Look Both Ways, directed by Daniel Oron, is a story that starts out rather humorously - computer- and videogame-obsessed kids in a neighborhood are forced to go outside and play with each other after the power goes out. The ending, in which we find out the kids are more or less in a videogame of their own, is presumably meant to be an indictment against violence in videogames, but plays out in a bizarre (albeit risky) way. Exploding Buds, meanwhile, was by far the strangest film of the lot - directed by Petra Schroder, the German-language set film is a musical fantasy starring two fairy-like young girls and the guys to which they're attracted. Involving bizarre hairdos, magical black splotches, gigantic bubbles and much more, it somehow makes its own kind of sense and offers an ending that made me happy, although I'll be darned if I was able to sufficiently explain why.

Much less strange, but still involving a fantasy element, was the Spanish-language film You Can't Take it With You, directed by Charly Braun. The final film in the program, it features a charismatic teenager who buys a VHS player that can fast-forward the network news. When the boy foresees the end of the world, he's able to use the opportunity to snag the girl of his dreams.

It's a charming and extremely entertaining story that is well-told and well-directed, which could describe the Short Attention Span program as a whole. Four of the directors - Teague, Yoonessi, Khan, and Braun - were present for the Q&A afterwards. When asked what their inspiraion was for each film, Braun quipped that "we wish the German director was here, so we could hear his inspiration." Yoonessi revealed that she's hoping to soon make a feature-length version of Lima, while Khan recounted how she was able to finance the film by not paying anyone. All of the young filmmakers had the usual financial difficulties financing the films - Teague mentioned that his was funded by one grant and "lots of credit cards" - but it's encouraging to see the creativity that stems from the limitations.

Well, with that, my first experience covering Tribeca has come to a close. The list of actual winners among the films in competition, announced Thursday, can be found at Tribeca's website here: http://www.tribecafilmfestival.org/news-2007winners-release.html.

If you want my own opinion (out of the relatively small number of films I saw), the best feature-length movie was The Bubble, directed by Eytan Fox. While it wasn't perfect, it's the one my mind keeps going back to again and again.

And finally, check out more of our Tribeca coverage with full reviews of Palo Alto (along with interviews with the cast and filmmakers), In the Land of Merry Misfits (coming shortly), ...