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YouTube and the Guggenheim are joining forces to orchestrate “the first biennial of creative video,” called YouTube Play. The Independent's Courtney Sheehan ponders the high-meets-low aspect of this endeavor with help from the blogosphere.

Kurt Brokaw stamps his critic's seal on select films from Tribeca 2010 and explains why the festival deserves a nod for nine years of expansive programming in a post-9/11 neighborhood... and world.

With never-before-seen footage and interviews with Kurtis Blow, DJ Hollywood, and club owner Sal Abbatiello, the short documentary White Lines and The Fever: The Death of DJ Junebug portrays life in the ‘80s when hip-hop was young, cocaine was in, and life as a DJ often meant you did a little of both.

Have you ever felt your eyes lock with someone across a crowded subway, only to wish later that you had ripped through the crowd to get some digits? You’re not the only one. That's the subject of director Mary Robertson’s short film Missed Connections now screening at the 2010 Tribeca Film Festival.

True that The Independent is not in the habit of reviewing films, but we've got fresh talent on board with Kurt Brokaw, New School professor and 92Y teacher. He's watching all 38 films in the New Directors/New Films lineup and zoning in on the best of the fest exclusively for our readers.

The Independent scours the United States to find the 10 most innovative animation programs the country has to offer. The schools on this comprehensive list were picked based on reputation, creativity, and where their students find work after they earn their diplomas.

The Independent launches its new series of Exhibitor FAQs to provide resources and advice on how to get your film onto the big screen. Following in the tradition of the distributor and funder Q&As, the Exhibitor FAQ will feature a different theatre, museum or other screening venue with tips on how to approach the theatre, market your film, and find an audience for your film. This month, The Independent talks with Phillip Freedenberg, general manager of the Amherst Theatre in Buffalo, NY.

Though this year's Tribeca Film Festival was dominated by Scandanavian vampires, a decidely American documentary about, yes, a Transylvanian immigrant from Brooklyn also drew crowds. The film is Judd Ehrlich's Run for Your Life (view the trailer), a biography of Fred Lebow, the founder of the New York City Marathon. He was also an impresario, a canny politician, a PR machine, a womanizer, a visionary, a hot head, and—in Ehrlich's words—"a survivor in every sense of the word." The challenge in making the film, then, was not digging up material, but sorting through a mountain of interviews and other footage. Ehrlich recently talked about the film with The Independent's Mike Hofman.

In Divan, filmmaker Pearl Gluck embarks on a quest to reclaim a sofa on which esteemed rebbes slept. The journey takes her and the audience from New York City to Hungary, Ukraine, and Israel. The documentary has been accepted by more than 40 festivals including Tribeca, had a run at Film Forum in Manhattan, and aired on the Sundance Channel in the U.S. and on Channel 8 in Israel. You can watch the trailer, or check out previous columns that analyze the success of the films Rock in a Heart Place and Kiran over Mongolia.

The Independent's popular Distributor FAQ series returns. This month, The Independent's Katelyn Harding talk to Joan Hartogs, the co-founder of Landmark Media, based in Virginia, which distributes educational children's movies to schools and libraries. Among their recent titles: Animals A-Z about wildlife and Heads Up, a film about (you guessed it) the laws of gravity.