A Drumroll Please . . . Tribeca 6

So the sixth annual Tribeca Film Festival has opened and I have to say that on the strength of the seven or eight films I've seen already, the event is its own best defense. I've written on three of the Jewish-themed films in this week's Jewish Week, and don't have much to add to what's written there, except to say that if you can only see one film in the festival, My Father, My Lord is the film you should see. Given it's 73-minute running time, it may have trouble getting a theatrical release, although it may turn up at the Israel Film Festival, which will be coming to town in June. But this is a truly brilliant first feature by David Volach and you should take whatever opportunity presents itself to see the film.

The other film that really has impressed me so far is Pascale Ferran's Lady Chatterley, which has already garnered numerous Cesars and a lot of deserved rave reviews. It is definitely on the must-see list, but it is opening later in the spring. I'll write about Lady Chatterley and several other films from the festival over the next few days, but I have to be up and at a 9 a.m. screening so this will have to wait.

In the meantime, by all means check out the Tribeca schedule at their website.

And a quick but unrelated aside. The gents at Order of the Exile, the excellent Jacques Rivette page inform me that their April update is online:

• The April update has a translation of the 2007 Berlinale press conference on Rivette latest film, "Don't Touch the Axe." It's all the buzz in France; there are rumors that it's one of his best, if not contemporary French cinema's, in years. Plus some very candid moments with John Hughes, carried over with kind permission from the e-journal Rouge.

I knew John; he was one of the great characters in New York film and is greatly missed. But that's a story (or more) for another time.