The Tribeca Film Festival, one of MovieStyle's favorite annual destinations, has returned to Tribeca.
After hanging out (mostly) in New York's Chelsea neighborhood for the past few years, the festival, which opened Wednesday, has created a residency at Spring Studios, a 150,000-square-foot creative, production and event venue smack in the middle of Tribeca at 50 Varick St., to bring filmmakers, artists, industry members and audiences together in the festival's original downtown location.
"Since the beginning, we envisioned a space where the festival community could interact and explore ideas, and where we could celebrate storytellers, artists and their work," said Jane Rosenthal, co-founder (along with Robert De Niro and Craig Hatkoff) of the Tribeca. "Our residency at Spring will provide the perfect environment for filmmakers, industry, press and festivalgoers."
The festival, now in its 14th year, will hold a majority of its screenings at Regal Cinemas Battery Park Stadium 11. Other venues in Tribeca and beyond include Borough of Manhattan Community College's Tribeca Performing Arts Center, Tribeca Cinemas, School of Visual Arts Theater in Chelsea and Bow Tie Cinemas' renovated Chelsea Cinemas.
The festival opened with the documentary Live From New York!, which explores Saturday Night Live's evolution from an experiment to a comedy institution. The rest of the lineup offers feature films from 31 countries, chosen from 6,223 submissions. Many of the films are competing in seven categories with winners to be determined by 34 jurors from the film industry, among them actors Minnie Driver, Hank Azaria, Alison Pill and Michael Rapaport, directors David Gelb, Steve Buscemi and Rachel Boynton, screenwriter Paul Attanasio, and feminist Gloria Steinem.
Among the most highly anticipated screenings are narratives such as The Adderall Diaries with James Franco and Amber Heard, The Overnight by Mark Duplass and Taylor Schilling, Franny with Richard Gere and Dakota Fanning, and Anesthesia with Kristen Stewart, Sam Waterston and Glenn Close (directed by Tim Blake Nelson), along with documentaries Mary J. Blige -- The London Sessions, Kurt Cobain: Montage of Heck, A Ballerina's Tale: The Misty Copeland Story, Very Semi-Serious (concerning New Yorker cartoonist Bob Mankoff), Gored (about Spanish bullfighter Antonio Barrera) and Autism in Love.
The most unpredictable and intriguing event at the festival is the Tribeca Talks series, featuring conversations with filmmakers, performers and industry leaders. Unlike most carefully scripted celebrity appearances, there's no telling what these people will say once they get a microphone in their hands. This year, look for the likes of Christopher Nolan, Bennett Miller, George Lucas, Stephen Colbert, Cary Fukunaga, James Schamus, Brad Bird, Janeane Garofalo, Gus Van Sant, Amy Schumer, Courtney Love and Harvey Weinstein.
A celebration to mark the 40th anniversary of Monty Python and the Holy Grail -- a screening of the classic off-kilter comedy and appearances by John Cleese, Terry Gilliam, Eric Idle, Terry Jones and Michael Palin, the five surviving members of the legendary comedy group -- will be held April 24 at the Beacon Theatre on the Upper West Side of Manhattan.
Closing the festival on April 25 will be a 25th-anniversary screening of a remastered version of Martin Scorsese's classic gangster film GoodFellas, followed by onstage chatter with the cast and creators led by Jon Stewart at the Beacon Theatre.
Free community events -- the best places for people-watching and celebrity sightings -- will include the Tribeca Drive-In, which started Thursday and closes Saturday at Brookfield Place with the premiere of A Faster Horse, a documentary celebrating the 50th anniversary of the Ford Mustang, and the exuberant Family Festival Street Fair and the Tribeca/ESPN Sports Day, going on simultaneously from 10 a.m.-6 p.m. April 25 along Tribeca's Greenwich Street.
Established in 2002 (MovieStyle has attended nearly every festival since 2003), the festival's mission is to help filmmakers reach the broadest possible audience. Since its inception it has screened more than 1,400 films from 80-plus countries. Despite a lot of chilly rain, last year's event had a total attendance of more than 400,000.
MovieStyle will be reporting on the festival in the coming weeks. In the meantime, for more information, visit tribecafilm.com and blooddirtangels.com.
MovieStyle on 04/17/2015