Tribeca awards go to She Monkeys, Bombay Beach

She Monkeys and Bombay Beach have taken the top awards at the 10th annual Tribeca Film Festival in New York.

She Monkeys (Apflickorna), directed by Lisa Aschan from Sweden won the Best Narrative Feature, with a prize of $25,000. The jury said: “With balanced storytelling that moves between danger and innocence, this film speaks of sex, adolescence, power, and ambition. It is original and authentic.”

In other narrative awards, best actor went to Ramadhan ‘Shami’ Bizimana in Grey Matter (Matiere Grise), while best actress went to Carice van Houten in Black Butterflies. New awards for best cinematography went to Luisa Tillinger for Artificial Paradises; and for best screenplay to Jannicke Systad Jabobsen for Turn Me On, Goddammit.

The Best New Narrative Director was Park Jungbum, writer and director of Journals Of Musan (Musan Il-Gi) (South Korea). A special jury mention went to Kivu Ruhorahoza for Grey Matter.

Best Documentary Feature (also with $25,000) went to Bombay Beach directed by Alma Har’el (US-Israel). The jury praised its “beauty, lyricism, empathy and invention.”

The new best editing award for documentary went to Purcell Carson for Semper Fi: Always Faithful.

The Best New Documentary Director was Pablo Croce for Like Water. A special mention went to Michael Collins for Give Up Tomorrow.

Short film awards were:
Best Narrative Short: Man And Boy, dirs David Leon and Marcus McSweeney;
Special jury mention: The Terms, dir. Jason LaMotte;;
Best Documentary Short: Incident In New Baghdad, wr/dir James Spione;
Special jury mention: Guru, wr/dir Jonathan VanBallenberghe;
Student Visionary Award: Rooms, wr/dir Joanna Jurewicz; and
Special Jury Mention: Eva - Working Title, wr/dir Dor Fadlon.

The Online Festival Best Feature was presented to Donor Unknown by Jerry Rothwell and the Online Festival Best Shor Film honour went to Dungeon Master by Shiloh and Rider Strong.

The festival’s 10th anniversary showcase created a buoyant mood among attendees and the event kicked off with an Elton John performance for the opening night screening of The Union.

On the acquisitions front Magnolia took Mateo Gil’s Western Blackthorn, documentary Jiro Dreams Of Sushi and world rights for Limelight. The Weinstein Company acquired multiple territories for documentary The Bully Project and Corinth moved in on the documentary Klitschko.

Lee Hirsch, director of The Bully Project, was understandably pleased with his film’s TFF world premiere. He told Screen earlier this week: “It was the right festival at the right time. I’ve always wanted to be in Tribeca, it’s my hometown festival. The media presence here has also been incredible, so we knew this was a place to stage a real conversation about the film. And it’s gone over and above what we’ve expected. The programmers here were also so passionate about the film.”

Documentaries were particularly strong again this year. Eric Drath, director of transgender tennis biopic Renee, said: “It’s been fantastic - they really embrace the filmmakers. The response has been overwhelming.”

Nancy Buirski, who directed documentary The Loving Story, added: “Every festival is different and Tribeca brings that New York vibe — it has a lot of energy — and the film has had sold-out audiences.”

“It took 10 years for people to understand what we’re doing in a big picture sense,” said David Kwok, TFF’s director of programming. “People have looked at the event in perspective this year. Also the selections in the programme have been mostly positively received.”

Recruiting international premieres such as Wen Jiang’s Let The Bullets Fly has gotten easier since the festival started a decade ago, Kwok noted. “We benefit from success stories for international titles and those filmmakers then spreading good word of mouth.”

Other buzz screenings this year include US projects Detachment directed by Tony Kaye, Puncture, Rid Of Me, Semper Fi, Jesus Henry Christ, The Swell Season and Carol Channing: Larger Than Life. International standouts included Black Butterflies and Turn Me On, Goddammit.

The festival continues through May 1 and the winner of the audience award will be announced on Apr 30.

The 2011 festival included 93 features and 60 short films from 40 countries. In all the festival will present 47 world premieres.

Jurors in the various sections included Souleymane Cisse, David Gorden Green, Dianne Wiest, Rainn Wilson, Atom Egoyan, Michael Cera, Whoopi Goldberg, Annie Sundberg, Lauren Hutton, and Nora Ephron.