Day 10 TFF2015: Who Are You? 'In Transit' Has Some Answers; A Self-Appointed Savior / Vigilante in 'Crocodile Gennadiy'

A mother and daughter aboard the Empire Builder in "In Transit." Photo from "In Transit" Facebook page.

She is fresh off of a visit to her daughter in Chicago. Mother and child have not seen each other in more than 40 years ...

Several days past her due date, a young woman is returning to the bosom of her family and outside the orbit of her disagreeable boyfriend, the father of her unborn child. Her baby will meet at the same time "all the people I love." And hate, "because sometimes my family drives me crazy."

A 21-year-old man with dirty fingernails and a clear vision is going to the oil fields to make his fortune – in seven years.

They are among the changing population of passengers aboard an Empire Builder, a series of Amtrak trains that serves the Midwest and Northwest United States, from Chicago in the East to Seattle in the West. Between points, it makes stops in Idaho, Minnesota, Montana, North Dakota, Oregon and Wisconsin.

Their brief stories are told in "In Transit" from the late Albert Maysles (his last film) and a series of directors on various legs of the trip: Lynn True, David Usui, Nelson Walker and Ben Wu.

The film shows this evening and tomorrow evening in the last two screenings of its world premiere at the 2015 Tribeca Film Festival.

On any long trip – whether in the sky or on the ground – it is natural to wonder about one's fellow travelers. Where are they going? Are they running from something? Running to something? What's their story? Who are they?

"In Transit" answers these questions to a degree that is satisfactory, haunting, touching. The aforementioned heroine, now sporting red hair and a tattoo, married young to an abusive man who gave her seven children and little else. She grew tired of the beatings, and decided not to take them anymore.

"If you hit me again, I will shoot you," the woman fresh from that Chicago reunion recalls telling her tormenter. His threats from behind prison walls informed her difficult decision to give up the children for adoption.

Not all of the stories are the stuff of blues or country lyrics. A mother and daughter are snuggled against each other, possibly late at night. The daughter is now in college, and they are wishing each other the best in finding good companionship. At the moment, however, it is them against the world.

A bit of patience is required with "In Transit," for it does not go from 0 to 60 in seven seconds. It opens on a young man who has left Mississippi on his way to his brother and a better life in Seattle. He and a young woman are discussing the importance of change ... Children play ... Other passengers board the train. A viewer may not yet be engaged.

But "In Transit," which garnered an honorable mention at last night's Tribeca awards ceremony, finds the right gear and is on cruise control for the rest of the journey. A series of gripping tales emerges – forming a beautiful mosaic, much like this country – as different as the changing landscape framed in the train's windows.

One of the most tender moments unfolds during a conversation between a younger and older man. They are chatting amiably enough, as folks often do on a long trip. With the miles, however, talk becomes more serious.

"To have love" is what the younger man would change about his life, he discloses tearfully. He was raised without a mother or father. The older man takes up his hands and addresses him in soothing, encouraging tones ...

For the first time in her life she is simply herself. "I really don't want to get off the train," says a woman whose marriage and life are in transition. "It's been more than just a means of travel to get from one place to another." Here Tawna is not reduced to "somebody's label" – daughter, wife, mother ...

"I love the plains ... My mother's native; my dad's white," says a man whose relationship is also in critical condition and may have expired by the time he returns home. "But my heart and soul ... It's where I hunt. It's where my people are. It's where my family lives. There is something very therapeutic about getting back to the plains. It's the perfect place to clear a person's head" ...

What is the dream job of this Rugby, North Dakota native? As a youngster, he spied a passing train and wondered where all of those people were going? This is the train conductor's dream job. "Much to the ridicule from my classmates and even some ridicule from my family, this is the only job I ever wanted."

All aboard!

Also showing this evening is Crocodile Gennadiy. The documentary from Steve Hoover, in its world premiere, follows Gennadiy Mokhnenko over a 10-year-period. (See video above).

One of the pastor’s supreme callings is saving Ukrainian youth from streets meaner than ever after the dissolution of the Soviet Union.

He has many supporters; he has many detractors.

Films/events on today's TFF2015 schedule: ”Shorts: Interference,” “Some Came Running,” “Live From New York!,” “Monty Python and The Holy Grail,” “The Emperor’s New Clothes,” “Aloft,” “Slow West,” “Most Likely to Succeed,” “Down in the Valley,” “Tribeca Talks Directors Series: Brad Bird and Janeane Garofalo,” “The Ethics of Accuracy,” “Hyena,” “All Eyes and Ears,” “Far From Men,” “Backtrack,” “Cartel Land,” “Lucifer,” “Shorts: NY - Double Espresso,” “Tenured,” “Drunk Stoned Brilliant Dead: The Story of National Lampoon” and “Cronies.”

Visit http://www.tribecafilm.com/festival to learn more about it and the 2015 Tribeca Film Festival, including tickets and schedule.

Day 9 TFF2015: Parsing the Words of 'Lucifer's' Gust Van den Berghe Over Liquid Courage

Gust Van den Berghe (left) and actors on location in Mexico on the set of "Lucifer." Photo from "Lucifer" Facebook page.

"I hope that I am not boring you with all of this."

Not at all. Yours Truly is utterly fascinated by the ideas spewing forth from "Lucifer" director Gust Van den Berghe during our chat over a beer and sparkling wine in the Lincoln Black Label Filmmaker Lounge at Spring Studios.

His film, a version of the biblical story of Lucifer that follows the angel during a layover in a heavenly Mexican village en route to Hell, is having its U.S. premiere at the 2015 Tribeca Screen Festival. The last two of its four screenings are this afternoon and tomorrow afternoon.

Incidentally, GVdB emphatically states that his film – third in a trilogy – is meant to be seen "in the cinema. I make films for the cinema."

Based on the work of the same name by Dutch playwright and poet Joost van den Vondel, "Lucifer" has the distinction of being the first film to be shot using Tondoscope (http://www.tondoscope.com). Essentially, it means it is filmed through a circle instead of a rectangle. From the perspective of the viewer, images on the big screen appear round and have a painterly quality, that of a daguerreotype.

The images – as in "Lucifer" – are at once aloof and extremely intimate. Otherworldy; finite; without horizons. This aspect would be lost on a small screen, particularly a mobile device. (See video below, explaining how the Tondoscope process was developed for "Lucifer").

"I wanted to bring new materials to old ideas," he says by way of explanation for his use of Tondoscope. Old paintings of paradise lost that captured subjects in the round also informed the use of this technique.

Meanwhile, one is held in thrall by the Flemish director's worldviews – part-intellectual, part-iconoclast, a pinch of existentialism. Consider: he discloses that "I don't think" when I make films. Pressed to expound, he continues, "It's like a negative – a blank – and I fill it in. When you make a mark with your shoe, you were there and this is what you see. You don't think about it. You do it and it just is."

Understand? How about this one: "We are immigrants in life – not like the way one usually thinks about immigrants, with borders. But we are in a place in time and these are our experiences without confines."

Of "Lucifer," he says "people can think whatever they wish. It is done and I am working on two other films." And then when raised brows confront him, "I am proud of what I have created, and I do not say that to be arrogant."

Humility is apparent. GVdB is a filmmaker (and a writer and the son of a writer). He loves the medium. He makes film for the sheer pleasure and artistic expression it permits, a way of communicating ideals, horrors, the human condition. Certainly, not for monetary gain. "Lucifer" does not yet have a distributor, and he has no idea where his team is in the process.

"I leave that to the salespeople. If I find a distributor and the film makes money, that is good. But it doesn't matter if it does not."

Neither do awards matter. "Lucifer" has won one. What? Where? "It does not matter; it is of no consequence," he says dismissively

All awards matter, one has to counter. He seems to concede the point, revealing that "Lucifer" took the Grand Prix at the International Film Festival of Tallinn Black Nights (Estonia.) On Friday (24 April), he journeys to Cancun, Mexico for the Riviera Maya Film Festival where "Lucifer" is entered.

"For me, being accepted to a film festival is like a reward," he is insisting without a trace of guile. "I don't enter film festivals to win awards."

Yet, GVdB is gratified when he does, no?

"Yes."

Films/events on today's TFF2015 schedule: "Tribeca Talks: Snap It, Vine It, Tube It,” “Hyena,” “Come Down Molly,” “Slow Learners,” “The Overnight,” “The Diplomat,” “Man Up,” “Hungry Hearts,” “Anesthesia,” “Tumbledown,” “Shorts: NY – Daily Grind,” “Sunrise,” “The Birth of Sake,” “El Cinco,” “We Are Young. We Are Strong,” “Transfatty Lives,” “Good Kill,” “Democrats,” “A Faster Horse,” “Stung” and “Shorts: Family Dynamics” (See video above of “The Arrest”).

Visit http://www.tribecafilm.com/festival to learn more about it and the 2015 Tribeca Film Festival, including tickets and schedule.

Day 8 TFF2015: Earth Exacts Sweet, Beautiful Revenge, One Surmises, in 'Wrapped'

Something has a stranglehold on New York City in "Wrapped." Photo from "Wrapped" Facebook page.

IT is difficult to get a straight answer out of Falko Paeper about what “Wrapped” is about as we are jawing at Spring Studios on Saturday evening, Day 4 of the 2015 Tribeca Film Festival.

In the Shorts: NY - Double Espresso section of the festival, the part-digital animation film is screening tonight, as well as Friday through Sunday (24-26 April) in its New York premiere. (See video below).

The young Berlin, Germany native is uttering something along the lines of “It’s set in New York” and “You have to see it.”

And so do you, Dear Reader, for “Wrapped” is a piece of impressionist art. You and your companion may be watching this film and come away with wholly different interpretations of what you have witnessed. It is apt that one of its four screenings is today, the 45th Earth Day. (http://www.earthday.org)

One inference that can be drawn from “Wrapped” — a clever, imaginative, visually stunning work — is that it ponders Earth from the perspective of a dying rat.

Possibly a casualty of an automobile crash, the creature remembers life before the monstrosity that is the concrete jungle of New York City or any metropolis teeming with people, vehicles and noise. First, the memories of a better time evolve slowly, then as the protagonist breathes its last, life whizzes by at lightning speed.

In hindsight, it becomes clear from the tête-à-tête with FP why three directors were a key ingredient in a four-minute film. At the time, however, this inquiring mind could not comprehend that the time-lapse photography that made whizzing life possible would require a director unto itself.

"Wrapped" has a director for its digital, action and time-lapse photography sequences, respectively. Aside from FP, a web designer who handled the digital piece, a director's credit goes to Roman Kaelin and Florian Wittmann. The three were film school mates. "Wrapped" is their thesis project.

One film, three simultaneous directors ... hmmm. "We worked well together," FP discloses to a skeptic. "This is our third film."

Yet another inference that can be taken from the award-winning film is that Earth is striking back. Taking vengeance because its organic matter — grass, trees, flowers — has been destroyed. In its place concrete, steel and the aforesaid pollutants.

Its revenge is swift and ferocious — a big bang — with a doomsday soundtrack.

In “Wrapped,” it is a wonderful, beautiful thing.

Films/events on today's TFF2015 schedule: "Tribeca Talks Directors Series: Ava Duvernay,” “Angry Sky,” “Misery Loves Comedy,” “Anesthesia,” “Maggie,” “Apple Store Panel: Misery Loves Comedy,” “Backtrack,” “A Courtship,” “Ashby,” “Man Up,” “Shorts: NY - Espresso,” “Dirty Weekend,” “Bare,” “Good Kill,” “Shorts: Home Improvement,” “Stranded in Canton,” “Slow West,” “Sleeping With Other People,” “Peggy Guggenheim - Art Addict,” “Cronies” and “Being 14.” (See video above).

Visit http://www.tribecafilm.com/festival to learn more about it and the 2015 Tribeca Film Festival, including tickets and schedule.