Tribeca Fest 2018: Winners and runners up revealed

The Tribeca Film Festival in Manhattan is just 17 year old this year, but has still built a strong foundation of respect amongst indie filmmakers. Launching in 2002, in a New York minute it quickly became one of the largest growing festivals in town, becoming the go-to place for upcoming feature filmmakers and documentarians from across the globe.

You won’t find muddy politics, booing cinema snobs or the latest Star Wars spin-off within a ten mile radius of Tribeca, and that’s how we want to keep it.

Previous winners include Tomas Alfredson’s masterpiece Let the Right One In and Israeli comedy-drama Zero Motivation, as well as launching the director of A Separation and The Salesman, Asghar Farhadi, into the public eye. They have also awarded acting awards to three Game of Thrones alums, Carice van Houten, Ciarán Hinds and Hannah Murray.

With the 17th Annual Tribeca Festival coming to a close, they’ve recently announced the winners of their coveted audience awards for Feature and Documentary, and their two runners-up. Here’s a quick rundown.

Winners

To Dust

Written and directed by Shawn Snyder, To Dust features the breakout star of Son of Saul, Géza Röhrig, as Shmuel, an Hasidic cantor in Upstate New York obsessing over the death and decay of his late wife. When he develops a new friendship with a biology professor, the pair embark on a grisly and absurd black comedy as they try to understand his wife’s decomposition process. Indie films are embracing weird this year, and we love it.

United Skates

The best documentaries always uncover a fascinating truth about a subject you wouldn’t have thought to be interesting, and United Skates fulfills exactly that. Directing duo Dyana Winkler and Tina Brown delve into the murky, racist history of the roller-skating rink. Variety have described it as a “trendsetting classic” in line with Paris Is Burning and Rize, so this is absolutely one to look out for.

Runners Up

Mapplethorpe

Ondi Timoner’s vehicle for Matt Smith’s journey to becoming one of the most unpredictable actors in the business, Mapplethorpe chronicles the life of counterculture photographer and provocateur Robert Mapplethorpe. After dropping out of art school, he finds himself at the centre of New York’s whirlwind of subversive art and culture during the 1970s.

Momentum Generation

The world has been sorely missing another great surfing movie after the last good one (Point Break) was released more than 20 years ago. This documentary is bound to resurrect a love for extreme sports and all things gnarly this summer. Revealing the never before heard true story of a group of surfing superstars, Momentum Generation features candid interviews from Kelly Slater, Rob Machado, Shane Dorian and many others, dishing the dirt from their rise to fame during the 1990s.