The Tribeca Film Festival doesn’t officially get underway till Wednesday, but a number of this year’s films have had pre-fest screenings – everything from a documentary by Eric Bana, the actor, about Eric Bana, the race-car driver; and a horror flick about the inadvisability of taking babysitting jobs with practicing Satanists. Two pictures already stand out, though. Both defy genre pigeonholing and both, I think, will be stirring up appreciative buzz over the course of the 12-day festival.

One of these is “Here and There,” a deadpan romantic comedy by Serbian director Darko Lungulov. The movie was shot in both Belgrade, Lungulov’s home town, and New York, where he studied filmmaking. It concerns a glum, down-and-out Manhattan saxophone player named Robert (David Thornton) who in order to make some money accepts an offer by a young Serbian expatriate (Branislav Trifunovic) to travel to Belgrade, marry the guy’s girlfriend (in order to get her a green card) and bring her back to New York. Read more...