Tribeca’s Obsession With Reality

To judge by the entries in this year’s Tribeca Film Festival in New York, the days of movies as America’s grand escape from difficult reality may be over. “In the shadows of [a few] glittering billboards seethes a mass of films, many taped on digital video or filmed with hand-held cameras, in which reality is the thing. An immersion in this year’s festival might be described as an intensive course in compassion, suffering and outrage. For a festival born out of the ashes of 9/11, could it be any other way?”