Tribeca Film Festival To Celebrate 15 Years

Tribeca Film Festival Invites You to Celebrate 15 Years of Film Entertainment

By:  Hope Wilkos, Writer

 

Life is a series of stories waiting to be told and only the most creative can captivate your attention with their unique rendition. That may be why film fanatics love the month of April in New York City. It is the month when the city comes alive with imagination and innovation as Tribeca Film Festival celebrates 15 years of entertaining audiences and discovering emerging talent in the film industry. It will all take place this year from April 13, 2016 through April 24, 2016.

What began as a means to raise the spirits of disheartened New Yorkers after 9/11, has turned into one of the premiere multi-platform storytelling events of our time. Visionaries have been known to turn dreams into realities and Tribeca Film Festival is the event to prove that.

Once again, the Festival will be presented by AT&T, global communications giant, taking us into the future with ingenious technology. This year, the festival will showcase 23 new virtual reality exhibits and interactive installations – 16 of which are world premieres – and debut a new program, the Virtual Arcade, featuring wide-ranging VR experiences from some of the leading creators and emerging voices in the medium. TFF offers festival-goers the unique opportunity to experience first-hand the incredible breadth of work being created in VR today, including projects with roots in journalism, narrative and documentary storytelling, gaming and music, and interactions with artists, filmmakers, and the creative community.

Storyscapes, an audience favorite, returns for its fourth year, along with HACKED by DEF CON and Games For Change’s Games and Media Summit. Interactive installations, gaming and panels about the future of technology, online surveillance and hacker culture round out the Tribeca Festival Hub lineup. Amongst the noted creators of these installations and exhibits are NFB, Penrose Studios, RYOT, Stanford Virtual Human Interaction Lab, Wevr, Baobab Studios, Gabo at Vrse.works, Felix & Paul Studios, and more.

“Tribeca has always celebrated the most exciting new forms of storytelling, from video games to virtual reality,” said Jane Rosenthal, co-founder Tribeca Film Festival and Executive Chair of Tribeca Enterprises. “This year’s program, which you can touch and feel at our amazing Festival Hub at Spring Studios, features the most dynamic work to date at the intersection of story and technology. We’re committed to giving the independent artists we support the best stage to share their mind-blowing work with audiences.”

 

“Our experiential program is what happens when artists create wildly different adventures that go outside traditional methods. Here stories are not passively watched they are actually ‘experienced’ – you are a participant,” said Genna Terranova, Festival Director. “Today virtual reality offers a new landscape for creating worlds and stories. At its best it can be a powerful vehicle for magically transportive explorations that test the limits of our imaginations and psyches.”

 

This year continues to bring about change to keep up with the ever-changing social media environment. Tribeca Film Festival and Snapchat will collaborate on TRIBECA SNAPCHAT SHORTS, the first of its kind, spotlighting the best Snapchat stories submitted from across the nation. This will be mobile storytelling at its finest.

 

Tribeca Film Festival has also announced that the world premiere of The First Monday in May will open the 2016 Tribeca Film Festival on Wednesday, April 13, taking place downtown at the Festival’s main venue at BMCC Tribeca PAC (Westside Highway at Chambers Street). The documentary, which explores The Metropolitan Museum of Art’s most attended Costume Institute exhibition ever, “China: Through the Looking Glass,” is directed by Andrew Rossi (Page One).  Opening the Festival’s 15^th edition with a film highlighting art, fashion and culture set around such an iconic museum, demonstrates TFF’s celebration of cultural institutions.

Another category of the Tribeca Film Festival will be the Narratives. This year is even more exciting than years past. The world premiere of Contemporary Color which captures the unprecedented event at Brooklyn’s Barclays Center , now a New York magnificent venue, will celebrate the art of color guard with performers including St. Vincent, Nelly Furtado, and Ad-Rock will open the World Documentary competition. The world premiere of Kicks about an ill-advised mission across the Bay Area to retrieve stolen sneakers will open the US Narrative competition. The world premiere of Madly, an anthology of short films exploring love in all its permutations directed by some of the most vibrant filmmakers today, will open the International Narrative competition. Viewpoints will open with the world premiere of Nerdland, an R-rated cartoon comedy about celebrity, excess, and two showbiz nobodies, John (Paul Rudd) and Elliott (Patton Oswalt), with a plan to become famous.

 

The Festival is proud to convey to filmgoers that one third of this year’s films are by women directors — a record number in the Festival’s history. This year there are 77 world premieres and 42 filmmakers will make their feature directorial debuts. Last year, over 80% of the world premieres eligible for acquisition were sold, attributing to the success of Tribeca Film Festival.

Another newer category of TFF is the Tribeca/ESPN Sports Film Festival and promises an exhilarating lineup. This year also has a variety of other categories to spark your interest. The 10th annual Tribeca/ESPN Sports Film Festival Gala will be This Magic Moment, about the Orlando Magic, with superstars Shaquille O’Neal and Penny Hardaway in attendance.

 

The Spotlight, Midnight, Centerpiece and Special Screening sections along with the Work In Progress screenings have some extreme talent awaiting audiences. Highlights from the announcement include the world premiere of Bill Purple’s drama The Devil and the Deep Blue Sea starring Jason Sudeikis, Jessica Biel and Maisie Williams which will open the Spotlight section.  The section’s narrative feature highlights include world premieres of Roadside Attraction’s A Hologram for the King, starring Tom Hanks; Custody directed by James Lapine starring Viola Davis, Hayden Panettiere and Catalina Sandino Moreno; Katie Holmes’ feature directorial debut All We Had, a coming-of-age drama about a resilient mother and daughter; Wolves, the powerful drama directed and written by Bart Freundlich, starring Michael Shannon, Carla Gugino and newcomer Taylor John Smith; and Youth in Oregon, starring Frank Langella, Billy Crudup, Christina Applegate, Mary Kay Place and Josh Lucas. Documentaries in the Spotlight section include world premieres of Command and Control, based on Eric Schlosser’s 2013 book of the same name; and Bad Rap, following the lives of four Asian-American rappers.

 

The Centerpiece film for this year’s Festival is the world premiere of the historical comedy Elvis & Nixon starring Kevin Spacey and Michael Shannon.  The Midnight section opens with the world premiere of the highly anticipated horror anthology, Holidays.

 

This year’s Special Screenings and Events include live performances from Steve Aoki who will perform following the world premiere of the documentary on him, I’ll Sleep When I’m Dead, at The Beacon Theatre, and Billie Joe Armstrong who will perform at the Tribeca Festival Hub following the world premiere of Geezer, in which he stars. Also making appearances are luminaries Pelé from the biopic Pelé: Birth of a Legend and Sir Richard Branson in the documentary Don’t Look Down.

 

This year also marks another new addition that will draw more viewers and increase the viewing audience. Tribeca Tune In, will further expand the television programming at the Festival.  Tribeca Tune In features exciting programming in television including six season premieres, three sneak peeks and season finales, three standalone conversations, and four special events.

Highlights include the premiere of newly anticipated television series: OWN’s new original drama series Greenleaf with Oprah Winfrey, HBO’s limited drama series The Night Of with John Turturro; History’s Roots;  TNT’s Animal Kingdom, and from the producers and stars of Broad City, Ilana Glazer, Paul W. Downs, and Lucia Aniello, the limited three episode series Time Traveling Bong.

 

A number of special television events will also take place including a farewell conversation with The Good Wife show creators Robert & Michelle King and cast including Julianna Margulies, Christine Baranski, Cush Jumbo and more, as well as a special retrospective screening of the series finale of HBO’s Six Feet Under with live commentary from creator/director Alan Ball.

 

Perhaps the biggest treat of all was announced on Friday, March 18, 2016. Martin Scorsese’s powerful psychological thriller ,Taxi Driver, will celebrate its 40th Anniversary on April 21 at the 15th edition of the Festival. The original popular thriller starred Robert DeNiro, Jodie Foster, Albert Brooks, Leonard Harris, Peter Boyle, and Cybill Shepherd, Directed by Martin Scorsese, written by Paul Schrader and produced by Michael Phillips and Julia Phillips, the 1976 film was nominated for four Academy Awards®, including Best Picture and Best Actor for Robert De Niro; and two Golden Globes. One of TIME Magazines “all-TIME 100 Movies,” Taxi Driver was called “a brilliant nightmare,” by the Chicago Sun-Times and praised by the Village Voice as “a phenomenon from another day and age.”

 

Following the anniversary screening at the Beacon Theatre, Martin Scorsese, Robert De Niro, Jodie Foster, Cybill Shepherd, and Paul Schrader will take part in a special conversation moderated by Kent Jones. Tickets will be available beginning March 24 at 10am EST by visiting beacontheatre.com or by calling Ticketmaster at 866-858-0008. The evening is sponsored by Infor. The Tribeca Film Festival will take place April 13-24.

 

“Taxi Driver is one of the most brilliantly disturbing movies ever made, and why I chose to go into film. It’s had an indelible impact on pop culture, and its performances rank among the most memorable in cinema,” said Jane Rosenthal, co-founder, Tribeca Film Festival, and Executive Chair, Tribeca Enterprises. “It’s a great honor to have the original cast at the Festival and to present this masterpiece to a new generation.”

 

“It’s odd to think that four decades have passed since we shot Taxi Driver on the streets of a very different New York City. It was made in a surge of energy, starting with Paul’s one-of-a-kind script, and I was working with an extraordinary group of artistic collaborators as anyone could ever hope for—Jodie, who was 13 years old at the time, and Bob gave the picture something precious, dangerous, and altogether remarkable. I’m honored to take part in the celebration of the film’s 40th anniversary at this year’s Tribeca Film Festival,” said Martin Scorsese.

 

“It’s a great honor for TFF to revisit Taxi Driver. I’m very proud to have worked on this film with Marty, Jodie, Harvey, Cybill, Paul, Michael and Julia as well as the extraordinary cast and crew. I remain equally proud today,” said Robert De Niro, Festival co-founder.

An alienated and quiet loner, taxi driver Travis Bickle (Robert De Niro) works the night shift in Manhattan.  After failing to land a date with Betsy (Cybill Shepherd), a beautiful campaign aide for presidential candidate Palentine (Leonard Harris), an encounter with a 12- year old prostitute, Iris (Jodie Foster), and her pimp, Sport (Harvey Keitel), convinces Travis that the world is a rotten place.  And as his frustration mounts, he assembles a cache of guns and then learns how to use them…with deadly accuracy.

 

Sony Pictures digitally restored and re-mastered Taxi Driver to 4K from the original negative, which was shown in a limited theatrical release.  Taxi Driver is currently available on Blu-ray and digital from Sony Pictures Home Entertainment.

 

Signature sponsors include Accenture, Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, Bloomberg, CHANEL, ESPN, Spring Studios, Lincoln Motor Company, Thompson Hotels, United Airlines and more.

Festival passes are now on sale with a variety of packages to choose from. On March 29th, single tickets will also go on sale. For all the information that you need to purchase your tickets, go to Tribeca Film Festival website.  You can connect with the Festival in the following ways:

 

Facebook: facebook.com/Tribeca

Twitter: @Tribeca

Instagram: @Tribeca

Snapchat: TribecaFilmFest

Hashtag: #Tribeca2016

Courtesy of Tribeca Film Festival PR