirlwind romance with the charismatic but mercurial poet Percy Bysshe Shelley (Douglas Booth), Mary’s dreams of a sophisticated life among the intellectual elite seem to be within her grasp at last—but this fantasy quickly dissipates when she realizes the harsh reality of her new husband’s moody and dissolute ways. That is, until one stormy night, when a friendly challenge among a rained-in cadre of Romantic writers leads her to invent one of the most iconic horror stories of all time, before she’s even 20 years old.

Saudi female filmmaker Haifaa al-Mansour (Wadjda) returns to Tribeca with this lush portrait of the author of one of Gothic literature’s most influential stories. Frankenstein, Mary Shelley’s enduring work, has remained a seminal story of creation and destruction, but al-Mansour’s film goes deeper, to depict the fraught tale of a teenage girl’s shattered romantic dreams that brought a monster to life. —Liza Domnitz

[Streaming: Showtime] [Rent or Buy]


O.G. (2018)
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.
[Streaming: HBO]
TFF Award: Best Actor, Jeffrey Wright


The Party’s Just Beginning (2018)
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.

It’s dark, it’s tragic. It’s fantastic.
[Streaming: hulu] [Rent or Buy]


Review: ‘The Public’ gives truth to the phrase “knowledge is power”.

THE PUBLIC

In “The Public” an unusually bitter Arctic blast has made its way to downtown Cincinnati and the front doors of the public library where the action of the film takes place. At odds with library officials over how to handle the extreme weather event, some homeless patrons turn the building into a shelter for the night by staging an “Occupy” sit in. What begins as an act of civil disobedience becomes a stand-off with police and a rush-to-judgment media constantly speculating about what’s really happening. This David versus Goliath story tackles some of our nation’s most challenging issues, homelessness and mental illness and sets the drama inside one of the last bastions of democracy-in-action: your public library.

 

This star-studded film follows the lives of the people who come in and out of a Cincinnati Public Library. Written and directed by Emilio Estevez, each character is fully fleshed out and complex even if they aren’t on-screen for very long. It’s carefully edited. You get a real sense of relationships and circumstance from the solid writing and stellar performances from this massive ensemble cast including Emilio Estevez, Alec Baldwin, Jena Malone, Taylor Schilling, Gabrielle Union, Michael K Williams, Christian Slater, Che “Rhymefest” Smith, and Jeffrey Wright. The film is about knowledge and power in the larger sense. It’s a thoughtful commentary on the socioeconomic dynamics of the homeless, the manipulative perceptions created by the media, and the politicians and law enforcement that allow it to happen. It’s filled with humor and heartbreak from beat to beat, and the twists are surprising and impactful. The Public has amazing storytelling and a truly poignant look at class warfare.

THE PUBLIC features veteran actors Alec Baldwin (“30 Rock,” The Departed, It’s Complicated), Emilio Estevez (The Way, Bobby, The Breakfast Club), Jena Malone (The Hunger Games” series, The Neon Demon, Inherent Vice)Taylor Schilling (“Orange is the New Black,” The Lucky One, Argo), Christian Slater (“Mr. Robot,” The Wife, True Romance), Gabrielle Union (“Being Mary Jane”, Bad Boys II, Bring It On), Michael KWilliams (12 Years A Slave, “Boardwalk Empire,” “The Wire”), Jeffrey Wright (“Westworld,” “O.G.,” The Hunger Games” series), and Che “Rhymefest” Smith (co-writer and performer of “Glory” from Selma, “Jesus Walks” from Four Brothers, “Make Noise” and “Weaponized” from The Public, theatrical acting debut).

Universal Pictures Content Group will release THE PUBLIC in Theaters on April 5, 2019.

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.

Click for tickets


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.

Click for tickets


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.

Click for tickets


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.

Click for tickets


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.

Click for tickets