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Source: Deadline
Once again, the beginning of the annual film festival circuit is right around the corner. Granted, one could argue that the festival season technically began with the Sundance Film Festival earlier this year, but it won’t be until a little later in the year when these events will start to happen on a more frequent basis. Indeed, there are several major film festivals coming up over the course of the next few months, from the more high-scale events like the Cannes Film Festival in France to slightly smaller (but no less meaningful) events such as the Seattle International Film Festival in Washington State. As each of these festivals draws nearer, it’s only a matter of time before the selection of films chosen for screening at each festival is made known to the general public. That’s certainly the case for the Tribeca Film Festival, which operates primarily within New York City and just recently announced its lineup for its upcoming 2022 festival, one that includes films that have at least one of many prominent industry names attached to them.
On Tuesday, April 19th, the Tribeca Film Festival revealed the titles of 109 different films that will be showcased at the upcoming event, currently set to take place between June 8th and June 19th of this year. Each of these films will represent at least one of forty countries in which they were made, and eighty-eight of these films will have their world premiere take place at some point during the twelve-day period. “This 2022 feature film program leaves us proud and humbled by the boundless ingenuity and passion of our indefatigable filmmaking community,” claims Cara Cusumano, Tribeca’s director and vice president of Programming. “This year’s official selections again remind us of the vitality and urgency of independent film in a world that needs it more than ever.” Striving for diversity has been a major objective for Tribeca in recent years, and from what is suggested by the lineup, some progress has been made. While thirty-two of the directors whose films will be featured have already created works seen at previous festivals, fifty directors are newcomers who will be introducing their film debuts.
It was previously announced that “Halftime”, a Netflix-produced documentary revolving around the life and career of international star Jennifer Lopez, will serve as Tribeca’s opening film, while another documentary, Josh Alexander’s “Loudmouth”, is currently expected to close out the festival. In between, there are over a hundred feature films and over forty short films that will be showcased throughout the duration of the festival. It’s difficult to narrow down the number of highlights to just a small selection, but looking over the overall lineup, there are in fact a decent few that stand out above the rest.
Among the more high-profile films expected to be screened at this year’s Tribeca Festival are the Canadian feature “Corner Office” and “Somewhere in Queens”, which will serve as the directorial debut of actor Ray Romano. The former film, directed by Joachim Back, is an office satire that revolves around Jon Hamm as an office worker who moves his desk to an empty corner in order to distance himself from his irritating colleagues, only to find that doing so has an usual effect on these coworkers. The latter, which sees Romano as both the film’s main leading actor as well as its director, focuses on an Italian-American father who gets perhaps a bit too involved with the increasing success of his son as part of his high school’s basketball team. Though not the only films to feature well-known names in their main roles, these are two of the films currently receiving the most attention, and could very easily receive even more attention after the festival comes to an end.
In the U.S. Narrative Competition portion of the festival, one can find (among many other noteworthy titles) the supernatural-themed “Next Exit”, featuring such talents as Karen Gillan and Diva Zappa. The film takes place in a world where ghosts are real, and a medical procedure that allows people to kill themselves is introduced. What comes of this is a cross-country journey in which two people attempt to take part in the procedure, only to become increasingly doubtful of their motivations as they make their way forward. Also competing in this part of the festival is “The Drop”, a co-production between the United States and Mexico in which one half of a supposedly happily married couple accidentally drops a baby while attending a wedding on a tropical island. What follows is the very definition of cringe comedy, with the film generating one laugh after another from arguably the darkest and most uncomfortable of concepts.
While that part of the festival focuses primarily on films made within the United States, the International Narrative Competition has a much broader reach, with the films included as part of the program this year covering a much larger number of nations across the globe. From Israel, for example, comes the Moshe Rosenthal-directed comedy “Karaoke”, in which a married middle-class couple, who have recently reached their 60s, take interest in their new neighbor and the karaoke nights he holds in his apartment. Shlok Sharma’s “Two Sisters and a Husband”, meanwhile, hails from the nation of India and depicts the lives of two sisters as they deal with the fallout of one of them being pregnant with the child of a hotel manager despite him being married to the other. Then there is Australia’s “Blaze”, directed by Del Kathryn Barton, this coming-of-age fantasy centers around a young girl who summons an imaginary dragon to protect her and help her cope with having witnessed an alarmingly violent crime.
These are only but a small sampling of what this year’s festival has to offer though. Whether they be works of pure fiction or those of a more documentary-like nature, this year’s Tribeca Film Festival seeks to showcase a wide variety of ideas and talents originating from several different parts of the world. With it being one of several more film festivals to take place over the span of the next couple months, it will be quite exciting to see what new additions to the world of cinema this year will have to offer.
