By Brent Lang
Plus IconBrent Lang
Executive Editor
BrentALang See All
Getty Images for Tribeca Festiva For its 25th anniversary edition, Tribeca Festival will host a special conversation with co-founders Robert De Niro and Jane Rosenthal that looks back at the dramatic events that inspired the annual celebration of movies and media. Matt Tyrnauer, the acclaimed director of documentaries such as “Where’s My Roy Cohn?” and “Valentino: The Last Emperor,” will moderate the talk.
There will certainly be plenty of fodder for the discussion, as few festivals have unfolded against such a harrowing backdrop. Tribeca, which initially was rooted in downtown New York, was launched in just 120 days to help lower Manhattan as it recovered from the 9/11 attacks. De Niro, the Oscar-winning star of “Raging Bull” and “Goodfellas,” and Rosenthal, the producer of “Meet the Parents,” tapped their extensive networks to program a roster of A-list talent and premieres. In an interview with Variety last year, Rosenthal reflected on that chaotic and consequential first festival.
“Nobody was coming downtown after 9/11,” she said. “You had tanks on Canal Street. We announced the festival and then proceeded to do it in 120 days. Mike Bloomberg gave us the back steps of City Hall to do an event, and President Clinton came and Hugh Grant, who was the star of ‘About a Boy,’ which was a movie that we had produced and showed. Mandela talked about how when he was a prisoner at Robben Island, the prisoners and the jailers had movie nights, and they’d laugh and cry at the same things. It reminded them of their shared humanity.”
Popular on Variety
There will also be free outdoor screenings at Hudson Yards, and, for the first time, limited public tickets to the Tribeca Festival Awards Ceremony on June 11, where De Niro and Rosenthal will present the festival’s signature Founders Award. Since it kicked off in 2002, Tribeca has grown in size and scope. Its premieres and screenings now take place across the five boroughs and encompass everything from movies to television to virtual reality and audio storytelling.
“The festival was an act of defiance. We had 120 days. Thirteen-hundred volunteers. No money. No blueprint. Just an idea and a neighborhood that needed people back in it,” De Niro said in a statement. “This wasn’t just about movies—it was about whether downtown was coming back. We were doing everything we could think of to get New York to feel like New York again.”
“I fell in love with New York through the movies and now, New York needed the movies to recover,” Rosenthal said in a statement. “Stories help people understand each other in a divided world. That was our mission after 9/11, and it remains true today. We’re still doing what we originally set out to do, entertaining audiences, and championing diverse voices with something meaningful to say.”
To honor this legacy, the festival’s outdoor screenings, which have been dubbed Tribeca at 25: Celebrating the Stories We Share, will revisit some of its landmark premieres, as well as audience favorites and breakthrough discoveries that have shaped its past quarter century. Some of those films include Tomas Alfredson’s “Let the Right One In” (TF ‘08); Damien Chazelle’s directorial debut “Guy and Madeline on a Park Bench” (TF ‘09); Paul Crowder and Jon Small’s “The Last Play at Shea” (TF ’10); David Gelb’s directorial debut “Jiro Dreams of Sushi” (TF ‘11); Orlando von Einsiedel’s first feature-length documentary “Virunga” (TF ‘14); Frédéric Tcheng’s directorial debut “Dior and I” (TF ‘14); Nia DaCosta’s directorial debut “Little Woods” (TF ‘18); Ani Simon-Kennedy’s “The Short History of the Long Road” (TF ‘19); and Jessica Kingdom’s directorial debut “Ascension” (TF ‘21). Several screenings will be followed by conversations with the filmmakers behind them, including DaCosta, Gelb, Tcheng, Simon-Kennedy, and producer Jasmine McGlade.
The series also spotlights the Festival’s shorts program, with selections including Ben Proudfoot’s “Queen of Basketball” (TF ‘21); “Tusk’s Ripe!” (TF ‘24); and Julia Aks and Steve Pinder’s “Jane Austen’s Period Drama” (TF ‘24).
Tribeca Festival notes that since its inception, it has generated more than $1 billion in economic impact for New York City while expanding offering everything from free screenings to street fairs and craft workshops.
Jump to Comments-
‘The Devil Wears Prada 2’ Director Tried ‘Sneaking’ Adrian Grenier in For a Cameo But it Was ‘Too Late in Our Production Schedule to Make it Happen’
-
Lady Gaga and Doechii Serve Sass and High Fashion in ‘Runway’ Music Video
-
Real-Life ‘Emily’ From ‘Devil Wears Prada’ Speaks Out: The Book ‘Felt Like a Betrayal’ but ‘I Probably Was Not Very Nice. I Was High-Strung’
-
Meryl Streep Sides With Jimmy Kimmel in Trump War of Words: ‘You’re Carrying the Banner of Freedom of the Press’
-
Anne Hathaway Told ‘Devil Wears Prada 2’ Producers Not to Put Models Who Are ‘So Skeletal’ and ‘Alarmingly Thin’ in the Movie, Says Meryl Streep
-
Coca-Cola Hopes Beverages Make Splash in ‘Devil Wears Prada 2’
