Lee, Levinson To Screen Latest During Tribeca’s Talks Series

“Tribeca Talks: After the Movie” Inherit the Wind Sponsored by Alfred P Sloan Foundation The Tribeca Film Festival pays tribute to the bicentennial of Charles Darwin’s birth with a retrospective screening of Stanley Kramer’s Inherit the Wind.  Nearly a half century ago, Kramer and his all-star cast (including Spencer Tracy, Fredric March and Gene Kelly) brought this fictionalized version of the infamous 1925 Scopes Monkey Trial to the big screen. The trial was triggered by a public outcry surrounding the teaching of evolution in schools in the 1920s. The anti-evolution movement persists to this day and continues to try to undermine the teaching of evolution in public schools across the country.

The screening will be followed by a panel discussion with special guests from the realms of film and science, including Pulitzer Prize-winning author Jonathan Weiner, Jon Amiel, director of the Charles Darwin biopic Creation and Executive Director of the National Center for Science Education Dr. Eugenie Scott, who will take a closer look at how a scientific explanation of the world, backed by evidence, can bring with it both public and private controversy.

DATE: Saturday, April 25 TIME: 1 PM LOCATION:  SVA Theater 2

Fixer: The Taking of Ajmal Naqshbandi In 2007, the Taliban kidnapped 24-year-old Ajmal Naqshbandi and an Italian journalist. Naqshbandi was one of Afghanistan’s best “fixers”-someone hired by foreign journalists to facilitate, translate, and gain access for their stories. This gripping, tragic story is a behind-the-scenes look into the dangerous and unseen world that happens before we get the news.

The screening will be followed by a panel discussion featuring director Ian Olds, The Nation reporter Christian Parenti, former Afghan fixer Naqeeb Sherzad and New Yorker staff writer and author of “The Assassins’ Gate: America in Iraq” George Packer.

DATE:  Sunday, April 26 TIME: 1 PM LOCATION: SVA Theater 2

Making the Boys The Festival presents a special work-in-progress version of Making the Boys, directed by Crayton Robey. This documentary, about the groundbreaking play that debuted one year before Stonewall, features the many people involved with the original stage play and subsequent film, including Crowley and Dominick Dunne, as well as Edward Albee, Robert Wagner, and Paul Rudnick. After the screening there will be a discussion moderated by Tony Award-winning producer and film documentarian Dori Berinstein, with director Crayton Robey, playwright/screenwriter Mart Crowley, Village Voice columnist Michael Musto and other special guests.

DATE: Monday, April 27 TIME: 8 PM LOCATION: SVA Theater 2

The Girlfriend Experience Director Steven Soderbergh follows five days in the life of a $2,000-an-hour Manhattan call girl (adult film star Sasha Grey) who thinks she has her life totally under control. She even has a devoted boyfriend who accepts her lifestyle. But when you’re in the business of meeting people, you never know who you’re going to meet.

Director Steven Soderbergh and stars Sasha Grey and Chris Santos will participate in a discussion following the film.

DATE: Wednesday, April 29 TIME:  8 PM LOCATION: SVA Theater 2

American Casino Politicians and the media like to talk about the relationship between Wall Street and Main Street, but investigative journalist Leslie Cockburn’s debut feature gets to the guts of the matter, visiting defectors from Bear Stearns and Standard & Poor’s and other high-level players in the subprime mortgage gamble and, on the flipside, visiting the working-class Americans who were the unwitting chips on the table.

Following the screening, director Leslie Cockburn, producer Andrew Cockburn, NYU Stern School of Business Economics Professor and Chairman of RGE Monitor Nouriel Roubini and Bloomberg News correspondent Mark Pittman will discuss the relationship between Wall Street and Main Street.

DATE: Saturday, May 2 TIME: 2 PM LOCATION: Directors Guild Theater

Outrage Academy Award(R)-nominated filmmaker Kirby Dick (This Film Is Not Yet Rated) delivers a searing indictment of the hypocrisy of closeted politicians who actively campaign against the LGBT community to which they covertly belong. Outrage boldly reveals the hidden lives of some of our nation’s most powerful policymakers, details the harm they’ve inflicted on millions of Americans, and examines the media’s complicity in keeping their secrets.

Expanding on the issues raised in Outrage, director Kirby Dick, author and Sirius Radio talk show host Michelangelo Signorile and former New Jersey Governor Jim McGreevey will discuss political hypocrisy, public versus private lives, gay rights, homophobia in the media, and the controversy surrounding outing in a conversation led by author and activist Rodger McFarlane.

DATE: Friday, May 1 TIME: 8 PM LOCATION:  Directors Guild Theater