Felix reports from Tribeca Film Festival, Part 3

In a previous entry, I briefly remarked on the documentary Our School by Mona Nicoara and Miruna Coca-Cozma. I first became acquainted with this project when I participated in IFP’s Documentray Rough Cut Lab last year. Mona and Miruna were there, too. Back then, I previewed scenes from their film and also had many conversations with this team. Imagine then my delight when I attended the doc’s World premiere at Tribeca this year. I was lucky to make one of the sold-out screenings. Our School is a longitudinal film that follows the paths of three Roma schoolchildren of different ages as they navigate Romania’s mandate to integrate their schools - previously, Roma and non-Roma went to separate (and unequal) institutions.

Stylistically, the film unfolds with little interaction with the filmmakers, more of an observational piece a la Frederick Wiseman (but without the really long takes). Characters are engaging, which helped me become invested in their journeys. I especially appreciated seeing the Roma community depicted in a complex and compassionate manner. During the filmmaker Q&A, the production team (which included emerging editor Erin Casper, first recipient of the Karen Schmeer Editing Fellowship for her work on Our School) was able to fill in some of the gaps left by the film’s open-ended finale. In a moment of levity, when Casper was asked about her process working with so much footage covering a long span of years, co-director Nicoara joked that the editor could now speak Romanian with a Transylvanian accent.

Our School filmmakers: (L-R) Erin Casper, Mona Nicoara, and Miruna Coca-Cozma

Another one of my favorite Tribeca entries this year also happens to come from fellow participants in IFP’s Lab, Michael Collins and Marty Syjuco. Set in the U.S., Spain, and the Philippines, Give Up Tomorrow, records the struggle to win the release of an innocent man wrongly convicted of the rape and murder of two sisters. The film is a relentless indictment of a corrupt political and judicial system, and of the vestiges of colonialism that still haunt a country and its people. I remember chatting with Syjuco about the challenges of editing a documentary that uses material collected from various sources (newscasts, archival, original interviews, re-enactments, etc.) and throughout almost 8 years. That this team has created a film that isn’t only engaging and coherent, but also immensely powerful, is nothing short of amazing.

I’m proud and grateful to have been a part of the lab with these amazing filmmakers.