I finally made an appearance at Tribeca yesterday. As is usually the case when I attend a festival with my acquisition hat on, I collected my goodies (Tribeca always has one of the best goodie bags for buyers in the business) and my catalog and hunkered down with a cup of coffee to plot out the next week of movie going. From a distributor's perspective, this festival has fewer films to offer than in previous years. Rumor is that the ones they did program are better however, and from what I saw Friday, I would have to agree. It gets sticky for me when I write about ongoing festivals because i don't want' to slam anyone before they even get out of the gate, and moreover, I don't want to expand the already expanded heads of producers whose films we are interested in. So, as noted, it was a good first day with more specifics to follow.

One issue I do want to raise though is, where the hell are all the comedies at Tribeca? I know that comedy is hard. For me, it is the most difficult genre of film to do well. But from my initial read of the catalog, admitedly biased to what was screening yesterday, I didn't see much that could pass for even comedy/drama. American life is hard these days. Business is tough all over. A gallon of gas costs more than a sandwich in some places. Other genres are played out, or dominated by one or two companies. People need to laugh. People want to laugh. Distributors and theatre bookers and video buyers want to laugh too! And yet which filmmakers are keying into this?

Did we all forget Little Miss Sunshine? That movie broke out because of its cast, but it would have been successful any way because it was FUNNY!

Here's to hoping next week's program at Tribeca will have some comedy. Lord knows we all need it.

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