This year's Tribeca Film Festival launches today, bringing 120 features from over 41 countries, chosen from 2,300 submissions, with the goal of striking the perfect balance between art and commercialism. Big studio productions like Baby Mama staring Tina Fey and Amy Poehler, and Speed Racer from The Matrix's Wachowski Brothers will both have gala premieres alongside much-anticipated gems including The Secret of the Grain: Julian Schnabel's homage to Lou Reed's 1973 album, Berlin: and the first film in seven years from Harmony Korine, Mister Lonely. Here are psychoPEDIA's recommendations for films not to miss at this year's festival:

Despite having trouble finding American distribution, The Secret of Grain won four Cesars (the equivalent of the French Oscars), including "Best Film" and "Best Director" for Tunisian-born Adbellatif Kechiche. The director also won four Cesars in 2005 for his film Games of Love and Chance. His most recent film, shot with grainy realism, is the story of a North African immigrant family in a small town in the south of France. The 60-year-old main character is laid off after 35 years at a shipyard. He then begins the journey through prejudice and government red tape to open a restaurant on a rundown boat that will serve his ex-wife's specialty–- fish couscous. Many of the film's stars were not professional actors and were encouraged by the director to improvise. It has been called "brilliant" and an "extraordinary rich and human ensemble piece" by the New York Times. The film has since been picked up American distribution with IFC films and is featured in the Festival's Showcase section, created for foreign films that have had difficulty being screened in the US.

Lou Reed's critically acclaimed album Berlin has been resurrected into a documentary directed by Julian Schnabel, called simply, Lou Reed's Berlin. The film took place over the course of five nights in 2006 where Reed performed the album that was panned by critics when it was first released in 1973. This performance of the entire album at St. Anne's Warehouse in Brooklyn was the first time he performed the album live, and is backed by Antony Hagerty of Antony and the Johnsons and the Brooklyn Youth Chorus. A screen is projected in the background with a film directed by Lola Schnabel, starring the the French actress of The Diving Bell and the Butterfly, Emmanuelle Seigner. The director cuts to Lola's film as Seigner embodies the album's character, going through tragedy, love, and loss. Since being dismissed by critics when the album was released, it has gone on to be named as one of the top 500 albums of all time by Rolling Stone, while "Lou Reed's Berlin" is also on its way to becoming a music documentary classic.

Harmony Korine's film Mister Lonely is his most linear story to date. Diego Luna plays a Michael Jackson impersonator who meets a Marilyn Monroe, played by Samantha Morton, and follows her to a commune in the Scottish hills for retired celebrity impersonators. There he finds Madonna, The Pope, The Queen of England– played by an unrecognizable Anita Pallenberg, and Little Red Riding Hood, played by Korine's wife Rachael. There are thrilling shots of nuns flying through the air on BMX bikes in a parallel story line with Werner Herzog, and Luna riding a mini motor bike in slow motion. Marriage and sobriety may have softened the directors gaze, but his humor in this film is as absurd as always.

~Sara Costello