Even with the proliferation of Film Festivals, some still stand above the others in terms of credibility and prestige. One of those is the Tribeca Film Festival, which takes place each year in the Tribeca section of new York.

Founded in 2001 by Robert De Niro, Jane Rosenthal and Craig Hatkoff, the festival was created to spur the economic and cultural revitalization of the lower Manhattan district through an annual celebration of film, music and culture. The Festival’s mission is to help filmmakers reach the broadest possible audience, enable the international film community and general public to experience the power of cinema and promote New York City as a major filmmaking center.

In that spirit, the festival announced the winners of this year’s awards. And, here they are:

WORLD NARRATIVE COMPETITION CATEGORIES:

The jurors for the 2011 World Narrative Competition were Souleymane Cissé, Scott Glenn, David Gordon Green, Rula Jebreal, Art Linson, Jason Sudeikis and Dianne Wiest.

• The Founders Award for Best Narrative Feature – She Monkeys (Apflickorna), directed by Lisa Aschan, written by Josefine Adolfsson and Lisa Aschan (Sweden). Winner receives $25,000 and the art award “Anna Christie Entering the Bar, 1965-1967” by Robert De Niro Sr. Sponsored by AKA Hotel Residences. The award was given by Jane Rosenthal and Robert De Niro and Larry Korman from AKA Residences.

• Best Actor in a Narrative Feature Film – Ramadhan “Shami” Bizimana as Yvan in Grey Matter (Matière Grise), directed and written by Kivu Ruhorahoza (Rwanda, Australia). Winner receives $2,500. The award was given by Rula Jebreal.

• Best Actress in a Narrative Feature Film – Carice van Houten as Ingrid Jonker in Black Butterflies, directed by Paula van der Oest, written by Greg Latter (Germany, Netherlands, South Africa). Winner receives $2,500. The award was given by Rula Jebreal.

• Best Cinematography in a Narrative Feature Film – Luisa Tillinger, Artificial Paradises (Paraisos Artificiales) (Mexico). Winner receives $5,000 and $50,000 in post production services provided by Company 3. The award was given by Rula Jebreal.

• Best Screenplay for a Narrative Feature Film – Jannicke Systad Jabobsen, Turn Me On, Goddammit (Få meg på, for faen) (Norway). Winner receives $5,000. The award was given by Rula Jebreal.

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By Shannon Hood and Jane Almirall

Each day we will provide you with capsule reviews and impressions of the films we see at Fantastic Fest, along with any activities or interviews we attend.  Complete reviews and interviews can be found on the site in upcoming weeks.

Day one of fantastic fest we hit the ground running and went straight from the airport to pick up our press badges.  We managed to cram in three screenings for the day, starting at 4pm.  Not too shabby.

Screening: Stone. Directed by John Curran and starring Edward Norton, Robert De Niro, Frances Conroy, and Milla Jovovich.  Summary: A convicted arsonist (Norton) looks to manipulate a parole officer (De Niro) into a plan to secure his parole by placing his beautiful wife (Jovovich)  in the lawman’s path.

Jane’s thoughts:  This was an unusual experience for me.  I was half expecting this to play out like a thriller-but instead I watched a slow (but evenly paced) meditative, existential character study.

The performances were great, but I can’t say I enjoyed the film (to its credit,we discussed it a great deal afterwards.)

The characters in Stone never quite feel like actual people, rather they represent certain characteristics of humanity.  Their stories slowly unfold to reveal that in the end, we are back at the beginning and haven’t moved an inch.

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Every once in a while, we’ll get an opportunity to check out a new indie film from out of nowhere and get blown away by it. Sadly, this happens less often than we would like, but in this case, it was completely true.

We recently got to check out the short film The Legacy, written and directed by Mike Doto, about a boy who discovers that his father is the world’s greatest superhero. The film is, by all definitions of the word, fantastic. It captures some of the elements that made the original Superman films so great, without treading into campy territory.

With that in mind, we got a chance to sit down with the writer/director of the film, Mike Doto, about what it took to make the project, and where he goes from here.

The Flickcast: With a concept like The Legacy, what drove you to this idea? Were you a big comic fan growing up? If so, which books were you inspired by the most?

Mike Doto: For The Legacy I really wanted to get back to the roots of why I wanted to be a filmmaker to begin with. I feel like I grew up in a time when movies really connected with kids and I’ve never forgotten the impact that those films have had on me.

Most of these films starred a young protagonist that I could relate to quite easily, films such as E.T., Goonies, Wargames, D.A.R.Y.L., The Last Starfighter, and Back to the Future. What I’ve learned is that these weren’t just kid movies, these were movies for all ages, they appealed to the both the young and the young at heart.  So I thought about what movie I would have written when I was 10-years-old and I decided that I probably would have written a movie about being a superhero.

Superman was my boyhood hero so naturally that’s the hero I wanted to emulate.  In thinking further about the Superman story I decided that it would be more effective to write a film about the relationship between the father and the son since this is at the heart of the Superman character. I actually wasn’t a big comic book fan growing up. I was a huge fan of the Superman movies, but I didn’t really spend much time reading comics.

I would much rather dress up as a superhero or play with my action figures and imagine what that world would be like to live in. Even though a camera wasn’t rolling, I think this was the start of my filmmaking career although I didn’t realize it at the time.

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