Hello, and welcome to this special tribeca Film Festival edition of Talking Movies. Im tom brook. In todays programme, with sections on gaming, television and Virtual Reality, is tribeca moving away from being just a Film Festival . We will always be about film. Thats without question. Thats in our dna. But this was a festival in which the wonders of Virtual Reality were fully on display. You sit in a Movie Theatre and a character turns and looks at the camera, they call that breaking the fourth wall. But in vr, there are no walls. Plus, tribeca had movies from around the world. A Father Son Relationship Drama Set in china and a story of womens emancipation in switzerland in the 1970s. They actually had these arguments in the 1970s. They were, like, if women do politics, its apocalypse. Then there were tribecas political films for politically charged, confusing times. We are living in a surreal time. I just dont know what to make of it. And a Tribeca Documentary On People for whom the environment makes them ill. All that and more in this special tribeca Film Festival edition of Talking Movies. New yorks landmark Radio City Music Hall is home to the world famous Synchronised Danceers known as the rockettes. But this year its also played host to the launch of a rather different kind of showbiz act, robert de niros tribeca Film Festival. Ive learned through the years that clive really has a weakness for artists. A documentary profile of legendary American Music executive clive davis opened the festival, a man whose influenced the careers of such artists as barry manilow, patti smith, bruce springsteen, aretha franklin, Whitney Houston and many more. That hes still going strong at age 85 impressed festival co Founder Robert de niro. Im not close to his age, but im getting there. So hes an inspiration. The longer he keeps going, the better it is for me. This two hour documentary was put together by film maker chris perkel. Hes packed a lot into it. Everything. 55 to 58 interviews, Something Like that. Just an unbelievable amount of music, art, artists, executives, its just a blizzard of stars and things that people have relationships with. You know, its the history of popular music, 50 years. Every song i was submitting turned out to be a big hit. There is much to admire in clive davis. His ability to spot and nurture talent, his tenacity. But the film hardly seemed to be a warts and all portrayal. It is a puff piece, in that it only tells his side of the story. There is nothing in it that makes him look at all negative. It was kind of typical for a tribeca opening night, where often theyve got a big gala they have organised around a very Important Media figure. So they show a documentary that is fairly complementary to that person, in order to tie in the sort of celebrations, in this case a big concert with tonnes of people. Tribecas 12 day festival isnt designed with the Highbrow Cineaste in mind. Its a broad offering, with lots to choose from. Everything from thrillers, with stars tom hanks and emma watson, to a political satire set in india, to issue related documentaries, to a portait of the late actor heath ledger. No longerjust a Film Festival, tribeca also unveiled tv shows, Virtual Reality projects and gaming. As technologys changed, as the way distributions changed, we are about good storytelling. And good storytelling, whether or not its in gaming or amazing documentaries, short films and great narratives. This is the first tribeca festival since donald trump became president. These are politically charged times, Giving Tribeca Films which touch on politics a special resonance. One looking back is the reagan show, examining president ronald reagan, and how the administration of this one time hollywood actor used television to its advantage. The film is made up entirely of archival footage from the time. The business that i used to be in said save something for the third act. And we will. It suggests the Reagan Administration governed by relying on what social commentators have termed post truth politics. Post truth politics is a world in which politics is more about the spectacle and the Entertainment Value of the event, rather than any kind of real world, verifiable facts, evidence, truth. So, if the Reagan Administration planted the seeds of post truth politics, then the Trump Administration has really been harvesting that crop. Tribeca is closing with screenings of the godfather and godfather part 2. Robert de niro thinks the original film connected with audiences because, at a time when the social fabric in america could be said to be fraying, it presented a strong portrait of family. People felt more connected to that than they did with the disillusionment and cynicism, the suspicion of the government and so on. I think that. Im oversimplifying it, but that had a lot to do with it, in some way. To many new yorkers, tribeca is a Welcome Hodgepodge of movies and affiliated activities that often proves very engaging. But the festival is yet to launch a truly memorable picture that comes to define it. During festival time there was much talk about a sideshow that could become the main show in years to come Virtual Reality. All told, some 30 different Virtual Reality projects were on display, each attracting a lot of interest. Tristan daley went along to investigate. On the fifth floor of the tribeca Film Festival hub, participants with headsets covering their eyes walk around, waving their hands in the air, interacting with a world only they can see. Tribeca is one of several Film Festivals across the world to be demonstrating burgeoning Virtual Reality technology with a number of different installations, in a time when the market for this gadgetry is rapidly expanding. But tribeca specially designed their Exhibition Space to bring the most out of their Virtual Reality experiences. These installations are not in your living room, right . So when you go into some of these pieces, you are notjust putting a headset on, you are actually entering an installation that has been built specifically for this space. So its actually a bespoke experience. Its also very. Its like a collective experience. People talk about vr being very lonely. But what i love about this is actually were figuring out ways to bring people into spaces and actually have them be part of something that feels collective. Kopp is especially excited about the cutting edge nature of these projects, claiming creators are pushing the capabilities of Virtual Reality to its limits. Treehugger wawona is a project in which participants float up the trunk of a giant sequoia tree. They are able to peek inside the large flora to see it produce oxygen. Creators wanted to immerse the audience not only in the sight and sounds, but also the actual smell of the tree. Weve got a scent release system. When you push your head through the bark, through the sap, to the internals of a tree, the sound changes and scent changes. The more you are pushed into that world, through twisting senses, the more immersive it becomes, the more real thatjourney feels. So, we are always pushing the limits of that. Weve got these sculptural elements, so your touch aligns with the virtual tree. Unlike traditional Motion Picture formats, Virtual Reality thrusts viewers into an illusory 3d space, in which, most times, you can see 360 degrees around you. Some veteran film makers, like steven spielberg, are daunted by the new technology, saying it takes control away from the storytellers, giving the audience more choice on where to look. The advent of Virtual Reality has given film makers a new Storytelling Vocabulary that is distinct from cinema. Eric darnel, the director of the madagascar animation franchise, brought rainbow crow to tribeca this year. Its a retelling of a native american folktale. To him, Virtual Reality is a medium in its own right. Coming from the film world, and ive directed a number of films, i sort of thought, easy, this is going to be no big deal. Ive done this for 25 years. But i got humble really quick when i got into vr. I realised that its just not the same. It just feels different. It looks different. Audiences respond to it in different ways. You know, if you sit in a Movie Theatre and a character turns like theyre looking at me. They call that breaking the fourth wall. In vr, there are no walls. Thats a Pretty Amazing experience for audiences. This whole space is in such a period of flux. We are so interested about all this technology. Every time we get your hands around one thing, and you figure out how it works, tribeca next year is going to look completely different. It just keeps changing. Many challenges lie ahead for this medium, such as how best to harness Virtual Reality to develop original stories and how to develop mass distribution so hundreds can share the same Virtual Reality experience simultaneously. Commercially, a big priority remains developing an effective Business Model so this new technology can be monetised. Now on to some tribeca films in a bit more detail. It goes without saying that tribeca is an american festival. After all, it takes place on american soil. But this year, films from some 31 Different Countries were shown, among them king of peking, set and shot in china. Basically, its a father son relationship drama, but its also an ode to cinema, as nadja thomas reports. Set in china in 1998, king of peking is a layered comedy about a projectionist, his love for movies and his even greater love for his son. The story is about a father who is a projectionist. Hes got a son who works with him in their business, they travel around china, or rural parts of china, and they screen movies for the villages. His Projector Catches Fire and they have to start finding new ways to work together. The ex wife is putting an enormous amount of financial pressure on them, on the father. She has basically given him an ultimatum that unless he pays x amount of money, hes not going to have custody of his child any more. Thats why he goes to the Great Extents Of Bootlegging Movies In Order to keep his son. He even rolls himself up with film to smuggle it to the basement, where he makes his dvds. According to voutas, the digital age phenomenally transformed the cinema in china. It was really only when dvds entered the market, in the 1990s, and vcds, different types of video discs, that these movies were able to enter the home and be consumed by people who, beforehand, didnt have access to these type of stories. And voutas says an easy way to get your hands on a dvd copy of your favourite movie was from a bootlegger on the streets. He got the idea for the story when one of his previous films, also set in china, was bootlegged in real life. It was sort of the spark that got me writing. Our previous film, within a week, it was on the streets of beijing. Rather than get angry, i was actually very impressed with the creativity that the bootleggers had. They had done their own artwork, they had done their own credits. Really interesting stuff. I realised that there was a creative element to the bootlegging. That is how it started. Its more of a sort of. I guess you could say a celebration of the creativity of that world. King of peking is sam voutas first film to premiere the tribeca Film Festival. Though this doesnt guarantee him widespread success, he hopes the exposure from this Film Festival will bring a larger audience beyond those who only saw his last film on bootleg. While making a movie about the bootlegging industry in china is clever and a bit tongue in cheek, for the producer of the film, it all comes back to one thing a tale of a father and his son. Its a love letter, father to son, son to father, as well as a father to cinema and to his passions in life. The real heart of the film is about love. People whose lives are destabilised by products like house paint, perfume, even mobile phones. These are the individuals scrutinised in the tribeca documentary The Sensitives, people who have what is termed multiple chemical sensitivity. The subjects of Drew Xanthopoulos powerful new documentary, The Sensitives, live day to day in a uniquely distressing predicament. They suffer from a new Chronic Disorder that the mainstream medical community largely recognises as real, but has not yet developed any treatment or medication for. It has a name multiple chemical sensitivity. But because the symptoms vary so dramatically, many sufferers struggle to even define their illness. He started having trouble at work with his colleagues, their personal hygiene, their shampoos, things like that. What they have in common is they have developed these debilitating reactions to commonplace things in the environment, things that we take for granted, like garden pesticides, or house paint, perfumes and colognes, and even cellphones, wireless routers, stuff like that. The degree to which each of those things affects them varies and the kinds of reactions, the way it manifests, also has a fair amount of variation. But what they share in common is the things that most of us are unaffected by in small amounts, it affects them immensely. This radio is an at home way to figure out if any Electrical Appliance is spewing out electromagnetic fields. In order to function with any normalcy, the subjects of The Sensitives must dramatically rearrange their lives. Some move to remote areas, where there are fewer man made chemicals and electronics. 0thers Create Safe Spaces in their homes and wear a mask any time they leave. Even documenting their lives was a unique challenge for the film makers, since the cameras and microphones needed to capture these stories often made the subjects physically sick. They were unsure of the effects the camera would have on them, because obviously they normally avoid things like that at all costs. But they signed up to be part of this project because they felt like their story being told would help other people like them feel less lonely, less marginalised. Like theyre not the only ones. So there are a lot of moments where i had to stop shooting because the subjects were feeling uncomfortable with what was going on. Most of the film, i keep a healthy distance between the subject and myself. This is a story that could have been told in a variety of ways. The film makers could have done a conventional talking heads style documentary, with members of the medical community. They could have focused on the companies who create these chemicals and electronics. Instead, The Sensitives looks at its subjects through a personal lens, examining how this unique illness impacts their relationships. We really protected him against these chemical sensitivities. The story of the caregivers was just as important as those who are affected. Its the other half of their story, its what grounds their identity, their loved ones sticking by and keeping them in contact with the world. A 96 year old grandmother delivers mail and supplies, and tries to bring some kind of levity to their life every day. Or a wife that tries to keep her husband sane, by interacting with his grandchildren. So, their stories, to me, are just as compelling as those that were sick and also served as a really important bridge to anyone who would watch this film. When youre that impaired, it can really you feel like dirt. For instance, going to the store each day, people usually notice you are not acting like everyone else. But they dont really know whats going on. Whenever we are confronted with an illness we dont understand, we almost always put the blame on the person whos sick. Multiple sclerosis, before we understood how it worked, you were an hysterical woman. That is why you are feeling this way. You know, ptsd was, oh, you are a man with a weak constitution. Man up. Aids was, oh, youre gay, that is why this is coming upon you. All they have in common is that before we understood what was going on, we phrased it in such a way that it put blame on the person who was sick. Its your fault, youre your own worst enemy. I think these people suffered the exact same kind of treatment, being that people are saying its all in your head. Its all your fault. I would like this film to encourage discussion that gets us past that and breaks that pattern. When you are already not feeling well, you begin to feel like the scum of the earth. When i was scrutinising the tribeca line up this year for films that Talking Movies could possibly cover, i was startled by the write up for one of them, which mentioned that women in switzerland didnt get the right to vote until very late, until 1971. The Tribeca Film The Divine 0rder looks at the story of one womans emancipation at that time. In the divine 0rder, the films protagonist is nora, a Dutiful Swiss wife who, without complaint, tends to the needs of her husband, Father In Law and two children. But she wants more. She wants to work. At the time in switzerland, women couldnt work without permission from their husbands. Shesjust a regular person in the village. Shes very busy with her kids. Then she finds out when her husband forbids her to work that she is actually really affected by these discriminatory laws in switzerland and also that she cant work, she started to be angry about it, and she starts to become a rebel and fight for it. As the divine 0rder makes clear, womens rights in early 1970s switzerland were minimal. 1971, its 46 years ago, its nothing. And they had no rights, they had no right to go to work, they had no right to open up a bank account. They couldnt sign a contract without the will of a man. Having women involved in the political process was seen as being against gods law, against a divine order. The film doesnt directly address why switzerland, commonly thought of as quite a modern country, was so late in granting women the right to vote. There are several possible explanations. I think the big reason is that switzerland is a deeply conservative country and very opposed to change. Switzerland has always been kind of well. After the second world war, the world was in shreds, but switzerland was still 0k. So they didnt see the necessity. They were, like, but were fine. Everythings fine, we shouldnt change it. In the film, one of the most visible local opponents in granting women the right to vote is a woman, the head of the anti politicisation of womens action committee. Many swiss women were opposed to universal suffrage. I thought that was a very intriguing antagonist, because its so surprising that its a woman. I read a whole dissertation on them. I thought, thats more interesting. I think patriarchy, in the end, affects everybody men and women. And i wanted to break up that strict war line between men and women. It is not between men and women. I deeply believe that equality is good for men and women. The film has already opened in switzerland. Its a Story Of Female Empowerment that really resonated, with the picture arriving in cinemas at the time of the worldwide womens march in the wake of president trumps inauguration. I think, with the current political atmosphere, i think the film has become more timely than we anticipated a year ago. Because the film is also about civil courage, about standing up and voicing your opinion, about fighting for justice and equality. This story of swiss womens emancipation is quite good cinema. Marie leuenberger is solemnly convincing in the central role of nora and the divine 0rder very effectively paints a picture of an inward looking, rigid community, almost hermetically sealed off from the rest of the world, that threatens to suffocate its inhabitants. Well, that brings a special tribeca Film Festival edition of Talking Movies to a close. We hope youve enjoyed the programme. Please remember, you can always reach us online at bbc. Com talkingmovies, and you can find us on facebook, too. So, from me, tom brook, and the rest of the Talking Movies production crew here in new york, its goodbye as we leave you with a clip from a tribeca Virtual Reality project called life of us, which is a story of evolution on earth. I think sunday is shaping up to be the better day of the bank holiday weekend, certainly compared to what we expect on monday, certainly across central and southern areas. Thats because this area of low pressure really comes into play during sunday night and in towards monday. Its going to continue to be windy this evening across central Northern Areas but a dry end to the day here. Weve got that area of low pressure spinning up from the south west. This will bring outbreaks of rain, further rain to the south west and a band of rain in towards the midlands, Northern England, north wales. To the north, mostly dry, a few clear spells. To the south, quite a lot of cloud. It will be a mild night across the board. This area of low pressure is going to bring some unsettled weather to a swathe of england and wales through Bank Holiday Monday. Its not going to be a wash out by any means but we could see some heavy and persistent rain across the South West Of England and towards south wales and some rain across Northern Areas. Through central areas where we get the sunshine breaking through in the afternoon, that will lift temperatures up so we see some heavy, slow moving cloud and potentially thunderstorms. Remaining quite wet, though, for cornwall. A few showers as well for Northern England but here we will see an abundance of sunny spells. The further north you head away from that area of low pressure, its likely to stay dry altogether. Northern ireland, parts of North West England and for much of western scotland, here we will probably see the best of the temperatures, 18 19, maybe 20 celsius across the north west highlands. Always cooler across the east because of the onshore breeze. As we head through Bank Holiday Monday evening, that area of low pressure begins to pull away, so we see the showers easing down into the evening and overnight. There is the area of low pressure pushing off into the main continent. Then we have an area of High Pressure starting to build in. Itll start to push Easterly Winds our way never a warm direction, even at this time of year. It will be quite cool across Eastern Coastal Areas on tuesday, we will have some low cloud, maybe mist. The best of the weather will always be across southern and western areas. We will have some shelter, sunshine and the best temperatures. On wednesday, it is cool across the east coast because of the north easterly breeze. This is bbc news. The headlines at 5pm. Labour and conservatives compete for workers votes theresa may rules out a vat rise, while labour says it wont raise tax for those on low incomes. 0n the tenth anniversary of Madeleine Mccanns disappearance, her parents say they still have hope shell be found. Greasesmeg 5; a541 7 the president , i believe, has been putting pressure on him also, but so far perhaps nothing has happened and perhaps it has. Counter terrorism detectives have arrested a woman who was shot during a raid in north london on thursday. Also in the next hour. Chelsea stay well in