Columbians at Tribeca Film Festival 2022: Ellie Foumbi '17 wins Audience Award
Update: June 28, 2022
Tribeca has announced the Audience Award winners for their 2022 festival, naming Our Father, The Devil, by Ellie Foumbi '17, Best Narrative Feature.
Foumbi's feature directorial debut, Our Father, The Devil follows Masie Cissé, whose easy day-to-day life as a head chef at a retirement home in small-town France is turned on its head by the arrival of Father Patrick, an African priest whom she recognizes from a terrifying episode in her homeland.
“Winning the Narrative Audience Award at Tribeca means the world to me because it's determined by the people we made the film for," said Foumbi. "It’s a testament to the actors’ incredible performances and the talent and tenacity of our hard-working crew. This award is the cherry on top of an already wonderful week. As unexpected as this win was, it was certainly very appreciated.”
See a full list of Tribeca winners here.
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Original: May 20, 2022
The Tribeca Film Festival 2022, scheduled to run between June 8-19 this summer, will feature new works by alumni and faculty: Albert Berger ’83, Ellie Foumbi ’17, Adjunct Assistant Professor Harris Doran, Kevin Contento ’18, and Julian Robinson ’08.
Berger has produced Ray Romano’s directorial debut, Somewhere in Queens, a comedy-drama which will have its world premiere in the Spotlight Narrative series of the festival. In Somewhere in Queens, an Italian-American dad secretly gets involved in ensuring his son’s high school basketball success, only to find that keeping secrets from his observant family proves more difficult than expected.
Albert Berger is an American film producer. He executive produced the HBO series The Leftovers and was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Picture for Alexander Payne’s comedy-drama, Nebraska.
Foumbi has written and directed the feature narrative film, Our Father, The Devil, which receives its North American Premiere as part of the festival’s Viewpoints series. In it, Masie Cissé works as the head chef at a retirement home in small-town France. Her easy day-to-day life is disrupted by the arrival of Father Patrick, an African priest whom she recognizes from a terrifying episode in her homeland.
Ellie Foumbi is an actor, writer, and director from Cameroon whose work has screened at Venice, HollyShorts, and Santa Barbara International Film Festival. She received her MFA in Directing from Columbia University. Our Father, The Devil is her first feature film.
Doran has written and directed the short film, F^¢K '€M R!GHT B@¢K, which features in the Tribeca Online Premieres series, ‘LGBTQIA+ Shorts: See Me, Feel Me.’ In it, a queer Black rapper must outwit his boss at work to avoid being fired for accidentally taking drugs.
Harris Doran is a New York-based writer and director. His feature film Beauty Mark earned the ‘Breakout Performance’ Jury Prize for lead actress at its LA Film Festival premiere, Best Ultra Indie Film Award at the Woodstock Film Festival, Audience Award Best Feature Film at Austin Film Festival and for which he was shortlisted for the Film Independent Spirit Awards’ Someone to Watch Award. His short F^¢K '€M R!GHT B@¢K was nominated for the Grand Jury prize at Sundance Film Festival this year.
Contento worked as assistant editor and assistant sound recorder for Ivete Lucas and Patrick Bresnan’s documentary Naked Garden, which will have its World Premiere in the Documentary Competition series. The documentary follows the inhabitants of a family naturist resort in Florida, exploring the stories of its inhabitants who hope to build a more perfect society.
Kevin Contento is a Colombian-American filmmaker who grew up in South Florida. A University of Central Florida alumnus, he majored in cinema studies with a minor in philosophy, religion, and popular culture. He earned his MFA in Screenwriting and Directing from the graduate film program at Columbia University’s School of the Arts. His thesis film, Hierophany, world premiered at the 2018 LA Film Festival, in 2019. The Conference of the Birds, his debut feature film, had its World Premiere in Paris, France at the 7eme Lune International Film Festival where it was awarded the Lune d'or (Golden Moon) by the Jury.
Robinson has co-produced and edited Sean Mullin’s sports documentary, It Ain’t Over, which features in the Spotlight Documentary series at Tribeca. The documentary focuses on Lawrence Peter “Yogi” Berra, one of baseball’s greatest stars. Berra amassed ten World Series rings, 3 MVP awards and 18 All-Star Game appearances. He caught the only perfect game in World Series history. Yet for many, his stature is overshadowed by his public persona: his TV commercials as well as his unforgettable “Yogi-isms.” It Ain’t Over recontextualizes the baseball star for modern viewers.
Julian Robinson is an Emmy-nominated director, producer, and editor with two decades' experience working in film and television. He has made seven films as a producer/editor, including SXSW Festival Films, Decoding Deepak, Amira & Sam, and The Price. All Summers End played at the Santa Barbara and Savannah Film festivals. His five Emmy nominations come from TV and multimedia projects, including TV Free Burning Man, ABC’s Daytime Emmy-nominated Everyday Health, and Recipe Rehab. Current TV’s The Oxycontin Express won a Peabody Award in 2009. Agents of Change for UFC Films was part of an Emmy-nominated series in 2019.
The Tribeca Film Festival is an annual film festival organized by Tribeca Enterprises, founded by Jane Rosenthal and Robert De Niro, in 2001. Hosted in New York City, the festival has grown into one of the largest and most prestigious film festivals in America.
