Late last week, when the various award winners from this year’s Tribeca Film Festival were announced, it was hard not to take note of the diversity of the honor roll. From countries as varied as Britain, Turkey, Sweden, and Pakistan, and with subjects as assorted as the fight for independence in Liberia (“Pray the Devil Back to Hell”), the angst of lovelorn vampires (“Let the Right One In”), and the wordless nature of good and evil (“Idiots and Angels”), this year’s festival presented a stunning hodgepodge of themes and talents.

And yet more surprises were in store late Saturday night, when the festival’s audience award (sponsored by Cadillac, a fact audiences could not escape, as a thundering car ad preceded every single festival screening) went to C. Karim Chrobog’s “War Child.” While the festival’s juries touted various vampire stories and tales of New York City hit men, audiences embraced a far more serious and sobering documentary. “War Child” follows a hip-hop artist named Emmanuel Jal as he uses his music to raise awareness about the humanitarian crisis occurring in his homeland of Sudan and makes his first visit home in nearly 20 years.

Most notable, perhaps, about this year’s winners is that they were not the titles being widely discussed three weeks ago. Too often with film festivals, from Cannes to Sundance to Toronto, buzz trumps all and perception becomes reality. When an event begins, it’s nearly impossible to escape the talk of the movies catching everyone’s attention, so naturally it makes other critics want to see them as well. Buzz builds upon buzz, leaving other titles underappreciated.

But there’s a populist sensibility about Tribeca that is particularly appealing on the film-festival circuit. After finding myself disappointed a few months ago at Sundance, and walking away frustrated from last autumn’s New York Film Festival — where new offerings from such esteemed filmmakers as Gus Van Sant, Todd Haynes, Brian De Palma, and Noah Baumbach left me cold — it was refreshing to find myself surprised for a change, left to ponder a good half-dozen films that were far more daring and distinctive than I had been led to expect.

Case in point: The day after I sat down to a packed Times Square press screening of the blockbuster “Iron Man,” I was getting lost in the world of Frank Langella and Elliott Gould in Richard Ledes’s neo-noir thriller “The Caller.” About a corporate executive (Mr. Langella) who blows the whistle on his firm and effectively signs his own death warrant, “The Caller” begins with his hiring of a private eye (Mr. Gould) to watch his every move. But as we wait for things to kick into second gear, wondering just what Mr. Langella’s plan is and how Mr. Gould fits into it, Mr. Ledes slowly reveals that the film is not about cheating death at all, but about embracing it in the form of a witness.

It is a beautiful, and ingenious, anticlimax that has left me reflecting on the movie ever since. The same could be said for “Hotel Gramercy Park,” a documentary that builds to a scene in which the old New York and the new New York come face-to-face, with one elderly citizen finding himself overrun by flashbulbs, celebrities, and red-carpet elitism.

Amid the rain and fog Friday evening, Amos Poe’s “Empire II” lured a considerable crowd for its American premiere. In something of an adaptation of Andy Warhol’s eight-hour “Empire,” Mr. Poe filmed the Empire State Building and the city more generally through his apartment window for an entire year, then mixed that sped-up imagery with an array of rock songs, moody harmonies, and spoken poetry. As a whole, “Empire II” suggests how a stoic landmark bears witness to a city running faster and faster every day.

That trippy Friday night film gave way to a chilly but cheerful Saturday morning at the festival’s Family Street Fair. And only a few hours later, the red carpet was unfurled again for the gala preview screening of “Speed Racer” — complete with a crowd of fans and PETA protestors (it seems a chimpanzee bit an actor on the set and allegations surfaced that said chimp was subsequently beaten).

And just yesterday, I found myself recommending to a friend the very first film I saw at this year’s festival: Delphine Kreuter’s “57,000 Kilometers Between Us.” Ms. Kreuter, a photographer and video artist well known in the art world, has made a scattered, imperfect headache of a film. It is at times obvious and intrusive, using close-ups when none are needed and jumping between story lines that overlap nicely while never leading us anywhere. And then, near the end, a young girl and a young boy meet in an online game. The girl is lonely and spends all day in her dimly lit bedroom; the boy is in the hospital with a terminal illness, struggling to live an isolated existence. In a remarkable, understated montage, their online friendship gradually leads to a face-to-face meeting in the real world, an exchange of smiles that was perhaps the festival’s single most moving moment.

When it comes to the conclusions of film festivals, the industry will always, not surprisingly, focus on the business — the deals that were sealed, the A-listers who showed up, and the awards that were won. Let’s not forget that Tribeca — our very own homegrown, downtown film festival — was stocked full of indelible cinematic moments. That doesn’t mean that all the gems on display will attain classic status — or even secure a theatrical run — but they left viewers wanting more, just a few extra days of stories before we’re all left to wallow in the annual marathon of summer blockbusters.

ssnyder@nysun.com