2006年VOA标准英语-Tribeca Film Festival Debuts with 9/11 Mov

By Barbara Schoetzau
New York
26 April 2006

The Fifth annual Tribeca Film Festival has opened in New York. For the first time, the massive festival will show films

dealing 1 with the event that led to its creation: the September 11, 2001 attacks.

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Tribeca Film Festival  
  

Actor Robert DeNiro and two associates started the film festival just months after the attacks to reinvigorate the Tribeca

neighborhood, just north of the World Trade Center. Mr. De Niro was born nearby and has business interests, including a

restaurant, in the area.

The Festival opened Tuesday evening with United 93, a film that recounts the events aboard the airplane that crashed into a

Pennsylvania field after passengers prevented the hijackers from hitting their target. It has been a controversial choice,

but Robert De Niro thinks it was also an obvious choice."

"Flight 93, if it was not opening the festival, it would seem strange," he said. "You cannot not be touched by it. It is a

very, very good movie and very direct, simple. I think it is important to see because it is kind of a playback of what

happened."

United 93   
  
The topic is still so sensitive that the debut 2 of United 93 provoked front page stories in New York newspapers. Several other

films at the festival also focus on the events of 9/11.

One, The Saint of 9/11, is a documentary about Father Mychal Judge, the chaplain of the New York City Fire Department, who

died in the collapse 3 of one of the towers. Another documentary, Heart of Steel, tells the story of the volunteers who banded

together immediately after the attack to search for survivors 4 and help clear the wreckage 5.

Festival co-founder Jane Rosenthal says it is time for filmmakers to deal with the subject.

"September 11th was the most photographed event in the world and I think that the media has shown the events and the stories

have come out over and over again," she said. "I think it is time. After a number of years artists digest it, whether of not

it is a novelist or a sculptor 6 or filmmaker. I think it is very important to see a filmmaker's point of view. In terms of why

now? Why not now?"

In five years, Tribeca has since grown into a major film festival with films for every taste. There will be outdoor films,

movies for children, documentaries, foreign films, movies from major Hollywood studios and movies made by independent

filmmakers. Every year, the festival also celebrates old films that are important to the history of cinema.

This year the festival is boasting 764 screenings of more than 270 films of every genre 7 from more than two dozen nations,

including China, the Czech Republic, Egypt, Indonesia, Iran, Russia, Sri Lanka and Turkey.

Executive director Peter Scarlett and his staff viewed 4,100 films before narrowing down to 270. But he says they all have a

common thread.

"We use the criteria 8 does the film change my life in any way? Does it change the way I look at the world? Does it amuse me or

give me goose bumps or does it move me? Is it something I have not seen before," he said. "That is what the 270 films in this

program have in common this year."

The festival has become a community event, as was intended, with street parties and family festivities throughout its

two-week run.

Actor-director Ed Burns, a Tribeca resident, is debuting 9 his latest film, The Groomsman. He says the film festival is a boon 10

to the community and to independent filmmakers.

"In speaking with other New York-based filmmakers we all love that fact that we now have our film festival," he said. "As a

resident of Tribeca from before the film festival, I have seen over the course of five years what the festival has meant to

my neighborhood, especially the years immediately following 9/11. There was a lot of talk about 'people are going to start to

move out of Tribeca, restaurants were going to close, retail 11 shops were going to be vacant.' You walk around the neighborhood

now and you see that the opposite is true. There is construction on every corner. You cannot get a reservation at

restaurants. A big part of that has to do with this festival."

Much of the film festival's emphasis is on documentaries and films that deal with serious topics. But it is the red-carpet

appearance of famous movie stars that has fans lining 12 the streets. This year fans are sure to be on the lookout 13 for Tom

Cruise and John Travolta, who will attend the openings of their newest movies.