The Tribeca Film Festival, which kicks off its 12-day run with a Wednesday night 3D screening of “Shrek Forever After,” occupies an odd niche in the crowded film festival calendar.
Just nine years old, Tribeca has always seemed to be something of a baby brother to the New York Film Festival, which takes place in the fall and will stage its 48th festival this year.
For the most part Tribeca falls too early in the year to serve as a launching pad for awards season; it doesn’t have the international clout of Cannes, which follows it by less than two weeks, and it doesn’t get the cream of independent films in the way that Sundance and Toronto do.
At times it’s been best known for its famous co-founder, Robert DeNiro; its deep pockets, courtesy of sponsors like American Express; its for-profit designation, a relative rarity among film festivals; and its ticket prices, which stirred up controversy when they jumped from $12 to $18 in 2007.
(Those prices have since come down, to $16 for weekend and evening screenings and $8 for weekdays and late nights.)
But Tribeca also presents a rich, varied lineup of international and independent cinema, often particularly strong in the documentary field. This year’s numbers are impressive: 85 features and 47 short films from 38 different countries, 44 world premieres, 15 North American premieres, a range of panel discussions, and a variety of affiliated events: the Tribeca Drive-In, the Tribeca/ESPN Sports Day, the Tribeca Family Festival Street Fair …
Its special screenings, meanwhile, include a 45th anniversary showing of “Dr. Zhivago,” and a work-in-progress screening of a yet-untitled documentary about disgraced New York governor Eliot Spitzer.
"The aim is to present the most diverse program possible, and to be well-represented internationally," the festival’s director of programming, David Kwok, told theWrap.
The festival also has an affiliated film distribution unit, Tribeca Film, and has eagerly embraced extending its brand through an online presence designed, says festival Geoff Gilmore, as a way of “shifting the way films – and film festivals – are experienced.”
This year’s festival introduces TFF Virtual, which will enable viewers to see panel discussions, Q&A sessions and other aspects of the festival online. A TFF Virtual premium pass, which costs $45, enables members to stream seven of the festival's films on their home computers.
The films, which were chosen from more than 5,000 submissions, are separated into several different sections, including the World Narratibve Feature and World Documentary Feature competitions, the Global Cinema Showcase, and the Encounters, Discovery, Cinemania and Spotlight sections.
In past years, Alex Gibney’s “Taxi to the Dark Side” has to be one of Tribeca’s biggest success stories, winning at the festival months before it scored something of a surprise victory in the Oscars’ Documentary Feature category.
And Gibney returns this year as the festival’s dominant filmmaker, screening two full-length docs and one segment of an anthology project.
