Tribeca Festival 2025 #1: I Was Born This Way, We Are Pat, Birthright
Three world premieres open our slate.
June is here, which means it's time for another Tribeca Film Festival. Just as I’ve done the past few years, I'll be virtually covering the goings-on and reviewing as many movies as I can.
We begin this first dispatch with two documentaries and one international narrative, all three of which are making their world premieres at the festival.
I Was Born This Way
Surviving childhood abuse during his upbringing in Baltimore, Archbishop Carl Bean forged a path to New York and Hollywood to do the one thing he knew he was put on earth to do: sing. Making his mark first as a gospel singer, Bean got the break of his life when Motown tapped him in 1977 to record the disco song “I Was Born This Way,” which quickly became the first gay anthem at a time when it was uncommon to be out and proud. When the AIDS crisis hit, however, Bean soon found himself drawn to a different calling: compassionate activism.
Before he was Archbishop Carl Bean, he was gay anthem icon Carl Bean. I Was Born This Way, the new documentary named after Bean's one-hit wonder, is the story of a man whose life seems split in two. What we come to learn, however, is that it's about a man whose life is defined by one thing, regardless of whether it was at the disco or in the church: activism.
The documentary, from co-directors Daniel Junge and Sam Pollard (I'm at the point where I'll watch any doc directed by Pollard, which is why I started this one in the first place), is pitched in the beginning as a missing persons case of sorts, where the talking heads ask themselves, "Whatever happened to Carl Bean?" I'm not exactly sure about that framing, as Bean was an open and public-facing figure up until his 2021 death, which includes the release of his memoir of the same name in 2010. When Questlove pulls out Bean's Motown record and says, "I don't know much about Carl Bean. I heard that he might've started a church or something" - that's more believable, as I'm sure most people watching the movie don't know Bean's full story.
Born and raised in Baltimore (Pollard is now a transplant and fellow Baltimorean himself), Bean's childhood is told largely through rotoscope animation - an unusual filmmaking move in the modern day, and a decision that might make the more difficult parts of Bean's story a bit easier to stomach. As the biography turns to his adulthood and the success he saw with his music career, familiar faces like Lady Gaga (who, naturally, named one of her most famous songs and the album it appeared on after Bean's song) and Billy Porter contextualize how important it was to have "I Was Born This Way," with lyrics like "I'm happy/ carefree and gay / yes, I'm gay" as a pioneer for gay representation in popular music.
But the film's biggest accomplishment is when it understands the joys of Bean's life, the one exemplified in his famous song. In starting a nonprofit, the Minority AIDS Project, and a new Protestant Christian denomination, the Unity Fellowship Church Movement, he found a way to continue his mission of change and acceptance. His resilience, perhaps his most defining strength in a world of racism and homophobia, is inspirational. He shows that there's always more to be done. As Lady Gaga says in the film, “We have so much work to do.” We have Bean to thank for blazing that trail.
We Are Pat
Pat, the evasive, androgynous SNL character played by Julia Sweeney, was a ubiquitous presence in the pop culture ether of the 1990s. As a kid, filmmaker Ro Haber grappled with a strange obsession with Pat — a character whose popularity hinged on them making others wildly uncomfortable with their refusal to adhere to strict gender lines. Both time and their identity moved forward and yet, even as an adult, Haber’s preoccupation remained. Now, 35 years after the first “It’s Pat” sketch debuted on SNL, Tribeca alum filmmaker Haber and a who’s who of queer and trans comedians and writers (including Sweeney herself) come together to confront the existence of Pat.
Comedy has a bad habit of aging poorly. What was funny then isn't always funny now. With something as volatile as Saturday Night Live, which can occasionally have the batting average of a backup catcher, the best is remembered and quoted and merchandised, while the worst is forgotten. In retrospect, it's startling that a recurring sketch like Pat, an "androgynous" character whose entire joke is their mysterious gender, would appear over a dozen times - including in a 1994 feature film.
And I mean that was the entire joke. They show one where Christopher Walken's character jumps out of a window because he's so confused about Pat's gender. The little theme song goes, "A lot of people say, “What’s that?” It’s Pat! A lot of people ask, “Who’s he? Or she?” It's genuinely strange to see gender non-conformity met with the word "it" - the film is called It's Pat - as the word "they" is today's most appropriate catch-all.
But it's that exact line graph, the aging of "it was a different time" comedy compared to the ever-growing social acceptance of gender diversity, that interests director Ro Haber. A strange childhood obsession with Pat grew into an interest in how the character would navigate, or be navigated, in the present day. In the documentary We Are Pat, Haber gathers a writers' room of gender non-conforming comedians and creators - familiar faces in the interviews include Murray Hill, Roz Hernandez, and SNL alum Molly Kearney - to reimagine what Pat sketches would look like now. The sketches, hell, even the pitches, are laugh-out-loud hilarious and boundary-pushing in ways SNL (and I say this as a big fan) could only dream of for network television.
This comes from, believe it or not, an appreciation for the character. Whether the joke was on Pat or the people around Pat (original Pat Julia Sweeney thinks one thing, I think another), it was rare representation for trans and non-binary youth. Pat was unbothered and unapologetically themself, regardless of pre-determined gender stereotypes. It's Pat has even developed a bit of a cult following. It's a message of self-acceptance, albeit with an unusual character. Regardless of who or what Pat is, Pat is Pat. That's dope. I agree with Haber, we could all be a little more like Pat.
Birthright
Is there anything worse than to be evicted and lose your job when you’re a couple pregnant with your first child? Broke and directionless, Cory and his wife Jasmine may not think so, but that’s before they’re forced to move in with Cory’s parents: the stern Richard and the icy cold Lyn. At first, the discomfort and awkwardness stem from the obvious — Cory’s folks are disappointed in their son and how his choices have led him back to their doorstep. But the longer the young couple stays, the more paranoid, fraught and furious they get, setting off an escalating power struggle that gives new meaning to “family dysfunction.”
Not exactly hidden within the Australian black comedy Birthright is a skin-tingling horror movie. In fact, it may be hard to categorize the film as one or the other. At times, it is uncomfortably funny. At others, almost unwatchable. It's an on-the-nose examination of the generation gap between fresh-faced adults and their disappointed parents.
When writer/director Zoe Pepper's debut film begins, Cory (Travis Jeffery) and Jasmine (Maria Angelico) are packing their car, stuffing the trunk completely full. Jasmine is very pregnant and the couple is very broke. Cory's lost his job and they've been evicted from their rental, so their master plan is to invite themselves over for lunch at Cory's parents' (Michael Hurst and Linda Cropper) house and then...never leave. They're plenty wealthy, after all, and surely wouldn't mind helping.
Wrong. Something is off from the moment they arrive. Sure, there are plenty of those quips that our parents think are helpful, but are, in reality, the exact opposite. You know, when they say stuff like "Is your shirt too tight?" or "How's the car holding up?" No, this is much more existential. When Cory asks his dad for a cool $40,000 to get them back on their feet, his dad refuses. I made something of myself, I gave you what my father gave to me, all the usual crap. When his father questions his responsibility, what with a child on the way, with no job and no home and a useless arts degree, Cory freaks out and says, "I have been responsible, but I missed the fucking window, and now I don’t know what the fuck I’m supposed to do.”
And that's what's so scary about Birthright. Sure, there's the generational divide stuff that's funny, how our parents can't grasp that the world they started isn't the same one we inherited, but that's also terrifying. Now, you can do all of the right things, go to college and find the right girl and work hard, and it can still get you nowhere. Well, it can get you straight into your parents' guestroom. When Gen Xers did that, they got everything they wanted. Cory's parents have a nice home and two rental properties. They're enjoying retirement. And they don't want the buzzkill kids around.
As Pepper's film gets increasingly violent and sexual and creepy, the message only gets thornier and stronger. Cory believes that if his parents don't understand how difficult our world is, he's going to show them. I suppose how old you are decides whether you find it a comedy or a horror film, but the two are intertwined.
Media courtesy of Tribeca Festival.