Moviegoers who attend this year’s Tribeca Film Festival will get to see something largely absent from the festival in years past:
Tribeca.
That’s right, after spending many years in New York’s Chelsea neighborhood, the Tribeca Film Festival event has moved back to the Lower Manhattan neighborhood in which it was born. Beginning with its Wednesday-night kickoff, a gala screening of the “Saturday Night Live” documentary “Live From New York!,” Tribeca (the festival) will have a hub in Tribeca (the neighborhood).
“That’s been a dream of the festival from the time when Jane and Bob started it,” said Tribeca Film executive vice president Paula Weinstein of the festival started by Jane Rosenthal and Robert DeNiro in the wake of the September 11 attacks on the World Trade Center.
“And now we finally have a central place in Tribeca where filmmakers and press and the public can hang out and experience the festival in every way.”
The problem in the past, Weinstein told TheWrap this week, is that the very thing that moved DeNiro and Rosenthal to launch a festival celebrating the downtown arts community made it hard to locate too much of the festival in that community.
“There was a lot of construction going on, so we had to move,” said Weinstein of the festival’s decision to head farther uptown. “But now the Freedom Tower is open, it’s not a construction site anymore, and the whole idea is to embrace the community and the action down here.”
The festival program itself is typical of Tribeca, mixing narrative features and documentaries with strong music and sports programming, a hefty dose of transmedia and technically innovative programming, and special events that include outdoor “Drive In” screenings and a 25th-anniversary screening of Martin Scorsese’s “GoodFellas” on closing night.
“We started to talk about it in May of last year, right after the last festival was over,” said Weinstein of the programming. “What we wanted to do was have storytelling of every kind … We wanted people who are breaking new ground with their storytelling, people who are eclectic and agnostic with the way their work is shown.
“There are no walls between forms of storytelling anymore,” she added, “and that’s what we want to explore.”
So the program includes more than 60 world premieres, and includes experimental, multi-media installations, but also conversations between George Lucas and Stephen Colbert, Christopher Nolan and Bennett Miller, and Brad Bird and Cary Fukanaga.
“It’s all within the scope of, what feeds your imagination, what leads you to explore new areas,” Weinstein said. “That’s really the prism within which we’ve programmed.”
Senior programmer Cara Cusumano added that TFF programmers didn’t start with the idea of specific themes or types of films. “It’s up to us to recognize trends and amplify them as opposed to pushing for what we want,” she told TheWrap.
And what trends did they recognize this year? “More than 25 percent of the feature directors are female, which is a record for us,” she said. “And we also found a really strong theme of fatherhood this year — a lot of films looking at flawed fathers, surrogate fathers, particularly from female directors.”
She laughed. “I’m hesitant to say what that means, but it’s interesting when a theme like that pops up.”
The underlying tension at any film festival these days, though — both festivals that cater to the film business, like Sundance and Toronto, and ones that are more “public-facing,” as Weinstein called Tribeca — is the question of the value of festivals at a time when it’s never been easier to get a movie shown somewhere, and never harder to make money doing it.
“It’s a confusing time in the film business, but it’s also a thrilling time,” Weinstein said. “The world is changing so quickly, and how are we going to experience it? What’s going to take us to the next stage? Because out of this are going to come new voices and new works and new experiences, but all with a human story at their center.
“It’s a thrilling, unclear path, and it’s our obligation to curate it.”
25 Must-See Movies at Tribeca Film Festival (Photos)
"The Adderall Diaries" sees a troubled writer played by James Franco throw himself into a hot murder case in an attempt to curb prescription drug addiction and get his mojo back.
Rabbitbandini Productions
Richard Gere's "Franny" tells of a wealthy eccentric who meddles in the affairs of a recently deceased friend's daughter (Dakota Fanning) and her husband (Theo James).
Big Shoes Media
"Havana Motor Club" is a lively documentary about the underground automotive scene in Havana, which thrived long after Castro banned drag racing in the 50s.
Perlmutt Productions
From executive producer Michael Strahan, "Play it Forward" is a documentary following hall-of-fame hopeful Tony Gonzalez as he finished his last year in the NFL.
Tribeca Film
A legend in New York and documentary filmmaking, Albert Maysles' posthumous "In Transit" tugs appropriate heartstrings as it follows passengers on the nation's most highly trafficked train route "The Empire Builder."
Tribeca Film
"Song of Lahore," another documentary, celebrates the brave musicians who struggled to maintain their artistry after the Islamization of Pakistan in the 1970s.
Ravi Films
"Tom Swift and His Electric Rifle" positions the seemingly benign Taser, manufactured in 1999 as a deadly weapon police apply with little to no regulation.
Tribeca Film
Leah Wolchok brings unfettered access to the instution of The New Yorker's single panel cartoons with "Very Semi-Serious."
Tribeca Film
In "A Courtship," Amy Kohn takes a sensitive lens to the conventions of a modern Christian courtship, wherein young women entrust their families to find a suitable husband in step with their faith.
Tribeca Film
Jean Finlay gives a fascinating look at a mysterious singer who sounded note-for-note like Elvis Presley, was exploited by record companies and heard by adoring fans since the 1970s in "Orion: The Man Who Would Be King."
Tribeca Film
Comic filmmaker and Internet child Patrick O’Brien documents his journey with ALS, aimed to fly in the face of the degenerative disease as well as offer a few laughs in "TransFatty Lives."
Tribeca Film
"Anesthesia" packs a major star cast in this drama about the intersecting lives of lonely New Yorkers played by Kristen Stewart, Sam Waterston, Glenn Close, Corey Stoll, Gretchen Mol and Michael K. Williams.
Hello Please
"Bleeding Heart" sees another leading lady effort from Jessica Biel, content in a yuppie clean living existence until she's burdened with taking in her troubled younger sister. The latter has a deeper effect on the former, as Biel's character's perfect world comes undone.
Super Crispy Entertainment
In a strange but sweet scenario, "Maggie" sees Arnold Schwarzenegger as a father in denial about his daughter's (Abigail Breslin) affliction: she's rapidly become a zombie thanks to an outbreak in their farming town.
Silver Reel
Equal parts comical and violent, "Mojave" reteams Oscar Isaac and Garrett Hedlund ("Inside Llewyn Davis") on a road trip adventure with a dark bend.
Atlas Independent
"A Nazi Legacy: What Our Fathers Did" finds two living sons of Nazis convicted in the Nuremberg trials, probing at memory, legacy and the remembrances of a historical horrors.
Tribeca Film
"Prescription Thugs" sees documentarian Chris Bell dress down the giants of the American pharmaceutical companies as he previously did steroids in "Bigger Stronger Faster."
Tribeca Film
A four year lesson from Noam Chomsky on what has created profound American economic disparity is packaged in "Interests," from directors Peter Hutchison, Kelly Nyks, and Jared P. Scott.
PF Pictures
Executive producer Martin Scorsese and director Nick Sandow ("Orange Is The New Black") weave a fascinating tale of a man obsessed with mob movies (Vincent Piazza) and his wife (recent Oscar winner Patricia Arquette) as they chase drugs and money in efforts to recreate the lifestyle.
Electric Entertainment
Amber Heard and Christopher Walken make an odd and wonderful father-daughter team in "When I Live My Life Over Again," where Heard's flighty city girl heads to the Hamptons home of her dad, a former singer.
Maybach Film Productions
Famed Italian filmmaking brothers Paolo and Vittorio Taviani offer up "Wondrous Boccaccio," a gorgeous tale about a group that escapes the plague in Florence for an artistic retreat in the country.
Stemal Entertainment
"A Ballerina's Tale" is the hotly anticipated documentary starring Misty Copeland, the first African-American female soloist at New York’s American Ballet Theatre
Romance Productions Inc.
"Rifftrax Live: The Room" reteams Mike Nelson, Kevin Murphy and Bill Corbett of "Mystery Science Theater 3000" to skewer cult classic films. In this case, they set their sights on Tommy Wiseau's "The Room."
Tribeca Film
"Goodfellas" clearly isn't a premier title but rather a 25th anniversary screening, and what better place to roll out the Ray Liotta classic than Tribeca?
Warner Bros.
Traditional production of Saké has changed very little over the centuries. Erik Shirai’s "The Birth of Saké" offers a rare glimpse into a family-run brewery that’s been operating for over 100 years.
Tribeca Film
1 of 25
From thoughtful documentaries like ”A Courtship“ and ”In Transit“ to dramas such as ”Anesthesia,“ see the can’t-miss premiere titles
"The Adderall Diaries" sees a troubled writer played by James Franco throw himself into a hot murder case in an attempt to curb prescription drug addiction and get his mojo back.