Rave Reviews For Tribeca Film Festival 2015

Rave Reviews For Tribeca Film Festival 2015

By: Hope Wilkos, Writer

It is hard to believe that we are just about halfway through May, and now looking back to almost one month ago, signs were popping up across New York City, spreading the message that soon, Tribeca Film Festival 2015 would be introducing film fanatics to a whole new year of diverse entertainment over 12 exciting days. There is nothing more exhilarating than seeing the work of emerging, brilliant and highly motivated directors in a trance of creativity.

Tribeca Film Festival 2015 brought with it not only a festival of outstanding films, but a large number of ‘firsts’. More female directors than ever before in the history of the film festival showed us that talent has no boundaries and creativity is based on the beholder of the gift. The Terminator, Arnold Schwarzenegger, gave us a view of a much deeper and more emotional actor with his role in the film ‘Maggie’, a successful film set to open very soon to the American public at theaters nationwide.

Laughter-bestowed Jason Sudeikis, exposed us to the many facets of his personality in a matter of days as he appeared in more than just one film debut, while his fiancee’ , the lovely Olivia Wilde, revealed a side of her creativy that has quickly beckoned her to the top of her category and all the while she continued to receive rave reviews for each and every one, before, during and after the festival came to a glorious end.

A true classic and almost everyone’s favorite gangster movie,’ Goodfellas‘ made for a most memorable evening as it closed the festival on April 25th, 2015. The entertainment industry certainly calls this ‘reaching a major milestone’ as the film marked its 25th anniversary.

In honor of the 25^th Anniversary celebration, the film’s creators and cast members reunited at TFF for a conversation following the film with Jon Stewart where they looked back at the acclaimed 1990 Academy Award-nominated classic based on the true-crime bestseller “Wiseguy” by Nicholas Pileggi.

“While TFF’s mission is centered around new stories and voices, we also seek to honor the creators and films that have shaped the cultural landscape,” said Jane Rosenthal, co-founder, Tribeca Film Festival. “GoodFellas is one of those pictures with an honest and stylized portrayal of the gangster lifestyle that has inspired a generation of filmmakers and television directors across genres. We are proud to celebrate its 25th anniversary at our closing night and introduce new audiences to one of Marty’s masterpieces.”

Martin Scorsese said, “I was so excited to learn that this picture, now 25 years old, would be closing this year’s Tribeca Film Festival. Excited and moved. It was an adventure to get it on screen—we wanted to make a movie that was true to Nick Pileggi’s book and to the life of Henry Hill and his friends, which means that we broke some rules and took some risks. So it’s heartening to know that GoodFellas has come to mean so much to so many people. It’s wonderful to see one of your pictures revived and re-seen, but to see it closing Tribeca, a festival of new movies, means the world to me.”

“I was most proud of this film 25 years ago, and equally proud of it now. I’m very happy that it is our closing night film,” said Robert De Niro, co-founder, Tribeca Film Festival. The film earned six Academy Award^® nominations, including Best Picture and Best Director and was named 1990s Best Film by the New York, Los Angeles and National Society of Film Critics. In 2000, GoodFellas was selected for preservation in the National Film Registry by the US Library of Congress. On May 5, Warner Bros. Home Entertainment (WBHE) released GoodFellas 25^th Anniversary on Blu-ray^TM and Digital HD which includes a new documentary. “Scorsese’s GoodFellas” featuring interviews with Robert De Niro, Leonardo DiCaprio, Harvey Keitel, Ray Liotta and more.

The film festival began on April 15th and was ushered in with the showing of ‘Live From New York‘. It’s difficult to believe that NBC’s late night comedy show, Saturday Night Live, has been entering households for 40 years now and has become a Saturday evening tradition. Director Bob Nguyen took his audience back in time, with an inspirational retrospective on the show’s history, influence and most memorable moments, all through this well-made documentary. The quality of cultural entertainment provided from that evening made for a grand entrance to twelve days of movie-making that only continued to get even more exceptional. Following the film, Chris “Ludacris” Bridges performed.

For those unable to make the festival, there were highlights that demand recognition and remembrance as you will see right here.

The 2015 Tribeca Film Festival (TFF), co-founded by Robert De Niro, Jane Rosenthal and Craig Hatkoff, and presented by AT&T, tallied the statistics and determined that during the Festival’s 14^th edition more than 467,000 people attended screenings, panels, virtual reality experiences and free community events – including the Tribeca Drive-In series, Family Festival Street Fair, Tribeca/ESPN Sports Day, the Tribeca Disruptive Innovation Awards, and programming housed at TFF’s inaugural downtown creative hub, Tribeca Film Festival at Spring Studios.

From April 15 through 26, the Festival hosted 492 screenings and panels. A total of 101 features, 60 short films and five immersive storytelling projects from 38 countries were screened for more than 138,000 movie-goers and panel attendees over the course of the 12-day Festival. For the second year, thanks to AT&T, an entire day of film screening tickets were free through “Film for All Friday,” where over 10,000 tickets were claimed for the screenings on Friday, April 24th.

“This year, thanks to our new Festival hub at Spring Studios, we have been able to connect more deeply than ever before with audiences seeing films, attending talks, and experiencing the cultural and technological innovations at the forefront of storytelling,” said Jane Rosenthal, co-founder, Tribeca Film Festival. “Bringing these audiences together with filmmakers and great stories is the reason we do what we do.”

The free community events returned with the Tribeca Drive-In^® movie series on the waterfront plaza at Brookfield Place, co-sponsored by AT&T and hosted by Brookfield Place. The program featured a 30^th anniversary screening of Clue, a 60^th anniversary screening of the Disney classic Lady and the Tramp, and the world premiere of A Faster Horse, a documentary celebrating the 50^th anniversary of the Ford Mustang. More than 7,500 visitors came out for the free, outdoor films and participated in games and activities, including a Murder Mansion photo booth, Italian love song sing-alongs, face painting, and interactive car-themes simulations.

It was estimated that a crowd of 300,000 enjoyed the signature Tribeca Family Festival Street Fair and Tribeca/ESPN Sports Day, sponsored by Mohegan Sun, on Saturday, April 25, which included Games for Change Public Arcade, interactive sports experiences with NY teams including The New York Knicks, New York Rangers and New York Liberty, live performances from The Rockettes and the casts of Broadway shows including Wicked, Kinky Boots, On The Town, and much more.

Tribeca Film Festival at Spring Studios, the new creative hub and gathering place for festivalgoers in the heart of Tribeca, welcomed nearly 20,000 people throughout the 12 day festival. The space hosted Storyscapes, a juried section showcasing groundbreaking exhibits in technology and interactive storytelling presented in collaboration with BOMBAY SAPPHIRE^® Gin, DEF CON’s renowned hacking conference, Oculus_™Story Studio’s virtual reality experience, Stanford Virtual Human Interaction Lab, Sinatra at 100: Film & Music—a special evening of film and music with the Lincoln Motor Company in celebration of Frank Sinatra’s centennial, and talks with artists and industry leaders including A$AP Rocky, Google’s Astro Teller, Stanford’s Jeremy Bailenson, AOL’s Tim Armstrong and more.

Being an American Express Card Member has its perks and at the Tribeca Film Festival 2015, exclusive screening of Mary J. Blige: The London Sessions took place, a documentary chronicling the artist as she writes, records, and curates one of her most experimental albums to date, followed by a performance by Blige. On a much lighter note, a reunion of the five surviving members of Monty Python followed by a special screening of Monty Python and The Holy Grail took place.

2015 Tribeca Film Festival anecdotes:

Nearly 1000 industry delegates were in attendance from 40 countries including Argentina, Bulgaria, India, Israel, Kosovo, Russia, South Africa, South Korea, Sweden, and the United Arab Emirates.
There were 34 Tribeca Talks conversations at the festival, 16 of which were turned into live podcasts from WNYC http://www.wnyc.org/shows/tribecafilm
Over 780 one-on-one meetings were scheduled at Tribeca Film Institute’s Network Market, one-on-one industry meetings designed to allow filmmakers to network with film industry executives, potential investors, development executives, producers and agents. Additionally, over 125 industry/decision makers attended.
The Festival presented 20 virtual reality projects from Chris Milk, Oculus™ Story Studio, Stanford Virtual Human Interaction Lab, Penrose, Nonny de la Pena and two projects in Storyscapes: “The Enemy” and “Machine To Be Another”
The Festival celebrated the powerful connection between music and film, featuring a centennial tribute to the man who exemplified that pairing: Frank Sinatra. Tony Bennett, Ne-Yo and Alice Smith, Brandon Flowers, Lea Delaria, and Savion Glover honored his influence following a special screening of On the Town. In addition, multi-hyphenate rapper-actor Chris “Ludacris” Bridges helped open TFF, Mary J. Blige brought down the house at The Beacon Theatre with her powerful set, and Sarah McLachlan gave an exclusive performance at IWC Schaffhausen’s “For the Love of Cinema” gala dinner.
Music continued throughout the 12 days when The Song of Lahore’sSachal Jazz Ensemble performed their innovative rendition of Dave Brubeck’s “Take Five” after each screening in front of rapturous audiences, receiving multiple standing ovations. Che “Rhymefest” Smith performed after screenings of his film In My Father’s House, then answered questions standing side by side with his recovering dad, still on the upswing, while during the Shorts program NY Daily Grind – the subway performers “Showtime” from the short “We Live This” performed for the audience and singers from “Better to Live” sang a song about NYC acapella.
On an emotional and celebratory evening, the Maysles family attended the world premiere of Albert’s last film, In Transit. Other friends there included Jerry Torre (the caretaker from Grey Gardens a.k.a. “the marble faun”). The documentary received a Special Jury Mention for its essentially American character and for being emblematic of the career of an “all-time master.”
The Monty Python reunion with John Oliver at the Beacon Theatre was uproarious, as expected, with the Pythons paying homage to their famous coconut scene when they arrived for the red carpet with toy coconuts to give to media and fans.
The subjects of TheWolfpack went to the closing night anniversary screening of GoodFellas dressed as GoodFellas.
Olivia Wilde and Jason Sudeikis were TFF’s unofficial king and queen, with two projects each premiering at Tribeca, including Meadowland, Body Team 12, Tumbledownand Sleeping With Other People.
Hundreds of locks and seals were ethically picked and tampered with in the DEF CON villages at Tribeca Film Festival at Spring Studios, teaching attendees from age five to 73 to look at media and the world around them in a different way.
Audience Award winning director Patrick O’Brien of TransFattyLives rapped Rapper’s Delight at his Q&A through his voice machine. Everyone was cracking up and his team had to stop him so the Q&A could continue.
At the premiere of A Ballerina’s Tale, sponsored by Under Armour, dancer Misty Copeland received a standing ovation and was overcome with emotion when discussing her TIME cover at the Q&A afterwards which featured questions from an admiring audience, including some young aspiring ballet dancers.
DJ Z-Trip’s performance of Speedywas called “the future of silent film” by many in attendance at the one-night-only event at Spring Studios.
At the Orion: The Man Who Would be Kingscreening, the audience was full of Orion lookalikes wearing paper cutout masks passed out by the filmmakers. People were still wearing them at the karaoke party afterwards.
Wrestlers from Bodyslam: Revenge of the Bananaarrived in costume, showed off their outrageous moves at the Q&A.
Twenty-eight Tribeca Disruptive Innovation Award honorees received awards at a packed house at BMCC Tribeca PAC.
Approximately 1,350 public school students attended screening events at Tribeca Film Festival, through Tribeca Film Institute programs including Tribeca Teaches, Youth Screening Series and Our City, My Story.
And Festival Director Genna Terranova welcomed baby Gia Terranova Quintela, 7lbs 15 oz, on April 13, just in time for TFF!

So many memories in such a short amount of time….The many magnificent films viewed by all these filmgoers stirred up a ton of emotions within all of us from making us laugh to making us cry, gave us a bit to soul search over, made us wonder, but when you really sit down and think about it, “Isn’t that what Tribeca Film Festival is all about?

Photos Courtesy of Tribeca Film Festival, Facebook Page