Grad Film Triumphs at Tribeca 2019

Grad Film finished Tribeca 2019 with a number of awards in various competitive categories.

In the International Narrative Competition, the coveted honor of Best Screennplay went to Noah Land (Nuh Tepesi), which alum Cenk Ertuk wrote and directed. Ali Atay also secured another win for the feature in the Best Actor category. Read more about Erturk's journey getting to Grad Film and his experience making the award-winning movie from his recent interview with Washington Square News.

Rania Attieh won the prestigious Nora Ephron Award for her directorial work for Initials S.G. (Iniciales S.G.), which was also directed by alum Daniel Garcia and produced by alum Shruti Ganguly. The prize began in 2013 to recognize a female writer or director in competition that embodies the spirit of the late filmmaker it is named after.

In the Short Film Competition, faculty member Carol Dysinger took home the honor for Best Documentary Short for "Learning To Skateboard In a Warzone (If You’re A Girl)." The jury called the film "a revelatory tale of how skateboarding can fuel the future of dignified resistance to gender oppression in war torn Afghanistan. Told through the Innocent confessions of young girls and the steadfast dedication of their headstrong female instructors, this film shines an uncompromising and ultimately uplifting light onto righting injustice.”

Alum Stefon Bristol earned great praise for his debut feature See You Yesterday, which was awarded second place for the Narrative Audience Award. Read more on his filmmaking journey at Grad Film and the honest mentorship he found in Professor Spike Lee, who produced the film, on Deadline. 

Thesis student Yuchao Feng earned a Special Jury Mention for the Student Visionary Award for his "stunningly cinematic" short, "Pearl (Zhen Zhu)."

Tribeca also saw the world premiere of alum B.Monét's "Ballet After Dark" and thesis student Haley Elizabeth Anderson's "If There Is Light," which was produced by thesis student Swetha Regunathan. They both premiered in Queen Latifah's inaugural program The Queen Collective, which "works to shorten the gap between multicultural female directors and their male counterparts, through mentoring, production support and by offering equal distribution opportunities." The screenings in The Queen Collective are now available on Hulu.

Other work from Grad Film celebrated at Tribeca included psychological thriller Swallow, which alum Carlo Mirabella-Davis directed and wrote, and alum Mollye Asher produced. Haley Bennett won Best Actress in the Narrative Competition for her performance in the film. Geetanjali Thapi received a Special Jury Mention in the same category for her role in Stray Dolls, which alum Charlotte Rabate wrote and produced.

Alum Sasie Sealy also screened Lucky Grandma (辛運的奶奶), which was written by alum Angela Cheng, as part of Viewpoints, and Sealy's debut feature garnered positive reviews from many critics, including those from The Hollywood Reporter.

Alum Lyle Vincent served as cinematographer for the much anticipated Dreamland, which had a successful run as part of the Spotlight Narrative category. The Hollywood Reporter singled out Vincent's work, stating that, "As much as the director, Vincent gives Dreamland its style, which is realistic in its attention to character and poetic in its imagery."

Additionally, in its N.O.W. program, Tribeca highlighted alum Yvonne Michelle Shirley's webseries Frame by Frame.

Find the full list of winners from Tribeca 2019 here.