‘Zero Motivation’

The 12th annual Tribeca Film Festival is nearing the end of its 2014 cycle with the announcement of its competition winners. The big winner was Zero Motivation, a film from Israel which won the prize for Best Narrative Feature, a dark comedy which focuses on a day-in-the-life in a human resources office of a desert army base.  Past films to have won the Best Narrative Feature prize include The Rocket, Australia’s 2013 Oscar submission, War Witch (nominated for the 2012 Best Foreign Language Oscar), Swedish cult favorite Let the Right One In and Roger Dodger, a 2002 comedy starring Campbell Scott which won the inaugural prize in 2002.

Paul Schneider (Lars and the Real Girl, The Assassination of Jesse James) was named Best Actor for Goodbye to All That, a comedy-drama from Angus MacLachlan, the directorial debut of the screenwriter to the 2005 Amy Adams indie Junebug.  While, Valeria Bruni Tedeschi (Munich) won the Best Actress prize for her work in the French/Italian co-production Human Capital.  Prizes were also handed out by the Tribeca film juries for cinematography, film editing and best in documentary filmmaking.  Notable films in the past that were launched at the Tribeca Film Festival include the Oscar winning documentary Taxi to the Dark Side (from director Alex Gibney), Transamerica, and last years Best Foreign Language film nominee The Broken Circle Breakdown.

The New York based film festival was established in 2002 by Robert De Niro, Jane Rosenthal and Craig Hatkoff in the wake of 9/11 as a way to rejuvenate the lower Manhattan borough. In the past, event films like Star Wars: Episode II Attack of the Clones and Marvel’s The Avengers have screened in Tribeca, but the festival mostly focuses on screening smaller films from around the world.   The festival continues until April 27th.

Full list of winners:

• BEST NARRATIVE FEATURE: Zero Motivation (Israel)
• BEST ACTOR: Paul Schneider, Goodbye to All That (USA)
• BEST ACTRESS: Valeria Bruni Tedeschi, Human Capital (Italy, France)
• BEST SCREENPLAY: The Kidnapping of Michel Houellebecq– written by Guillaume Nicloux (France)
• BEST CINEMATOGRAPHY: Damian Garcia, Gueros (Mexico)
• BEST EDITING: Keith Miller, Five Star (USA)
• BEST DOCUMENTARY FEATURE: Point and Shoot (USA)
• BEST DOCUMENTARY EDITING: Sabine Lubbe Bakker and Niels van Koevorden, Ne Me Quitte Pas (Netherlands, Belgium)
• BEST NEW NARRATIVE DIRECTOR: Josef Wladyka, Manos Sucias (Columbia, USA)
• BEST NEW DOCUMENTARY DIRECTOR: Alan Hicks, Keep on Keeping On (USA)