The Tribeca Film Festival Movies That Art, Design, and Architecture Lovers Should See

The Tribeca Film Festival began in the shadow of 9/11 in 2002. This year, in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, the festival founded by Robert De Niro, Jane Rosenthal, and Craig Hatkoff celebrated its 20th year with a mixture of in person and virtual screenings. Throughout the 12-day affair, it represented the hopeful reawakening of a city that just a year prior was still locked down and overrun by the coronavirus.

In the Heights, an adaptation of Lin-Manuel Miranda’s hit Broadway play, served as the opener, a fitting nod to the theater industry, which was hit especially hard by restrictions and forced to completely shutter, and is now gearing up for a fall 2021 comeback. (Unfortunately, much-deserved backlash about the lack of Afro-Latinx representation in In the Heights has dampened the mood surrounding this film.) And before the festival came to a close on Sunday, Radio City Music Hall opened its doors for the first time since COVID began for the premiere of the documentary Dave Chappelle: This Time This Place. Rappers like Talib Kweli, Q-Tip, De La Soul, Ghostface Killah, and Fat Joe took the stage alongside the comedian, turning the affair into a celebration.

In between footage from the comedy shows that Chappelle hosted in a cornfield in Yellow Springs, Ohio, during the thick of the pandemic, the film explores the effect of the past year—including COVID-19 and the Black Lives Matter protests—on the town. The fact that Yellow Springs happens to be the chosen home of a somewhat reclusive but ultra-famous comedy legend is, of course, what makes the film interesting, but the documentary (directed by Chappelle’s neighbors Julia Reichert and Steven Bognar) also serves as an important exploration of small town USA.

With the festivities over, the 66 features will slowly be released to the general public in the coming months, and Chappelle’s documentary is just one of quite a few that design lovers may find intriguing. Reflection: A Walk With Water, directed by Emmett Brennan and an important exploration of the built world, follows a group of people walking along the Los Angeles aqueduct. In interviews, various environmentalists discuss what needs to be changed about our towns and cities in order to preserve one of our most precious resources and to avoid disaster.

Less ominous but no less interesting is Wolfgang, a look at the life and career of the man widely considered to be the first celebrity chef. It’s a must-watch for foodies, but a big talking point in the flick is the way Wolfgang Puck’s West Hollywood restaurant Spago, which he opened in 1982, changed the restaurant industry with a design innovation: the open kitchen.

Like Reflection: A Walk With Water, the film The Neutral Ground takes a look at one of the big issues of our times. Directed and written by CJ Hunt, the documentary is set in New Orleans and humorously documents the fraught conversation surrounding the removal of confederate statues. This was part of the new-this-year Juneteenth programming at Tribeca, which also included 10 short films from BIPOC filmmakers hosted in partnership with Lena Waithe and films about Rick James, Alvin Ailey, Harry Belafonte, and more.

Last but not least, anyone who enjoys a juicy art heist should not miss The Last Leonardo, a documentary that is actually not about a crime but might as well be. It tells the story of the Salvator Mundi, a painting that some believe—but some passionately deny—is by Leonardo da Vinci. Whether it is or not, it still fetched $450.3 million at auction in 2017, making it the most expensive painting ever sold and a shining example of when art becomes about so much more than just pretty pictures.

Originally Appeared on Architectural Digest