(in this series we present five short films slated for premiere at the 2020 Tribeca Film Festival)

Co-writer/director Sophie Kargman’s "Query" was selected to world premiere at this year’s recently postponed Oscar-qualifying Tribeca Film Festival, which is due to be shown online in the coming months to select audiences. The film questions how heterosexuality is formed. It stars Justice

The eighties were a fruitful time for the fusion of films and pop music. Never was there a time when the pop charts and the weekly box-office complimented one another as often as they did then. It got to the point where a film’s popularity would sometimes depend on the success of its soundtrack. Eighties-era MTV was a willing participant in the crossover promotion of big Hollywood films, as a hit video from a film’s soundtrack

“The Sharks” ("Los Tiburones" in the original Spanish title) is something special. Uruguayan writer/director Lucía Garibaldi's feature-length debut is a coming of age tale that gets to the heart of its subject without judgment or forced and phony life lessons. This is a careful and organic look at a teenager on the cusp of becoming a woman.

Almost overwhelmed

The most frightening film of 2020 is not a horror flick. It’s a film about our electoral process. Chris Durrance and Barak Goodman’s stunning and eye-opening documentary examines how gerrymandering (the act of manipulating boundaries of an electoral constituency to favor one political party) is a very real and very present danger to our American democracy. This could be the most important film of 2020.

Politics in the horror genre is a tricky thing. If done incorrectly, a film’s political slant can hurt its narrative. When done right, a political take can enhance a film’s potency. The late George A. Romero and horror film legend John Carpenter are the two filmmakers who expertly infused their political messages within their works.

Romero, with his series of “...of the Dead” films, made each one a reflection and commentary

Beginning your crime film with “The Passenger” by Iggy Pop is a marvelous idea and one that excitingly sets the tone for the very clever and labyrinthine noir “La Gomera” (“The Whistlers” in the English version). With his latest film director Corneliu Porumboiu has created a fantastic and riveting pop-culture cops-and-mobsters film that occasionally gives way to philosophical leanings.

The television cult hit “Mystery Science Theater 3000” ran from November 24, 1988 (where it began on KTMA-TV Minneapolis, Minnesota) until its cancelation in 1999 after three seasons at the then-new Sci-Fi Channel and seven seasons at The Comedy Channel/Comedy Central. 

MST3K was and is a unique television show. The simple plot being a man (Joel

A grade schoolgirl grooming herself to be the next Warren Buffet. One who puts profit margin above a real education. A girl who sells hot cigarettes at her junior high-school. This behavior continues through her life as she resists the easy road and finds alternative ways to make that green. Hustle. Hustle. Hustle. And most importantly, “Don’t fuck with my money!” This is how the new social comedy “Buffaloed” begins. Not with a small character build 

How far would we go to protect our lives and careers and to shelter our loved ones from pain? To what lengths would we go to bury our sins? What would be the consequence if those sins are revealed?

These are the questions asked and answered by the New Mexico/U.K. co-production “Feedback,” a tense and well-acted thriller that explodes with the ferocity of a shotgun

Tonight in Hollywood, and across the globe, it's all about "Parasite." “Parasite” by the Korean director Bong Joon-Ho, netted four Academy Awards on Sunday, winning in the Best Film, Best Director (Bong Joon-ho), Best Foreign Film and Best Screenplay categories. What a winning streak! Joon-Ho made history, too, in the process. This is the first time that a non-English-language film won for Best Film at the Academy