Tribeca Film Festival comes to a close

By M&C News May 8, 2006, 11:45 GMT

The red carpet has been put away for another year as the 5th annual Tribeca Film Festival came to a close Sunday evening after playing 274 films from 40 countries.

Robert DeNiro, founder of the fest said ‘We’re very pleased with the growth of the festival and most appreciative of the support we’ve received from our sponsors, the community and all our volunteers.”

The Festival opened with some controversy, world premiering ‘United 13’, the story of the hijacked United Airlines Flight 93, which crashed in a field on September 11th after passengers and crew tried to wrest the plane from terrorists.

Another notable event was the NY preem of M: I3 with mega-star Tom Cruise hopping from helicopter to boat to fire truck in a mad dash across the city hyping the flick.

And finally, Saturday night, festival goers got an early peek at ‘Poseidon’ which opens nationwide May 12th.

The Awards ceremony was held in New York’s China Town Sunday evening with award winners pulled from giant fortune cookies.

War films topped the list of major prizes:

Tristan Bauer's Argentinean/Spanish ‘Blessed by Fire’ (Iluminados por el Fuego), the tale of a Falklands War soldier, won the Founders Award for best narrative feature;

Deborah Scranton's American ‘The War Tapes,’ featuring footage from U.S. soldiers in Iraq hailed by presenter Ken Burns for its "spellbinding brutality," took home the best documentary feature prize;

The audience award went to Linda Hattendorf's ‘The Cats of Mirikitani,’ the documentary tale of a homeless Japanese-American who lost family members in the Hiroshima bombings.

Best made in New York narrative feature award went to Oren Rudavsky's ‘The Treatment’;

Dan Lohaus' ‘When I Came Home’ won the NY Loves Film documentary prize.

What every movie director and producer hopes for from a film festival – a movie deal - was happening at Tribeca.

Strand Releasing picked up Emmanuelle Bercot's ‘Backstage’ while First Independent Pictures and HBO Video took Nick Guthe's ‘Mini's First Time’.

Keith Gray and Megan Raney Aarons' documentary ‘Freedom's Fury’ will be seen in Hungary as Best Hollywood will distribute there and Weinstein Co. is following IFC films’ domestic pickup at Sundance of ‘Wordplay’ and will release internationally.