TribeCa Film Festival - Spotlight Narrative Lineup

A young African-American living in Chicago enters into a seductive new world of money and power after he is hired as a chauffeur for an affluent businessman.

Steve is haunted by his past as every object in his home, every sound he hears reminds him of a specific event in his life. Steve connects the events of his life to discover how he ended up alone and broken. As he relives each significant memory, he understands the generational issues that have held him captive like his father before him. Can he move past the pain and forgive his trespassers, and more importantly, forgive himself?

Three Christs tells the story of an extraordinary experiment that began in 1959 at Michigan's Ypsilanti State Hospital, where Dr. Alan Stone treated three paranoid schizophrenic patients who each believe they are Jesus Christ. Dr. Stone pioneers a simple, yet revolutionary treatment: instead of submitting the patients to electroshock, forced restraints and tranquilizers, he puts them in a room together to confront their delusions. What transpires is a darkly comic, intensely dramatic story about the nature of identity and the power of empathy.

Chicago, 1993. At his 23 years-old, James Fray is a lost soul stuck in a spiral of auto-destruction due to his addiction to drugs and alcohol. After a night of partying, James accidentally falls off the balcony of the house where he was staying, breaking his nose. When he comes to from his alcohol and drug-fueled high hours later, he finds himself on an airplane headed to Minnesota, to be admitted in Hazelden Foundation, a legendary rehab center for addicts. Reluctant to take any step to address his addictions, in the center he meets other patients in treatment: Leonard, a foul-mouthed former member of the mob; John, a deranged sexual obsessive unable to contain his primary impulses; Roy, a bipolar disorder combined with religious delirium; and finally Miles, a clarinet player and former judge who turns on his roommate. Despite the rules of the center that prevent all contact between men and women, who are treated in different pavilions of the center, James meets Lilly, a beautiful and fragile young girl with a serious problem of addiction and emotional dependence. Watched by the center's staff, supervisor Lincoln and psychologist Joanne, James starts to think about the life he lived and the events of his past at the same time he is visited by his older brother Bob Jr., a man frustrated by his younger brother's addiction, in an attempt to redirect him. While James finds in Leonard a supporter and friend to start his recovery, he and Lilly meet in secret, falling in love each other. However, when their meetings are discovered by Lincoln and Joanne, James finds himself not only fearing by Lilly's life, but at a crossroads where every decision could change his life forever.

In a forgotten pocket of Southern Ohio where American manufacturing and opportunity are dying up, a determined young woman finds a ticket out when she is accepted to college. Alongside her older brother, Ruth Avery joins a dangerous scrap metal crew in order to pay her way. Together, they spend one brutal winter working the scrap yards during the day and stealing valuable metal from the once thriving factories at night. With her goal in sight, Ruth finds that the ultimate cost for an education for a girl like her may be more than she bargained for, and she soon finds herself torn between a promising future and the family she would leave behind.

A love triangle involving a photographer, a director and an actress.

When old, dementia/Alzheimer's stricken Ruth walks away from home on a snowy Christmas Eve, her husband, Burt, calls his son, Nick, the police etc. Nick calls his sister, Bridget, who flies to Chicago with her daughter, Emma. Ruth is found and at the hospital. She's OK but something has to be done. Burt is also off his mind as he's bought a big convertible and is driving around in the winter with the top down. He wants to move to Florida with Ruth, not accepting her condition and not wanting to be alone. Nick shows his bar to his sister and brings up memory care facility for mom and getting power of attorney.

Hala, a Pakistani-American teenager girl in her final year of high school is cautious with her words, but avidly curious with her eyes and ears. Floating in a limbo between two cultures, she's gently pulling back from her Muslim faith and tentatively testing her crush on Jesse, a tousled blond classmate with a sensitive soul. She's a fascinating paradox, at once subdued and adventurous: One moment, she's meekly enduring the affectionate nagging of her anxious mother Eram; the next, she's racing through their Chicago suburb on her skateboard.

A widowed ex-cop discovers that she may have a life threatening illness, and decides to go on a solo road trip in a motorized wheelchair to explore the beauty of the Southwest. On her journey, Rose discovers more than just the simple beauty of New Mexico when she meets -- and falls in love with -- Max, an old cowboy who comes to a crossroads of his own. Sometimes love takes the backroads.

Ana meets Rafa in a chance encounter and they embark on a road trip to try and save him from bankruptcy, or worse.

Two brothers try to escape their circumstances by travelling across the country for a no holds barred boxing match that becomes a fight for their lives.

A Long Island school superintendent and his assistant are credited with bringing the district unprecedented prestige. Frank is a master of positive messaging, whether before an audience of community leaders or in an office with a concerned student or parent. That changes when a student reporter uncovers an embezzlement scheme of epic proportions, prompting Frank to devise an elaborate cover-up.

Alan, Red, and Smitty spend high summer on the Jersey Shore roving the boardwalk and getting into trouble. But the discovery of good old fashioned treasure sets the friends on an escalating course of suspicion and violence in this atmospheric thriller.

Hilarious, outgoing and always up for a good time, New Yorker Brittany Forgleris everybody's best friend -- except maybe her own. At 27, her hard-partying ways, chronic underemployment and toxic relationships are catching up with her, but when she stops by a new doctor's office to try to score some Adderall, she gets slapped with a prescription she never wanted: Get healthy. Too broke for a gym and too proud to ask for help, Brit is at a loss, until her seemingly together neighbor Catherine pushes her to lace up her Converse sneakers and run one sweaty block. The next day, she runs two. And soon, after finishing her first mile, she sets an almost unthinkable goal: running in the New York City Marathon.

Follows one day in the life of Jane (Julia Garner), a recent college graduate and aspiring film producer, who has recently landed her dream job as a junior assistant to a powerful entertainment mogul. Her day is much like any other assistant's - making coffee, changing the paper in the copy machine, ordering lunch, arranging travel, taking phone messages, onboarding a new hire. But as Jane follows her daily routine, she, and we, grow increasingly aware of the abuse that insidiously colors every aspect of her work day, an accumulation of degradations against which Jane decides to take a stand, only to discover the true depth of the system into which she has entered.

In this feel-good apocalyptic comedy, Liza (Zoe Lister-Jones) embarks on a hilarious journey through LA in hopes of making it to her last party before it all ends, running into an eclectic cast of characters along the way.

A manager of an orphanage in Kolkata travels to New York to meet a benefactor.

Andrea is a recently sober writer whose career has stalled since she published her debut novel several years ago. She strikes up an affair with Nick, a doctor-turned-writer who is hailed for his wartime memoir. At the same time, her sister Tara, a massage therapist dating an aging rock star, finds herself inexorably drawn to a newfound religious zeal and, particularly, to a politically-engaged rabbi.