The 2011 Tribeca Film Festival has drawn to a close -- after awarding cash prizes ranging from $5000 to $25,000 to the winners of its various juried and audience decided competitions for nonfiction films.

Most of Tribeca Film Festival's award winning films do not yet have distributors. Hopefully the awards will help. Look for them in the future. Here's the list of winners

Monopoly is arguably the world's most popular board game. Almost everyone has played it. And, it's a wonderful subject for a documentary film.

In Under The Boardwalk: The Monopoly Story, filmmaker Kevin Tostado does a wonderful job of covering the game's colorful history, introducing collectors who seek and salvage rare editions and following the game's most avid players as they compete for the title of World Monopoly Champion.

Contestants -- national champions from 41 countries -- come to Las Vegas for the well attended table top tournament. 110 nations have their own edition of the board game. The players are smart. They are strategic. They are fierce in their determination to bankrupt their competition. But, it's winner take all, and an unlucky toss of the dice can bankrupt anyone.

The film that follows them is fun-filled and fascinating. It's one of those highly entertaining documentaries that, like Cropsey, for example, has the kind of popular subject matter and commercial potential that might make it a winning candidate for a narrative spin off. In fact, Hollywood power player Ridley Scott (Black Hawk Down) is currently developing a narrative feature based on Monopoly, the board game. Scott's narrative is said to be reality-based, and focusing on a Donald Trump-like character's capitalistic approach to an urban environment.

Say what? Do you think movie subjects tend to trend?

Anyway, Scott should see Under The Boardwalk: The Monopoly Story, and so should you. It opens in limited theatrical release on May 6. Meanwhile, here's my full review.

It's an interesting array. And most of the documentaries releasing theatrically in May have to do with documenting artistry in various manifestations, There's a best selling and much loved author, aspiring teen poets and magicians, and a legendary cinematographer. And others investigate the art of eating right and living a long life. Here's the list:

Opening May 6:

• Forks Over Knives - Director Lee Fulkerson investigates the controversial claim that most, if not all, degenerative diseases afflicting humankind controlled and/or reversed by eschewing animal-based and processed foods.
• Make Believe - Director J. Clay Tweel chronicles the battle between six outstanding teen magicians who head for Las Vegas to cross wands not swords as they compete to become World Champion Teen Magician.

Opening May 13:

• Cameraman: The Life and Work of Jack Cardiff - Craig McCall uses interviews with Martin Scorsese, Thelma Schoonmaker, Alan Parker and other cinema greats to profile and pay tribute to one of Hollywood's best known and most respected cinematographers, who also steps in front of the camera in this documentary.
• HEY BOO: Harper Lee and "To Kill a Mockingbird" - Director Mary McDonagh Murphy profiles Nelle Harper Lee, chronicles her life and pays tribute to the author of one of America's most beloved literary materpieces.
• How to Live Forever - Filmmaker (and baby boomer) Mark Wexler sets off in search of the secrets of long life and, along the way, interviews Suzanne Somers, Phyllis Diller and Ray Bradbury, among others who're aspiring to or already have attained the richness of age.

Opening May 18:

• Louder Than a Bomb - Greg Jacobs and Jon Siskel follow four Chicago high school poetry teams as they prepare to cross rhymes and raps but not swords to be named best in the world's largest youth poetry rave

Poetry is all the rave in Chicago, where teen age rhymsters team up to prepare for the annual Louder Than A Bomb poetry competition.

Coached by teachers in inner city and suburban schools, the teen poetry teams train at full tilt to take top honors. The poetry rave, itself, is as vigorous a work out as a football game or tennis match. And, man, these super talented kids really know how to play their thoughts and spike their words. They represent. For real.

The entire high school poetry season -- the build up and the big event -- is brilliantly captured in Greg Jacobs and Jon Siskel's Louder Than A Bomb documentary.

Louder Than A Bomb opens theatrically in limited release on May 18, 20ll. Mark this must-see on your calendar. Meanwhile, please read my full review and watch the trailer.

(PHOTO: Teen poets take to the stage in 'Louder Than A Bomb.' Courtesy Balcony Releasing.)