BY Joseph B. Mauceri

(Day One) - With the opening night party over, the 2008 Tribeca Film Festival was underway on Thursday, April 24th, with a full block of press and industry screenings through Thursday, May 1st. The festival runs through May 4th, for the rest of the film junkies. This year, the festival moved over to the east side of Manhattan, and a bit more uptown, as the screenings were held at either the Village Cinema East or the AMC Village VII, both theaters about a block away from the other.

Even as the memories of the opening night gala was fading the run of the festival was packed with additional parties hosted by a variety of festival organizers, sponsors, and organizers to sustain the event atmosphere of the opening night festivities. FEARSmag was at the First Time Filmmaker Press Meet & Greet that was held in the Target Filmmakers Lounge at the festival. A first time filmmaker on hand, basking in the limelight, was director Justin Meeks, co-director of THE WILD MAN OF THE NAVIDAD, and one of the films on our “must see list.” A small video crew was trailing Meeks in order to document his festival experience. We had just a moment to shake hands and exchange cards, Meeks was off to attend the festival premier of his film.

As the party was winding down, FEARSmag hooked up with Michael Hein, the director of the NYC Horror Film Festival, to attend the Apple party, being held at the Soho Apple Store location on Prince Street. A well-attended event, the Apple Store is an excellent location for an event. Also, you can’t help but wander around the store taking in all the latest Apple products and drooling over some of these high-tech toys. As we made our way through the crowd we met “filmmaker, playwright, composer, crooner, ladies' man, and living legend” Melvin Van Peebles. Melvin returned to this year’s festival with a film titled Confessions of a Ex-Doofus-Itchy Footed Mutha. As we were chatting I whipped out my cellphone to call Niteshift co-host Mike Sargent. A good friend of Melvin, Mike actually as a role in his new film. We passed off the phone to Melvin so he could taunt Mike a bit about his not being at the party. A short time later on of the servers was coming through the crowd passing out 3D glasses. The crowd was going to get a special treat, the chance to see a new Bjork music video shot in 3D. As always, Bjork’s videos are truly entertaining and this one was so much more so thanks to the 3D technology. With the DJ spin some great music the partygoers where up and dancing to the music.

Still going strong at 1:00 am, the store decided to cut the air conditioning to see if they could thin the crowd. However, things were still going strong by the time we decided to leave considering the full schedule of screenings we were going to take in, beging early Friday morning.

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