Live From Tribeca: Blank City

by Noelia Santos
URL: http://www.moviemaker.com/festivals/article/tribeca_film_festival_blank_city_celine_danhier_20090427/
Lining up for rush tickets and then miraculously getting in thanks to the Ticket Fairy (actually, a nice Spanish man who sold me one of his extra tickets), I caught the premiere and after-party of Celine Danhier's Blank City Saturday night at the Tribeca Film Festival. Many of the moviemakers and actors featured in the documentary were in the audience, including Steve Buscemi, whose notoriously fan-shy demeanor was in full blush as he begrudgingly chatted with an admiring fan inside the theater. It is an enjoyable chronicle of the giddy, nihilistic moviemaking style that emerged alongside the No Wave music scene of late 1970s/early 1980s in New York. The film joins a growing roster of projects examining this storied moment in New York history, and nostalgia is high. Only the night before Blank City, two screenings of Burning Down the House: The Story of CBGB were sold out with few rush tickets released. But where Burning Down the House and 2004’s Kill Your Idols focused on the music, Blank City examines the films that sprang from the same fertile bed of manic creative fury.