Alex Gibney
Last week, Tribeca Film Festival founder Jane Rosenthal jokingly referred to this year's Festival as "The Alex Gibney Film Festival". Gibney, a respected documentarian who won the Oscar for the film TAXI TO THE DARKSIDE, has three films featured at this year's event.
In MY TRIP TO AL-QAEDA, Gibney adapts an acclaimed one-man theater piece by playwright Lawrence Wright to offer a deft and alarming look at the rise of Muslim fundamentalism. Gibney is also one of six directors who contributed segments for FREAKONOMICS, the Festival's Closing Night Film. The film is based on the 2005 best seller about corruption in all walks of life and human endeavor.
Gibney even has a work in progress in the Festival that has elicited the most buzz of almost any title at the 12 day film feast.
THE UNTITLED DOCUMENTARY ABOUT ELIOT SPITZER is the working title for an expose of the former New York governor who resigned in disgrace after information on his use of public funds to pay for sex with prostitutes brought the former high flyer crashing to the ground. As Spitzer himself attempts to reintroduce himself into the public eye with appearances on television and at political events, Gibney's film looks at the American obsession with secrecy and uncovering the dirty laundry of our most respected public figures.
For more information on these and other films screening this final weekend at the Tribeca Film Festival, visit:
www.tribecafilm.com
Sandy Mandelberger, Festival Dailies Editor
