Tribeca Film Festival Research Articles

The Second Time Around: New Festivals, Special Programs

Speculation in the film world was running riot by the beginning of 2003: would the Tribeca Film Festival emerge for its second round? If so, what would happen? What would this festival look like? And how would the festival affect the myriad other film events in New York City? Robert De Niro and Jane Rosenthal had to be credited with pulling off the event the first time out, but would lightning strike twice? By February, it was announced that the festival would take place in May; when the full program was available, the results were staggering—over 200 films would be shown in an eight day period at the beginning of May! It was, in fact, one of the biggest film festivals ever to be held in New York City. Previously, the New York Film Festival had been the model for New York City film events. The New York Film Festival has existed for forty years as a self-admittedly “boutique” festival, a highly selective event showing an average of thirty films, representing the best of the best (according to the selection committee). But New York City had never had a massive international film festival, with a multitude of films screening simultaneously at several venues, the model of Berlin, Cannes, Venice. In North America, Montreal and Toronto have continued in that tradition; San Francisco has tried to develop into such an international festival. Could the Tribeca Film Festival pull off such an event?

Ain't Nothin' Like The Real Thing: Hollywood Comes to New York

W5T V 7 hen Robert De Niro's production company, Tribeca Films, announced its plans for a major film festival, there were murmurs of concern, if not outright consternation. For one thing, film festivals can take years to put together, and Tribeca Films claimed that their festival would be up and running in four months; another claim was that the Tribeca Film Festival would rival Cannes in its stellar quality. The purpose of the festival, of course, was the promotion of the downtown Manhattan area, so hard hit after the events of September 11, 2001. Could a major festival be organized in four months? From January 2002, when the announcement was made, to the beginning of May, could an entire festival be created? Would motion picture industry heavyweights (De Niro, Jane Rosenthal, Martin Scorsese, et al.) be able to delegate responsibility effectively, in order to ensure effective facilitation of day-to-day festival management? The downtown Manhattan area already had played a significant role in the dramatic history of independent filmmaking in the United States; right now, many individuals and organizations important to independent filmmaking are domiciled in lower Manhattan, and one question was whether the true independent filmmaking community would be allowed some visibility in the industry-oriented Tribeca Film Festival. (Examples of independent film organizations in lower Manhattan would include the Filmmakers Coop, Anthology Film Archives, the Millennium Film Workshop, the Association of Independent Video and Film, Film/Video Arts, MIX, and The New Festival.)