Tribeca Festival marks 25 years with slate celebrating NYC stories, storytellers
Published in Entertainment News
NEW YORK — Summer is in sight, which means Tribeca Festival, the film and storytelling showcase co-founded by Robert De Niro, is right around the corner.
The annual event, founded by the two-time Oscar winner, longtime producing partner Jane Rosenthal and her ex-husband Craig Hatkoff, started as a way to revitalize Downtown in the wake of 9/11.
Now celebrating its landmark 25th year, Tribeca, which will kick off June 3, has platformed over 5,000 films from more than 126 countries and raised over $1 billion for New York since its inception. Though focused primarily on film, Tribeca Festival also spotlights TV, talks, podcasts, games and more.
In addition to housing the festival, operated by De Niro and Rosenthal’s production company Tribeca Enterprises, the city raised many of this year’s directors and served as both character and backdrop for a slew of the films in the current slate.
Gotham-born and bred filmmakers like Josh and Benny Safdie, for instance, are among those returning to the festival with “The Lion Queen,” which centers on Swiss-born New York socialite Jocelyne “The Lion Queen” Wildenstein.
Long Island-raised Edward Burns, meanwhile, is returning to Tribeca with the world premiere of his directorial effort “Finnegan’s Foursome,” which he also wrote, produced and starred in.
De Niro himself will be front and center with the 50th anniversary screening of “Taxi Driver,” which landed him a second Oscar nomination for his portrayal of cabbie Travis Bickle.
Martin Scorsese’s 1976 classic centers on the disaffected Vietnam veteran whose alienation leads him to vigilantism. De Niro will reunite with frequent collaborator Scorsese and co-starJodie Foster — who earned an Academy Award nod for her portrayal of teenage sex worker Iris — for a pre-screening conversation, moderated by W. Kamau Bell.
Real New Yorkers, not actors, populate the cast of Joshua Z. Weinstein’s “Here I’m Alive.” The “neo-realist urban epic” — which will enjoy its world premiere on June 6 at SVA Theatre — is “driven by underground rap and spiritual jazz.”
Married couple Jerry Saltz and Roberta Smith, the chief art critics for New York Magazine and The New York Times respectively, step in front of the camera as the subjects of Alison Chernick’s documentary “House of Criticism,” whose world premiere will take place June 12 at Village East by Angelika.
The city is woven throughout Jess Zeidman’s experimental collection of vignettes, “Human Theories,” world premiering June 6 at Village East by Angelika, as well as Maggie and Tyler Brown’s short road movie, “One Night,” debuting June 5 at Shorts Theater at Spring Studios.
The same could be said for Stacey Sargeant’s subway-set dramedy “Stand Clear ‘ the Closing Doors,” and Frank Sun’s New York Fashion Week-set “Fabric,” both premiering June 6 at Spring Studios.
Manhattan-born Teyana Taylor, who this year received her first Oscar nod for best picture-winning “One Battle After Another,” is among this year’s storytellers and newly appointed member of the Through Her Lens Advisory Committee, from the Tribeca Chanel Women’s Filmmaker Program. Taylor, also an accomplished musician, choreographer and music video director, will shed light on her multifaceted career and path for an audience on June 7 at Spring Studios.
New York’s past comes to the fore with the world premieres of documentaries Peter, George and Teddy Kunhardt’s “Mario,” about former Gov. Mario Cuomo, as well as Quinn Whitney Wilson and Viridiana Lieberman’s “Jean-Michel,” about the impact of late artist Jean-Michel Basquiat.
New York’s singularity is also embedded in the closing night world premiere of One9’s “Alicia Keys: Girl From Hell’s Kitchen,” The documentary looks both at the 17-time Grammy winner’s early years to her present stardom as well as that of the journey underscoring her recently closed Tony- and Grammy-winning Broadway hit, “Hell’s Kitchen.”
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Tribeca Festival runs from June 3 to 14.
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