Matt Berninger (left) and brother Tom (right) in Mistaken for Strangers.

We did not expect to love Mistaken for Strangers, the "self-mockumentary" that premiered last night at the opening of the Tribeca Film Festival. Directed by Tom Berninger, whose brother Matt is the lead singer of the band The National, the film explores the trials and tribulations of sibling rivalry after Tom is invited to go on tour as a roadie for his brother's band. We were expecting a lot of fawning adulation over the indie group, who were slated to perform after the show at the High Line Ballroom.

The film managed to defy every preconception we had, however, and might just be the best documentary we've seen all year. Less about the band than the younger Berninger's frustrations at living in the shadow of a much more beloved and successful older brother, it should be required viewing for every younger sibling or black sheep of the family.

Without giving anything away, however, the film's viewpoint had one unfortunate side effect: we left the theater kind of hating The National front man for coming off so callous toward his brother's plight. And we left the movie wondering: would this mean that the audience wouldn't be psyched to see the band perform at the after-party? And since both brothers shared a writing credit for Strangers, how much stock should we put in the "reality" of the film?

Before the show, Tom Berninger  made an appearance onstage after an introduction by Jane Rosenthal and Robert De Niro. "It's an incredible honor ... I don't know that it's quite sunk in yet," said the younger Berninger brother, after thanking Ms. Rosenthal, Mr. De Niro, Genna Terranova and Paula Weinstein for the opportunity. "This movie is a really small, little low-fi thing, but I couldn't have done it without a lot of help." The director proceeded to bring out the entire band onto the stage, along with the producers of the film--his brother and his brother's wife (former New Yorker editor) Carin Besser, Craig Charland and EP Marshall Curry. Supervising editor Matthew Hamachek got his own mention as the man "who really straightened up my mess."

So we can love the golden boy Matt for producing his brother's production, and if The National took any hit in its fans' devotion, it was impossible to detect at the after-party. The audience of usually reserved TFF attendees surged to the front as the band began to play, though Mr. Berninger (the elder) was obviously in damage-control mode: dedicating two songs to his brother and two others to members of the band's touring crew who came off as particularly dickish in the film. The band's touring manager, Brandon Reid, got a special shout-out, with Matt essentially saying that despite the movie's portrayal, Mr. Reid was the nicest, best band manager anyone could ever ask for.

Guess you can't believe everything you see in the pictures these days.

Jane Rosenthal and Robert De Niro.

As the co-founders of the Tribeca Film Festival, we are thrilled to share our plans and recommendations for the coming week. This year’s TFF will display the enormous creativity of filmmakers, storytellers and artists from around the city and the world. As the late Roger Ebert would have said, we’ll see you at the movies.

WEDNESDAY, April 17

The festival opens its 12th edition with the world premiere of Mistaken for Strangers, a documentary from first-time director Tom Berninger, a heavy metal- and horror film-loving roadie who follows his brother Matt Berninger, front man of the indie rock band The National, on the band’s biggest tour to date. We didn’t know who this amazing Brooklyn-based band was until we saw the film, which is a great story about family, music and aspiration—isn’t that really what life’s about? Then it’s on to the Highline Ballroom where the band will play. Afterward, get a late-night bite at The Odeon, a longtime haunt of writers and movie stars.

Screening and concert by invitation only, for more information, visit tribecafilm.com/festival. The Odeon, 145 West Broadway, (212) 233-0507.

THURSDAY, April 18

There are close to 90 films premiering at the festival, and tonight marks the opening of the feature film sections. We are going to try to stop by and see the documentary competition opener Big Men, an exposé on Africa’s oil companies and American corporate interests directed by Rachel Boynton and executive produced by Brad Pitt. Other exciting debuts include the narrative competition title Bluebird, directed by Lance Edmands and starring Amy Morton, Girls’ Adam Driver and John Slattery; Flex Is Kings, a story about Brooklyn and street performance directed by Deidre Schoo and Michael Beach Nichols that will open the Viewpoints section; and Dark Touch, the opener of the Midnight section, directed by Marina de Van. We haven’t see all of these, but they sounded interesting to us!

Beetlejuice

Later we’ll stop by our Tribeca Drive-In (it’s actually a sit-in) on the Hudson River—a series of free, outdoor screenings at Brookfield Place (the World Financial Center Plaza). We are bringing back Hitchcock’s classic The Birds—for its 50th anniversary! (Jane says: “You have to check out the introduction on our website before you come—it’s the funniest thing I’ve ever seen!”) We are going to try to come back tomorrow too, for Tim Burton’s beloved comedy Beetlejuice, a great movie for kids of all ages. And on Saturday there will be an additional screening of the TFF 2013 film Lil Bub & Friendz, featuring the famous Internet cat sensation. And for dinner tonight it’s Locanda Verde—gotta get some of the ricotta.

Feature screenings throughout the festival, tickets at www.tribecafilm.com. Drive-In screenings are free and open to the public. Locanda Verde, The Greenwich Hotel,  377 Greenwich Street, (212) 925-3797

FRIDAY, April 19

We have a new section in the festival this year: Storyscapes, which opens today and runs through April 21. We are going to meet the creators of the transmedia projects at the Bombay Sapphire House of Imagination. Jane wants to take one of the robots from the interactive Robots in Residence installation around with her to all the events—she is curious to see what kind of film she’ll end up making.

We will both be on hand to celebrate the graduation of our Tribeca Film Fellows. These 20 young NYC filmmakers have been learning from some of the most skilled industry insiders in making their own independent films, and tonight they will premiere their projects. Congratulations to this year’s class!

Nelson Mandela.

Nelson Mandela opened the festival in 2002 and reminded all of us about the healing power of film. Tonight we celebrate his legacy, words and wisdom. The Power of Words, a new short film using his quotes and teachings, will be playing nightly on screens in Times Square from 11:57 p.m. to midnight starting tonight and continuing throughout April. We’ll join the hundreds of others on the Red Steps of Duffy Square to watch the film take over all the screens, and then we’ll celebrate with live music.

The Bombay Sapphire House of Imagination, 121 Varick Street, seventh floor, free and open to the public with a reservation. Tribeca Film Fellows graduation by invitation only. The Power of Words screening, Duffy Square, free and open to the public.

SATURDAY, April 20

One of our favorite films at the Festival is Alberi, a mesmerizing homage to mythology and nature from director Michelangelo Frammartino. The film will play as a cinematic installation at the VW Dome at MoMA PS1. After you’ve been thoroughly dazzled by this cinematic treat, come join us for a special celebration. It’s definitely worth the trip, and don’t worry about being late—the film runs on a continuous loop!

In the vein of “30 for 30,” ESPN is presenting “Nine for IX,” nine documentary films about women in sports, each directed by a female filmmaker, in recognition of the 40th anniversary of Title IX. We have four of them premiering at the festival, and we plan to go see Pat XO, directed by Lisa Lax and Nancy Stern Winters, and Let Them Wear Towels, directed by TFF alums Ricki Stern and Annie Sundberg.

Whoopi Goldberg has been a part of the Tribeca family since our very first festival, so it’s fitting that we premiere her directorial debut, I Got Somethin’ to Tell You, a profile of the late pioneering comic Moms Mabley.

Alberi screening, VW Dome at MoMa PS1, 22-25 Jackson Avenue, Long Island City, open to the public. Screenings of “Nine for IX” and I Got Somethin’ to Tell You throughout the festival, tickets at www.tribecafilm.com.

SUNDAY, April 21

We’re already exhausted. We’re sleeping in today and then spending time with our families. But if you need a pick-me-up, try Blue Bottle Coffee at All Good Things.

Ben Stiller.

Its great to have our Focker family at the festival this year. Jay Roach (Game Change) and Ben Stiller are doing one of our Tribeca Talks: Directors Series panels at BMCC’s Tribeca Performing Arts Center. Later in the festival, we will catch the talks with Clint Eastwood and Richard Linklater.

We are taking a detour from films to stop by the Apple store on Prince Street, where all week Apple has been hosting exclusive Meet the Filmmakers sessions, in which the film industry’s leading actors, writers, directors and producers discuss their latest projects. At 6 p.m. tonight, Alastair Siddons, Emile Abinal and other special guests will be on site to talk about their film Inside Out: The People’s Art Project, which tracks the evolution of the world’s largest participatory art project, spearheaded by French artist JR. Check out his work and be part of it!

All Good Things, 102 Franklin Street, (212) 966-3663. Tribeca Talks: Directors Series panel, BMCC’s Tribeca Performing Art Center, 199 Chambers Street, (212) 220-1459, 3pm, tickets at www.tribecafilm.com. Meet the Filmmakers session, Apple Store, 103 Prince Street, (212) 226-3126, 6pm, free and open to the public.

MONDAY, April 22

At lunchtime today, we’ll be at our Future of Film Live series at 92Y Tribeca, where Joshua Topolsky (editor in chief of The Verge) is talking about nontraditional storytelling with video game creator Dan Connors, Yoni Bloch of Interlude and Nate Mitchell of Oculus Rift. The series, which runs from today through April 25, covers the ever-changing world of film distribution and features key voices from noted industry players. We will definitely be back later in the week when Todd Wagner speaks.

Julie Delpy and Ethan Hawke in Before Midnight.

This is one everyone has been asking us for tickets for: Richard Linklater will premiere Before Midnight, the eagerly anticipated third chapter of the star-crossed tale of Jesse (Ethan Hawke) and Celine (Julie Delpy) tonight at BMCC’s Tribeca Performing Arts Center.

Future of Film Live panel, 92Y Tribeca, 200 Hudson Street, (212) 601-1000, free and open to the public, register online at www.tribecafilm.com/future-of-film. Before Midnight screening, BMCC’s Tribeca Performing Art Center, 199 Chambers Street, (212) 220-1459, premiere tonight at 6pm, screenings continue throughout the festival.

TUESDAY, April 23

The Directors Brunch with Persol is the one point in the festival where all the filmmakers get to meet. You can feel the international breadth and scope of the whole festival in the room. And this year there are 26 women directors, a larger percentage than are represented in the U.S. Congress!

Speaking of filmmakers, during the festival the Tribeca Film Institute works closely with filmmakers in various stages of production to help them with their projects. TFI hosts workshops and networking sessions connecting filmmakers with industry leaders who mentor and provide guidance on everything from fund-raising to production.

Director Paul Verhoeven, the visionary behind the box office blockbusters Basic Instinct, Total Recall and RoboCop, will screen his crowd-sourced film Tricked at his Tribeca Talks: After the Movie event, where he’ll discuss how doing something so unconventional has pushed his creativity. We can’t wait to hear how he was able to incorporate ideas from hundreds of film enthusiasts across the world.

For dinner tonight: the Tribeca Grill. Can’t decide what we are in the mood for—Drew has the best burger with onion rings, crème brulée and sautéed spinach in the city.

Directors Brunch, by invitation only. Tribeca Film Institute, by invitation only. Tricked screening and talk, 6:30pm, tickets at www.tribecafilm.com. Tribeca Grill, 375 Greenwich Street, (212) 941-3900.

WEDNESDAY, April 24

Tonight is the annual Chanel dinner at the Odeon, celebrating the Tribeca Film Festival Artists Awards program. What could be better than celebrating all of our artists while enjoying some of the best french fries? The night is an A-list mix of socialites, movie stars and artists including William Wegman, Joyce Pensato, Dustin Yellin and Gillian Laub, who have donated artwork that will be awarded to the winning filmmakers in each of our competition categories next week.

The Tribeca Film Institute is our year-round programming, and tonight we will honor the projects and filmmakers who have received support from TFI’s artist programs, including Tribeca All Access—the Institute’s first program for underrepresented filmmakers, which turns 10 this year and has supporting 227 films by over 500 filmmakers who identify as members of a minority group. We are really proud of this program, which has helps diversify what is seen on screens.

Möbius.

There’s nothing better than springtime in New York, but Möbius, Eric Rochant’s sexy spy thriller, comes close with its Monaco backdrop. The Belgian beauty Cecile de France is in town along with the director to premiere the film. And we are both looking forward to meeting Dr. Mathilde Krim at tonight’s screening of The Battle of amFAR, the story of how she and Elizabeth Taylor launched the country’s first AIDS research foundation.

Chanel dinner by invitation only. TFI Awards by invitation only. Möbius, screenings throughout the festival. The Battle of amFAR, 5:30pm, tickets at www.tribecafilm.com.

The Robots in Residence at the Tribeca Film Festival (TFF)

Robert De Niro and Jane Rosenthal founded the Tribeca Film Festival in 2002, providing a much-needed boost to the spirit of New York City and to a neighborhood devastated by the terrorist attacks. It worked. The festival has screened more than 1,300 films since its inception and will surpass four million attendees this year.

But after 10 years, the brand finds itself in need of some freshening. As cinematic celebrations go, the Tribeca Film Festival has a reputation for being a bit serious in tone. Although it has generated some $725 million in economic activity for the city and has attracted plenty of elusive boldfaced names in the process, TFF lacks the sheer celebrity wattage of Cannes and Sundance or the hipster DIY ethic of South by Southwest, and it can even feel a bit institutional (an image that’s not helped by the fact that the festival is presented by American Express).

This is not to say that Tribeca’s staid image is accurate: running from April 17 to 28, the festival boasts seven sections this year, including one (Viewpoints) focused on international independent cinema and another (Midnight) devoted to the kitsch of cult flicks. That’s not even including the recent additions aimed at making the festival more accessible to the common New Yorker, like the Tribeca/ESPN Sports Fest, or the free outdoor viewings that are part of the Family Festival and the Tribeca Drive-In.

But this year brings even bigger changes aimed at breathing fresh life into the festival. Tribeca has made a major attempt to rebrand itself as a techno-savvy, immersive production, one that will have a whole new generation snapping up passes that range from $250 to $25,000 (for the Tribeca Film Institute’s VIP badge).

Most notable is the inclusion of a new category called Storyscapes: five immersive, interactive transmedia projects presented off-site at the Bombay Sapphire “House of Imagination” pop-up, located on the seventh floor of 121 Varick Street. To head up this push toward a younger, more tech-savvy crowd, Tribeca tapped Ingrid Kopp, who is the director of Digital Initiatives at the Tribeca Film Institute, TFF’s year-round nonprofit affiliate, and heads the Institute’s fund for interactive documentary filmmaking.

“We get excited about these projects that reimagine and rethink storytelling using new technologies, and one of the frustrations has been not having places where these films can be shown,” Ms. Kopp told The Observer. “Besides the Internet, of course.”

In Ms. Kopp’s view, having a major “traditional” (her word) festival not only dedicating a space to these projects but also making them “official selections” marks a “major sea change.”

The transmedia narratives of Storyscapes were chosen through an open application program, though Ms. Kopp’s job is to keep an eye out for a talented up-and-comers. That’s how she found Canada’s Bruno Choiniere, Philippe Lambert and Guillaume Braun, the creators of A Journal of Insomnia. Since Fall 2012, the Journal has maintained a website where people can share stories about their sleep issues. At Tribeca, however, the project will be more than just a crowd-sourcing of material; instead, it will be a physical space that visitors can walk through and interact with, challenging its audience to “experience the condition for themselves.”

A considerably more adorable Storyscape is the director-less Robots in Residence, created by “robot artist” Alexander Reben and filmmaker Brent Hoff. Here, the robots themselves—described by a Tribeca spokesperson as a cross between “a baby seal and Wall-E”—provide the feedback loop. They ask visitors questions, and the humans can, in turn, “direct” the robots’ eye-cams where they should look. This collaborative process between human and A.I. is then entered into a long-form documentary film that is Robots in Residence.

The three other Storyscapes exhibitions also fall somewhere on the participant-as-subject spectrum, though their subject matter ranges widely, from artistic (Exquisite Forest, previously at the Tate Modern) to silly (Star Wars Uncut) to serious (Sandy Storyline).

In keeping with the theme of new media storytelling, Beyond: Two Souls, the upcoming “interactive movie” (formerly referred to as a video game) for Playstation, will debut footage at Tribeca, after which actress Ellen Page will talk to creator David Cage. Note: the game’s producers have suggested that viewers might be able to find out “what lies beyond” after playing Beyond: Two Souls.

As for the non-interactive lineup, the sheer number of films guarantees that there will be something for everyone. For opening night, which is about the only night when the Tribeca Film Festival is the place to be, the coordinators have chosen to premiere the documentary Mistaken for Strangers. On the surface, it’s an odd call: last year the festival opened with much more Hollywood-friendly fare, The Five-Year Engagement, and a Vanity Fair-sponsored after-party. Mistaken for Strangers carries no Hollywood firepower and was directed by Tom Berninger, whose biggest claim to fame is that his older brother is the front man for the band the National.

The film tracks the Berninger brothers’ relationship after Tom, a horror movie/heavy metal fan, signs on to be a roadie for his brother’s indie rock band and starts documenting the whole experience. This morphs from a conceptual gimmick into something approaching fraternal genius. (Think the Maysles by way of the Duplasses.) Naturally, the National will play after the screening.

After opening night, there is still much to take in. For the activist, there’s Josh Fox’s Gasland II, a sequel to his 2010 hit. Expect a lot of famous faces at this one, as the anti-fracking movement has become the celebrity cause du jour (it’s way beyond Mark Ruffalo).

For the music fan, there’s Greetings From Tim Buckley, starring Gossip Girl’s Penn Badgley as the titular singer’s son Jeff. (Warning: the filmmakers couldn’t secure the music rights to Jeff Buckley’s work, so there had to be some creative work-arounds.) Be aware that there are two other Buckley films out this year—A Pure Drop by Brendan Fletcher, and the tentatively titled, troubled production Mystery White Boy.

For sports fans, we recommend Benny Safdie’s documentary about the teenage basketball phenom Lenny Cooke.

Other exciting entries include Yves Montmayeur’s profile of Michael Haneke, Michael H. Profession: Director; Red Obsession, which looks at China’s burgeoning Bordeaux mania, complete with counterfeit wine and a criminal syndicate of sommeliers (sure to make Sideways look like The Hangover); and The Kill Team, a troubling look at one of the five U.S. soldiers arrested in 2010 and charged with a heinous war crime—the murder of Afghani citizens for sport.

Then there is the festival’s popular Drive-In, an honest-to-goodness drive-in theater located at Brookfield Place. Of particular note there is Lil Bub & Friendz, a documentary about one of the Internet’s most famous cats, directed by Andy Capper and Vice’s Juliette Eisner, which will have its Tribeca Festival premiere on (appropriately) 4/20.

If there is one area where TFF always excels, it’s the Tribeca Talks, and this year is shaping up to have some unmissable acts, like Clint Eastwood sharing a stage with (no, not an empty chair) Darren Aronofsky after the premiere of WBHE’s Eastwood Directs: The Untold Story on April 27. Or Dutch genius Paul Verhoeven (RoboCop, Total Recall, Basic Instinct, Starship Troopers), who will be discussing his own crowd-sourced film, Tricked, after its North American premiere on Tuesday, April 23. It’s worth attending just for the chance to ask the director why he refuses to make films in this country anymore.

And afterward, you can perk up with some Wall-E robot seals.

Matt Berninger (left) and Tom Berninger in Mistaken For Strangers (TFF)

The resulting documentary--Mistaken for Strangers (which is also a song title from The National's album Boxer)--has been chosen to open the Tribeca Film Festival on April 17th. And so has The National.

From the press release:

“Mistaken for Strangers exemplifies the independent spirit and vitality that Tribeca is excited to showcase every year,” said Geoff Gilmore, Chief Creative Officer. “We are thrilled to open with a film that embodies the journey of an independent filmmaker, and is at its core a highly personal and lighthearted story about brotherly love. It will be a great night of both indie film and music.”
“We’re really happy to premiere this movie at Tribeca, as New York has been home to us for these past 15 years,” Matt Berninger said. “I was happy to give my brother whatever access he needed. I just didn’t expect this movie to include shower scenes.”
"When my brother asked me along on tour as a roadie, I thought I might as well bring a camera to film the experience,” explained director Tom Berninger. “What started as a pretty modest tour documentary has, over the last two and a half years, grown into something much more personal, and hopefully more entertaining. It's a huge thrill to be showing this movie at the Tribeca Film Festival."
The National band members include Matt Berninger, Bryce Dessner, Aaron Dessner, Bryan Devendorf, and Scott Devendorf. In 2010 the band released High Violet, which sold more than half a million copies worldwide. A brand new studio album from The National is slated for a May release on 4AD with a world tour to follow.

That is just what we in the biz call "good cross-promotion marketing." Sure, some may argue that it seems a little incestuous for the band to be promoting the film as a way to promote themselves, but since the filmmaker and the lead singer are brothers, to those people we say: poor choice of words, hombre.

Tribeca Film Festival co-founder and Oscar winner Robert De Niro

Una Noche, directed by New York resident Lucy Molloy, portrays the fictional defection of 3 Cuban youths--"amateur" actors Anailin de la Rua de la Torre, Javier Nunez Florian and Dariel Arrechada--via raft from Havana to Miami. The film has been a big hit at Robert De Niro's Tribeca Film Festival, where it won  multiple jury awards Thursday night. Unfortunately two of the actors weren't at the festival to receive their shared best actor honors--because they may have really defected in Miami earlier this week.

ABC reported the mystery of the actors' disappearances on  Monday:

"Only Dariel Arrechada attended the Tribeca Film Festival premiere screening of 'Una Noche' on Thursday, April 19," a spokeswoman for the Tribeca Film Festival said in a statement. "We have not had any contact with Anailin de la Rua de la Torre or with Javier Nunez Florian."

Tammie Rosen, spokeswoman for the festival, confirmed to ABCNews.com that all of the actors were invited to the festival.

Dariel Arrechada told the Huffington Post he plans on going back to Cuba. "That's their choice," he told HuffPo, regarding his fellow actors' disappearance.

Tribeca jury comments regarding Mr. Florian's and Mr. Arrechada's performances were rapturous. The pair gave "potent individual performances that together are even greater than the sum of their parts. Playing Raul and Elio, young Cuban men who goad each other on in a dream of fleeing Havana for a fantasy of Miami, Dariel locates Raul’s danger and sexual power as precisely as Javier taps into Elio’s essential sweetness. Both young actors are nonprofessionals who took great risks to tell a daring story. Each won our hearts."

Una Noche is New York University graduate Lucy Molloy's first feature-length film.

De Niro.

Call it the Tri-Be-Can’t effect: As New Yorkers, we loathe letting go of our venerable institutions. It’s hard to even admit that they’ve changed enough to warrant a new name. The Lincoln Center is referred to as “the tents” during Fashion Week, as if anyone is still fooled into thinking the shows take place in Bryant Park. The most recent egregious case of celebratory misnomers has to be the Tribeca Film Festival, which was founded in 2002 by Robert De Niro, Jane Rosenthal and Craig Hatkoff. The purpose of hosting the event in Tribeca was to show the world that the neighborhood devastated by the attacks of Sept. 11 still had enough spirit to be snooty about its cinema. With its Cannes-do attitude, the festival premiered international indies in an attempt to show that New Yorkers were still as culturally polyamorous as their European brethren.

But for its 10th-year anniversary, something feels a little … different. Maybe it’s because half the screenings no longer take place anywhere near Tribeca. We actually found ourselves racing along Midtown for the festival’s kick-off at the Ziegfeld Theater. Or maybe it’s that the indie festival debuted with The Five-Year Engagement, with every poster proudly proclaiming that it comes “from the producer of Bridesmaids”—because nothing says “independent” like giving producers and their studios top-billing over the actors.

Oh, well, at least Five-Year is a (Judd) Apatow production: the poor guy probably needs some work thrown his way. He seems to have just dropped off the face of the earth. It’s been about 20 minutes since someone last mentioned Mr. Apatow. If we’re being pinpoint specific, we just read another critique of HBO’s überhyped Girls, which Mr. Apatow also executive produced, so really, make that 20 seconds. Wunderkind Lena Dunham’s first foray into mainstream success has hit both its stride and its official backlash simultaneously—something made even more amazing by the fact that the show is only on its second episode. It’s brilliant! But racist! And sexist! Or at least, Sex and the City-ist! The critically lauded comedy about a girl who believes she’s the voice of “a generation” (if not this one) can’t seem to catch a break, even while it surges to the top of pop culture talking points. (All we’ll say is that we’ll never look at Cabbage Patch lunch boxes the same way again.)

Maybe there was no way Girls could live up to its own hype, but we’ll still be watching. After all, at least we know where those girls stand: Ms. Dunham is Tribeca, born and bred … even if her premiere party was held in the meatpacking district and her character lives in Greenpoint.

Of course, in talking about sticky situations, we’d be remiss not to mention the giant muck-up at Columbia of late. Here we are, going on about some tiny film festival while the Columbia Journalism Review is moving its headquarters off-campus and into Midtown! We were always taught that what goes on in Columbia stays in Columbia (unless we’re talking about the country of the same name and you happen to be part of the Secret Service). They might as well call it the Times Square Journalism Review now. At least employees of The New York Times will know where to send their résumés. We have to admit, the way Times staffers are handling proposed cuts to their Guild Pension plan during their heated contract negotiations with the company’s management is pretty brilliant. YouTube videos are a quick, effective way to get the word out. Not to mention they’re as viral as cute bunnies.

So maybe when it’s all over, The Times can submit these videos as a sequel to Page One for next year’s Tribeca festival. We hear the screenings are going to be held on Long Island.

Topher Grace (Getty Images)

Topher Grace, a sometime romantic lead in sick-day favorites like Valentine’s Day and Win a Date With Tad Hamilton, plays the antagonist in The Giant Mechanical Man, his film that premiered last night at the Tribeca Film Festival. “There was a scene where I’m kissing Jenna [Fischer] and Chris [Messina] is watching and the camera closes in on Chris,” said Mr. Grace, “and I was like, ‘Oh, I’ve been in this scene, I’ve just never played this guy.’ Josh Duhamel or someone else is playing this guy.”

Mr. Grace plays a stringy-haired motivational speaker—shades of Tom Cruise in Magnolia!—who stands in the way of Ms. Fischer’s and Mr. Messina’s happiness. The actor became engrossed by late-night paid spots for speakers in the lead-up to his taking the role, though he was a bit dubious about their merits: “There’s a tone that all of them have to aggressively get you into something—and why would somebody want to tell someone else how to lead a better life? I’d never tell someone that, I barely have me figured out.” The character is a supporting role, not entering until past the twenty-minute mark, and Mr. Grace gets why: “One more minute of that character and you’d absolutely hate him. You’re supposed to love hating him and you might hate hating him.”

The actor, who’s currently acting Off-Broadway in the play Lonely, I’m Not, hadn’t acted live since high school, when a role in a school play led to him being scouted for his star-making role on That ‘70s Show alongside Ashton Kutcher and Mila Kunis. “I don’t feel any guilt,” said Mr. Grace of the more indie direction he’s been taking later, “although it’s not a good story when I tell my out-of-work actor friends, “I was in a high school play, then boom! 70’s!” Mr. Grace noted he’d been the age of Matthew Perry at the beginning of Friends when That 70’s Show ended. “There’s room for more, hopefully. My feeling was if you’re in something that’s been that moneymaking of an endeavor for everyone involved, then I never wanted to make a choice based on money ever again. And I haven’t.”

Topher! Not even Valentine’s Day? “I learned a lot of things on this,” he said, “and I learned a lot of things on Predators. I learned a lot of things on Valentine’s Day. If you’ve gotta do a romantic comedy, do it with Garry Marshall. This summer I did a film where De Niro and Diane Keaton are my parents, and one day they start talking about Godfather Part II, and I’m like “Okey-dokey! So worth it!”

Frederic Boyer (Getty Images)

“I really love Ace Ventura,” Frederic Boyer, veteran of the Cannes Film Festival’s Directors’ Fortnight, told The Observer in a recent interview. “Some people think that coming from the Fortnight, I’m very …” He made frustrated hand gestures, grasping for the right word in English.

“Serious?” The Observer volunteered.

“I am that too! I’m a big fan of Godard. I saw all Ozu and Fassbinder. Those are the masters. I know it well. I like trivial cinema. I have not seen The Avengers yet, but I’m going to see it and love it—or not.”

Last November, Mr. Boyer was appointed artistic director of the Tribeca Film Festival, which opens its 11th edition next week. It’s a position that had been empty since the departure of Peter Scarlet in 2009. As Mr. Boyer tells it, last fall, during the Toronto International Film Festival, Tribeca offered him the position head of programming. He wanted artistic director, and, with persistence, he got it. Now his challenge is to articulate his vision.

Tribeca, cofounded 10 years ago by Robert DeNiro, has always been a heterogeneous mix of Hollywood-style premieres; serious, even academic panel discussion; and fall-between-the-cracks indies. Critics of the festival are hoping Mr. Boyer can breathe new life into it—or at least give the overall program some consistency.

This year’s festival will see screenings of the kinds of small-scale documentaries long championed by Mr. Boyer alongside glitzy screenings of soon-to-be blockbusters, like Jason Segel’s Five-Year Engagement and Robert Downey Jr.’s The Avengers. This kind of mash-up will probably make Mr. Boyer feel right at home; before Cannes, he owned a video store in Paris. “The most important thing to me is to bring new filmmakers,” he said. “And at Tribeca there are always new filmmakers. I want to bring some discoveries and sometimes very unknown films.”

At Cannes, he spent two years running Director’s Fortnight, a sidebar selection of films within the festival. There, he had to be mercilessly selective. “The idea is to select only 22 films,” he said. “And you select four or five French films. So it’s 15 or 16 films for the whole world. It’s very few. Very few. My work in the campaign was to say, ‘No.’”

The films Mr. Boyer selected were so often outré that after his departure, he issued a statement proclaiming his faith in the international film community at the expense of the French press’s parochialism: “The fact remains that if these films travel across the world today, it’s because many professionals spotted their boldness, uniqueness and potential to cross borders.” At the time, he expressed hope that the Director’s Fortnight would find “the solution for continuing to resist the dictates of a certain press which now only swears by its own.”

“It’s a bit more political in France,” he told The Observer. “Here it’s honest people just working. It’s very easy.”

The film world in the United States may be less political than it is in France, but there are still challenges, especially at Tribeca. In 2004, New York Times critic A.O. Scott sounded a hopeful note about the festival, writing that it will, “one hopes, become more navigable and maybe, without sacrificing its eclecticism and curiosity, a bit more coherent as well.” But by 2011, he had given up that hope, throwing out a negative comparison of Tribeca, an “indiscriminate frenzy,” with the more consistently prestigious New York Film Festival.

Mr. Boyer does not seem intent on cutting back the number of screenings—indeed, Tribeca’s various programs provide different staging grounds for the films he voraciously consumes. But there seems to be a greater emphasis on the narrative and documentary films competitions, as well as panels featuring stars like James Franco and Meryl Streep.

The competitions help draw in films whose makers may not be interested in Tribeca. For instance, Mr. Boyer had sought to program War Witch, a Canadian film with a nonprofessional actress in the lead, filmed over 10 years in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. It promised to be a difficult sell. “It was screened at the end of Berlin—the last film screening in competition,” he said. “Usually films like this are difficult. Maybe they want to go to Toronto, New York Film Festival, any other film festival. But I said, ‘I will bring you into the main competition, and it will be great.’”

One aspect of Mr. Boyer’s vision involves the opening-night celebrations in the narrative and documentary competitions. “We are opening the competition, it’s more prestigious. And for the film companies, and for the press, there’s something to focus on, a story.” The opening nights will lend some Avengers-style frisson and red-carpet heat to the films Yossi, an Israeli film about a closeted gay man, and The World Before Her, a documentary about women in India.

Before Mr. Boyer moved to New York in February, he was coordinating the festival’s programming via Skype with programming director Genna Terranova (a Tribeca veteran) and chief creative officer Geoff Gilmore (formerly of Sundance), both of whom, he points out, have a lot of connections with New York filmmakers and make up for what he doesn’t have.

“What’s important to the process is you can’t talk over each other,” said Ms. Terranova, who worked in acquisitions for Miramax and the Weinstein Company and was newly promoted to her current position after David Kwok, the previous head of programming, left last year. “Everyone is forced to listen and wait. There’s etiquette on Skype. It makes for a more thoughtful discussion.”

“It wasn’t going to be something where one person’s making the calls,” said Mr. Gilmore, citing the experience between the three. “At least the two of them plus me really were trying to figure out a way to collectivize—talking about where the festival was headed.”

“We have a lot of respect for each other,” Mr. Boyer said of the often four-hour sessions. “Even when I don’t like a film, we discuss it.” They would discuss DVDs submitted to the festival, but Mr. Boyer reached out, too, to contacts in European cinema. “We want to make the Tribeca Film Festival more attractive for the filmmakers,” he said, and one way they are thinking of doing that is with the renewed focus on the competition, and a potential long-term plan to screen unfinished films in the interest of connecting them with investors.

For this year, though, Mr. Boyer—who bragged to The Observer that, since coming to the United States, his fridge has been full of veggies and he has been going to the gym an hour a day—is just focused on stocking the festival with interesting films. “It’s impossible to find 90 masterpieces anywhere, even Cannes. Sometimes a film is not perfect. A film is a bit too long but you have two fantastic actors. So we can focus on these actors—and it will be fantastic!”

Asked about his own taste in movies, he cited Jim Carrey’s work as evidence that cinema derives its greatness from the circumstances under which you view it. “I like burlesque, bizarre, extreme in any way,” he told us, acknowledging that little of contemporary cinema or the festival’s offerings matched his taste for melodrama, aside from Chris Sullivan’s Consuming Spirits. “It’s an animation film for adults. Totally weird, bizarre or macabre. When you watch the film, it’s not perfect—but it’s interesting.”

He’d recently been asked to submit a list of the 100 best films of all time to a book project collating the opinions of notables. “I don’t want to do it anymore,” he told us. “You have to include Welles, Chaplin, Kubrick … that’s not interesting. It’s more interesting to say: bring the 100 films you like. It’s such a good distinction! Sometimes I like a film because it’s my film! Everybody has the same list except for 10 things, anyway.”

In keeping with his philosophy and his pragmatic approach toward programming the interesting rather than the exhaustive, when he worked at Videosphere, the video store he founded, Mr. Boyer refused to recommend films to viewers. At Tribeca, he seems, refreshingly, to take the same approach to distributors. “Maybe nothing will sell but we don’t care,” he said. “We’re not picking films for the market. It’s a big mistake. We need to be strategic, but it’s not the most important thing. The most important thing is to be enthusiastic about what we are choosing.”

At heart, he is motivated by a fanlike devotion to cinema. “I’m a professional, obviously,” he said. “But I want to be an amateur.”

Lin. (Jonathan Daniel/Getty Images)

We know who we would give the money to: Jeremy Lin, the poor guy. Linsanity lasted approximately a month, in which the Knicks point-guard was the hottest thing since the Rolling Stones showed up in America and pissed off Don Draper. But after a recent knee injury, his career is being put down faster than one of the horses in Luck. Refusing to give up, the basketball sensation is still tweeting about his recovery from the hospital. He’s not out yet!

Maybe he could team up with Kris Humphries of the New Jersey Nets, who is refusing to give up and annul his marriage to reality TV robot, Kim Kardashian. He says he’s not in it for the money, but rather wants an apology from his wife of 72 days, and an admission that she and her family made money off their publicity stunt of a wedding. We’re sure Ms. Kardashian would admit it if she actually believed it to be true; unfortunately she’s spent so much time turning herself into a human brand that she probably doesn’t understand the issue. Doesn’t everyone get married for money (and an E! Special) these days?

Well, at least we know there’s some class left in New York: the celebrities are beginning to arrive for the Tribeca Film Festival, co-founded by Robert DeNiro and made famous by that Jay-Z song. French beauty Catherine Deneuve did not inspire any Repulsion while being honored Monday night at the 39th Annual Chaplin Award Gala. The Film Society of Lincoln Center’s gala brought out the heavy-hitters to honor Ms. Deneuve: Glenn Close, Susan Sarandon and Paul Feig were just several of the attendees to show their Franco-appreciation. It makes sense; we need someone to deify now that Jeremy Lin’s off the court.

Chris Colfer (Getty Images)

The second half of this year's Tribeca Film Festival slate was revealed today, with Spotlight screenings of Julie Delpy's 2 Days in New York (her follow-up to 2 Days in Paris, costarring Chris Rock), Marjane Satrapi and Vincent Paronnaud's Chicken With Plums, and Tanya Wexler's Hysteria (starring Maggie Gyllenhaal in the story of the invention of the vibrator).

"Spotlight is an entry point for general audiences--it's a little more pop-culture-y. You'll see movies that already have distribution, and world premieres with a recognizable face or a director who's done many films before," said Tribeca Director of Programming Genna Terranova, citing Morgan Spurlock's Mansome, a documentary about male grooming, and Struck By Lightning, a film written by Glee co-star Chris Colfer. "It's a great movie for a younger set--the Glee set--which can range from teens to people much older," said Ms. Terranova.

The Cinemania program features edgier films from around the world, including the Tagalog-language thriller Graceland, the Finnish cyber-drama Rat King, and the American revenge drama Revenge for Jolly! Artistic director Frederic Boyer, formerly of Cannes's Directors' Fortnight, noted the more populist bent of his new position: "To bring very popular film--just for the audience, the mix is really interesting and a challenge."

The full slate for this year's Tribeca Film Festival is here.