Everything You Need to Know About the Tribeca Film Festival

After 22 years, the Tribeca Film Festival is an institution. Every summer, it takes the Big Apple by storm, bringing in talent from all over the world. Locals like Martin Scorsese and Steve Buscemi might just take the subway or leisurely stroll to screenings and special events over 11 days. 

This year, the Opening Gala will take place on June 5 with “Diane von Furstenberg: Woman in Charge.” Sharpen Obaid-Chinoy and Trish Dalton’s documentary recaps the movie-ready life of the New York-based socialite and designer. Expect something more substantial than a fan letter. Obaid-Chinoy won two Oscars for Best Documentary Short, with “Saving Face” (2012) and "A Girl in the River: The Price of Forgiveness” (2016). 

What is the Tribeca Film Festival?

Like every other film festival, Tribeca tries to organize chaos. Programmers divide 103 feature films and many shorts into sections and sidebars that may seem arbitrary. Don’t worry about figuring out their formula - just enjoy the movies. Also, they have an audio storytelling program. They are podcasts, guys, so why not call them podcasts?-high-profile speakers, TV shows, and video games - hear me out...next year, let's do board games, too! -. But I digress. Let's focus on films. These are the 11 sections where motion pictures play.

Spotlight+

The Spotlight+ sidebar depends on star power and the presence of those stars at the Festival. Documentaries on musicians have great follow-ups with the subjects’ live performances. After the premiere of the documentary “1-800-On-Her-Own” (Dana Flor, 2024), a portrait of ’90 indie rock star Ani DiFranco, she will regal the audience with her music. Actors jumping behind the camera get attention here. Andre McCarthy, better known for Gen-X teen fare like “St. Elmo’s Fire” (Joel Schumacher, 1985) and “Pretty in Pink” (Howard Deutch, 1986), goes auto-biographical with the documentary "Brats." He hits the road to catch up with fellow members of the infamous “Brat Pack,” a generation of actors that defined ‘80s teen coolness on the screen whose exploits served as prime tabloid fodder. Rob Lowe, Ally Sherry, Demi Moore, Emilio Estevez, and others will appear in the movie and live on stage for a post-screening conversation. The third strain covers movies that do not deal with celebrities but carry some star power behind them. Case in point: Santiago Maza’s “State of Silence” is an alarming look at the perils journalists face while covering corruption and drug trafficking in Mexico. Executive Producers Diego Luna and Gael García Bernal will be around with the director, journalist Marcos Vizcarra, and others for a post-screening conversation.

Spotlight Narrative

Spotlight Narrative brings new fiction films from proven talent, those who don’t need prizes and are already on track with fruitful careers. A nice example is Vincent Grashaw's “Bang Bang,” a star vehicle for Tim Blake Nelson as a former boxer trying to come to terms with his past. High-profile foreign films are making their world or national premiere, like the European production “The Damned” (Thodur Palsson, 2024) - not to be confused with Roberto Minervini's US Civil War drama of the same name, coming sometime in 2024. You will also find highlights from other festivals. This year, New Yorkers will get screenings of the winner of the Grand Jury Prize and Best Director at Sundance: “In The Summers” (Alessandra Lacorazza Saudi, 2024) stars Sasha Calle and musical René Pérez Joglar (a.k.a. Residente from “Calle 13”). Cannes-competing “Firebrand” (Karim Ainouz, 2024) with Alicia Vikander and Jude Law will bring Henry VIII's period shenanigans to the big screen. Star power will get you everywhere. It's nice that Tribeca is not too precious about world premieres!

Spotlight Documentary

Apparently, the sole difference between these movies and those in the Spotlight+ sidebar is that no high-profile talent comes around to give an extra dose of star quality to the screening. The movies have to stand on their own. Among the 20 films in this section, you will find “I’m Your Venus,” Kimberly Reed’s exploration of the murder of Venus Xtravaganza, the trail-blazer drag artist featured in Jennie Livingston’s classic documentary “Paris is Burning” (1990).

Cinema lovers will jump at the chance to catch “Made in England: The Films of Powell & Pressburger.” Director David Hinton records Martin Scorsese’s musings on British filmmakers Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburguer. Known as “The Archers,” they rose to fame with classics like “Black Narcissus” (1947) and “The Red Shoes” (1948) and fell from grace with the misunderstood thriller “Peeping Tom” (1960). 

Reunions and Retrospectives

Think of this as the Tribeca version of Cannes’ Classics. ‘80s nostalgia gets some love with the 40th anniversary of “Footloose” (Herbert Ross, 1984). Lead hoofer Kevin Bacon will be on hand for a talk and, perhaps, some moves. Steven Spielberg will be around to celebrate the 50th anniversary of his feature film debut, “The Sugarland Express” (1974). Scorsese’s Film Foundation will showcase a 70mm restoration of Alfred Hitchcock’s “North by Northwest” (1959). It would not be Tribeca without Robert De Niro on the big screen. “Mean Streets” comes back with De Niro and Scorsese at hand to discuss their classic 1973 movie. The late XX’s Golden Age of TV gets some love from documentarist Alex Gibney’s “Wiseguy,” an in-depth portrait of “The Sopranos”’s creator, David Chase. The odd duck in the lineup is “AlphaGo” (Greg Kohs, 2017), a documentary about a tournament between the top players of the traditional Chinese game against a computer. Perhaps the Festival is propping up one of its own? The movie played at Tribeca in 2017 and remained undistributed in the US after running in the festival circuit. Now it's under Netflix's brand, so we hope to see it soon on the streamer.

Viewpoints

This sidebar is the Festival’s “home for distinct points of view and bold directorial visions,” which may be code for “we liked them, but we could not fit them in the competitive categories.” This year’s batch includes 11 movies, including “Alien Weaponry: Kua Tutu Te Era" (Kent Belcher, 2024), a documentary about a death metal band from New Zealand who sings in Maori. Another highlight is “Boys Go To Jupiter” (Julian Slander, 2024), an animated musical comedy featuring the voices of Elsie Fisher, Tavi Gevinson, and Julio Torres.

US Narrative Competition

The Festival earns its indie bona fides at the US Narrative Competition. Up-and-coming directors working with fearless stars and absolute beginners share the spotlight and, with luck, a prize or two. The ten-movie selection includes the star-studded buddy comedy “Sacramento,” with Kristen Stewart, Michael Cera, and Maya Erskine. Michael Angarano co-stars and directs. On the up-and-coming front, former NFL pro, actor, and producer Nnamdi Asomugha stars in his directorial debut “The Knife,” a thriller about a black family under investigation by a white detective (Melissa Leo).

Documentary Competition

Twelve documentaries from all over the world bring stories ripped from the headlines or hidden in plain view. Joshua Zeman's “Checkpoint Zoo” follows the hardship experienced by the animals of a zoo in Kharkiv, Ukraine, as Russian troops lay siege to the city. Simon Close's “Hacking Hate” follows My Vingren, a Swedish journalist infiltrating white supremacist groups. On American shores, Neza Asimi's “Driver” takes a trip with female truck drivers. Contessa Gayles' “The Debutantes” follows the first group of Black debutantes in Canton, Ohio.  

International Narrative Competition

Ten feature films compete, including at least one with US-based talent, which could pass for an American indie. In Justin Anderson's “Swimming Home,” Christopher Abbot and McKenzie Davis star in an adaptation of Deborah Levy’s novel, about a bourgeois family whose complacency gets shaken up by the arrival of a stranger to their Greek vacation rental. It premiered at the International Film Festival Rotterdam - perhaps because among the coproducing countries, there is the Netherlands. Another US premiere comes from the Berlinale Panorama sidebar. After a run of award-winning shorts, Chinese director Qin Yang brings “Some Rain Must Fall,” a hard-hitting drama about a middle-class woman whose life unravels after she causes an accident at her daughter’s school. 

Midnight

Horror, suspense, and freaky stuff populate the “Midnight” sidebar with six movies aiming to shock. Provocateur Ulrich Seidl produces "The Devil's Bath." Severin Fail and Veronica Franz’s film is a period piece about witchcraft in 18th-century Austria. IFC Films already bought it for state-side distribution. American freakishness populates Joshua Erkman’s “A Desert,” a thriller following a photographer who messes up by establishing a friendship with an unknown couple he meets on the road. Sevan Najarian's “Mars” is an animated comedy about a group of wanna-be astronauts conned by a mischievous millionaire. Some international cachet comes with Oscar-nominated Mexican actor Demián Bichir - Best Actor Oscar nominee for "A Simple Life" - starring in Roxy Shih’s “Beacon” as a lighthouse keeper taking in a shipwrecked sailor (Julia Goldani Telles) with terrible consequences. Does it ever go well to be nice to strangers? 

Escape from Tribeca

If those movies on the Midnight sidebar turned out to be too tame for you, these four movies are for you. Death is an unexpected amenity in the Airbnb that serves as the location for “AMFAD: All My Friends Are Dead” (Marcus Dunstan, 2024). Bloody action runs wild in Nikhil Nagesh Bhat's “Kill,” an Indian thriller that locks two military commandos and 40 bandits on a train - it's coming to theaters this summer under the Lionsgate banner. Vintage cinema gets some love with a restoration of Todd Browning’s “The Unknown” (1927) from the George Eastman Museum and the National Film Preservation Foundation. 

Shorts

The talents of tomorrow take over today. Over 70 short films from all over the world, both fiction and documentaries, live-action or animation, compete for your attention. Tribeca arranges them in 13 thematic programs. “Vida Vida!” brings together all the shorts from Latin America and the Caribbean - guys, you are missing the article “la” before “Vida” -. “It’s Complicated” covers romantic upheaval and befitting the host city and its founders. There’s an “NY People Watching” selection.

Where does the Tribeca Film Festival Take Place?

The Festival has grown so much that its name turned into a misnomer. Once the Manhattan neighborhood of Tribeca became too small to contain the movies and its fans, it expanded all over the city. 

Why Does the Tribeca Film Festival Exist?

Like the Cannes Film Festival blooming as a reaction against fascism, the Tribeca Film Festival was born out of tragedy. On September 11, 2001, a group of terrorists affiliated with Al Qaeda hijacked four passenger airplanes. They turned the civilian vessels into projectiles. Two struck the World Trade Center towers in the Financial District in Lower Manhattan. Minutes later, the iconic buildings collapsed, weakened by the impact. Between the airplane passengers and the people on the site, 2603 people died on that tragic day.

Tribeca is a neighborhood that rests just north of the Financial District. It covers a triangular territory below Canal Street. It looks like a “Triangle Bellow Canal St,” hence the name Tri-Be-Ca. It was an industrial zone full of factories and warehouses in the early XX Centuries. By the early 60s, with manufacturing abandoning the city, artists of every discipline moved into the abandoned spaces, turning the place into a mecca of culture. In the ‘80s, gentrification displaced the bohemians and turned Tribeca into a trendy destination full of luxury lofts, restaurants, and high-end stores. 

After the terrorist attacks, long-time resident Robert De Niro joined forces with producer Jane Rosenthal and her then-husband, real state impresario Craig Hatkoff, to launch a film festival that would lift the spirit and the economy of the neighborhood they called home. Rosenthal was a long-time collaborator of De Niro, holding production duties in “Cape Fear” (Martin Scorsese, 1991), “Night and the City” (Irwin Winkler, 1992), De Niro’s directorial debut “A Bronx Tale” (1993), “Marvin’s Room” (Jerry Zaks, 1996), “Wag the Dog” (Barry Levinson, 1997), “Analyze This” (Harold Ramis, 1999), “Flawless” (Joel Schumacher, 1999) and “Meet the Parents” (Jay Roach, 2000). As you can gather from this filmography, Rosenthal is perhaps De Niro’s closest collaborator, next to director Martin Scorsese. The three worked recently together in “The Irishman” (2019). 

The gamble paid off. More than two decades later, the Tribeca Film Festival rivals Sundance as the zenith of indie filmmakers in the United States, with a healthy dose of international talent.

How do You Compete at Tribeca?

The submission period usually begins in mid-September and extends until late February. There are staged deadlines. The later you enter your submission, the higher the price. The marker separating shorts from feature films clocks in at 40 minutes. The Festival’s programmer decides in which section the movie participates.

As usual, we urge you to check the festival’s website to learn about up-to-date rules and regulations. Requisites and conditions might change over time!

Who Decides the Winners?

Each competitive section has its own Jury, which may include three to five jurors: actors, filmmakers, producers, critics, and professionals from creative disciplines. The 2023 Juror class included actors Brendan Fraser and Zazie Beetz, directors Ramin Bahrani, Mike Flanagan, and Clea Duvall, and musician Chance the Rapper.

Tribeca as a Film Distribution Powerhouse

Having a traditional marketplace is not enough. With its brand firmly in place, the Festival is venturing into film distribution, partnering with Giant Pictures to create the imprint Tribeca Films. Their goal is to acquire 25 films per year.