Demis Hassabis in "The Thinking Game,"which received its world premiere at the 2024 Tribeca Festival. In October, 2024 Demis Hassabis along with two colleagues won the 2024 Nobel Prize in Chemistry for decoding the structure of some proteins and creating new ones, yielding, among other things, advances in drug development.
"Motorcycle Mary," a short documentary that had its world premiere at this year's Tribeca Festival, revolves around an 87-year-old woman with electric blue eyes and a ready smile. Mary McGee, a professional race car driver and subsequently a motorcycle racer, brims with courage and determination, and as she looks back on her life, with pride.
Encouraged by her older brother, Jim Connors, Mary started racing cars in 1957. Three years later, she became the first woman to road race motorcycles. She loved what she was doing despite the obvious risks and despite the fact that as a woman, she wasn't recognized for her achievements as a man would have been. But the actor Steve McQueen did notice her and became her friend. He encouraged her to leave road racing and race in the desert. Trained by his stunts crew, she became the first woman to engage in cross-country racing on a motorcycle as well as the first woman to undertake an off-road course through the Baja California peninsula, a distance of around 500 miles that she was the first person — man or woman — to traverse alone.
"Probably the thing that I'm proudest about [is] that I had something to do with showing women that they could come out and race motorcycles," Mary says in the film. Women who have tried to enter a field previously reserved for or dominated by men would undoubtedly relate to that.
"Motorcycle Mary" was produced by two women — Rachel Greenwald and Haley Watson, who was also the director and cinematographer. Watson's previous work included the 2021 Academy Award-winning "The Queen of Basketball."
After the Tribeca Festival, "Motorcycle Mary" is slated to appear on ESPN with a release date to be determined. The film was also screened at the Nevada Women's Film Festival which took place in Las Vegas in June 2024. — Terese Loeb Kreuzer
After the Tribeca Festival premiere of "The Thinking Game," Greg Kohs, director, chinematographer and co-producer of the film, applauded Demis Hassabis, the co-founder of DeepMind, a groundbreaking artificial intelligence company. Filmmaker Darren Aronofsky interviewed Kohs and Hassabis about the film and about the possibilities and implications of artificial intelligence. (Photo: © Terese Loeb Kreuzer)
Fictional journalist Lena Antonova is played by Aliaksandra Vaitsekhovich in a film at this year's Tribeca Festival called "Under the Grey Sky." The film is based on a true story and concerns the persecution and imprisonment of a journalist who was broadcasting footage of massive protests in November 2020 against the rigged election of Belarus President Alexander Lukashenko. The journalist on whom the film is based is named Katsiaryna Andreyeva. She has been in prison for four years of an eight year sentence with no prospect for early release.
Tribeca Film Festival 2024 Reviews
'Under the Grey Sky'
Mary McGee was the first woman to race motorcycles in the United States. She was also the first person to ride the grueling Baja 500 race solo.
Tribeca Film Festival 2024 Reviews
'Motorcycle Mary'
To escape Russian bombs, a camel was among the large animals that had to be evacuated from the Feldman Ecopark just outside of Kharkiv, Ukraine. The rescuers had to deal with animals of all sizes and temperaments and also to find places willing and able to care for them.
Tribeca Film Festival 2024 Reviews
'Checkpoint Zoo'
Tribeca Film Festival 2024 Reviews
'The Thinking Game'
Checkpoint Zoo, playing at the Tribeca Film Festival, is an important movie that makes the insanity of the Russian invasion of Ukraine vivid and even more horrifying and destructive than stories in print can convey. In 2022, shortly after the Russian invasion, around 5,000 animals were trapped at the Feldman Ecopark, a zoo just outside of Kharkiv, Ukraine, near the Russian border. With the animals running out of food and water and stressed and imperiled by Russian bombs, a heroic team of zookeepers and volunteers undertook to rescue as many of the animals as possible. The animals needing to be evacuated included lions and tigers who were capable of maiming or killing their rescuers as well as smaller, more docile animals.
The bewildered suffering of the animals in the film is poignant. They make the species “homo sapiens” seem despicable in its capacity to harm gratuitously only balanced by the capacity of humans to care and to try to behave in ways that are compassionate and noble.
— Terese Loeb Kreuzer
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"Under the Grey Sky" is an important film about what it's like to live under a dictatorship. With several European nations veering in that direction and with the United States also at risk of having democracy subverted by a would-be dictator, this film about what has happened and is happening in Belarus takes on great urgency. It depicts the courageous role that journalists can play in informing the public and holding the government to account and the price that they may pay for their courage.
This film, which was written and directed by Mara Tamkovich, is flawless in its acting, camerawork, editing and pacing. It received its world premiere at this year's Tribeca Festival. Katsiaryna Andreyeva, whose story inspired Tamkovich to make the film, was the first journalist attempting to cover the protests to be detained and not just fined or given a short sentence. "The fact that she did not get out was a teaching moment for the rest of the free press," Tamkovich said in a recent interview. "Since the time that she was arrested and convicted, more and more journalists have been arrested and convicted for very long prison terms. She was symptomatic of what's happening to the whole country. But Belarus is not Lukashenko."
According to press notes accompanying the film, "since 2020, over 136,000 Belarusians have experienced various types of political persecution...Almost 1,400 political prisoners are currently imprisoned. The actual number is much higher and is growing every day."
Asked if there might be consequences for her because of making this film, Tamkovich replied that there are consequences but "they are not as severe as for people in Belarus."
"I can't go to Belarus anymore," she said.
(The Tribeca Festival is over for this year but if "Under the Grey Sky" is booked elsewhere, that will be reported here.)
Mara Tamkovich, the writer and director of "Under The Grey Sky," which was her first feature film. She was born in Belarus but lived in Poland for 17 years. The Polish Film Institute helped to finance "Under the Grey Sky." (Photo: © Terese Loeb Kreuzer)
TRIBECA FILM FESTIVAL: 2024