Tribeca Announces Tribeca Online Film Festival Program

Tribeca-Announces-Tribeca-Online-Film-Festival-Program-20010101

The 2012 Tribeca Film Festival (TFF) today unveiled the lineup and programming for the Tribeca Online Film Festival, presented by founding partner American Express. The third year of the pioneering digital initiative continues the extension of the TFF experience across digital platforms, allowing domestic audiences to view select feature and short films for free, including four world-premiere features to be streamed just after their TFF theatrical premieres. Audiences across the country will get front row access to the exclusive Festival content and hear filmmakers and industry leaders talking about the future of the industry as TFF’s 11^th edition runs concurrently in lower Manhattan from April 18 to 29.

The 2012 Tribeca Online Film Festival offers film enthusiasts new avenues to experience a film festival. Audiences will get to vote, via tribecaonline.com, on the best online feature and short, with winners receiving a total of $16,000 in prize money. Tribeca Online is employing the latest digital video and web technology to deliver an immersive, interactive experience, re-contextualizing Festival content and presentation.

Four world premiere feature selections from the 2012 Tribeca Film Festival, and five short films, three of which are world premieres, will be available during the online Festival. Each film will have limited screening windows and capacity. Reservations begin on April 10 for American Express Cardmembers (who will also get access to select content from distribution label Tribeca Film upon registration) and April 16 for the general public. Online viewers will be able to vote for the Best Tribeca Online Feature Film, a prize of $10,000, and the Best Tribeca Online Short Film, a prize of $5,000. Winners will be announced at the Tribeca Film Festival Awards on April 26. There will also be a social voting competition, based solely on popularity: the number of “likes” that film accrues on the Tribeca Online Film Festival film detail page. The feature film and the short film that drive the most Facebook likes on the page will each receive a separate $500 prize. Winners will be announced on April 30.

The complete list of feature films streamed on the Tribeca Online Film Festival is as follows:

Babygirl, directed and written by Macdara Vallely. (Ireland, USA) – World Premiere, Viewpoints. For as long as she can remember, Bronx teenager Lena has watched her mom Lucy squander her life on a series of deadbeat men. When Victor, her mom’s latest boy toy, starts hitting on Lena, she sets up a trap to expose Victor for the creep he is… but the plan backfires. Macdara Vallely crafts a heartfelt drama about the emotional highs and lows in the moment between childhood and adulthood.

On The Mat, directed and written by Fredric Golding. (USA) – World Premiere, Viewpoints and Tribeca/ESPN Sports Film Festival. Achieving greatness in high school wrestling requires a level of devotion unmatched perhaps by any other sport. That greatness has become a yearly expectation at Lake Stevens High, winner of seven Washington state championships in the past 10 years. Narrated by Lake Stevens wrestling alum Chris Pratt (Moneyball), this riveting documentary follows the team over the course of a season as they fight through injuries and academic issues to maintain their school’s legacy.

The Russian Winter, directed by Petter Ringbom. (Russia) – World Premiere, Spotlight. Brooklyn-born John Forté was a Grammy-nominated musician in The Fugees at 21 and a federal prison inmate at 26. When his prison sentence was remarkably commuted in 2008, Forté was given a second chance to share his talents with the world. Chronicling his concert tour across Russia, this inspirational documentary takes us on Forté’s personal journey—one that’s as much about having his voice heard as having his music heard. In English, Russian with subtitles.

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