Tribeca hails past, offers 96 new films
Although the Tribeca Film Festival concentrates on the present and future of cinema, it loves to celebrate its past as well.
Opening the 17th annual fest will be a highly anticipated screening of Love, Gilda, a documentary about beloved Saturday Night Live comedian Gilda Radner, who died of ovarian cancer in May 1989. The event, to be held at 7 p.m. April 18 at the Beacon Theatre on New York’s Upper West Side, will tell her story through readings of her diaries and interviews with friends and fellow comedians Chevy Chase, Bill Hader, Amy Poehler, Maya Rudolph, Martin Short and Cecily Strong.
Cult favorite Scarface, released in 1983 and considered one of the most groundbreaking of gangland antihero dramas, celebrates its 35th anniversary with a screening at 7 p.m. April 19 at the Beacon with a discussion with director Brian De Palma and actors Al Pacino and Michelle Pfeiffer.
Schindler’s List, a challenging 1993 epic portrait of the Holocaust and winner of seven Academy Awards including best picture, commemorates its 25th anniversary with a screening at 6:30 p.m. April 26 at the Beacon Theatre, followed by a conversation with director Steven Spielberg and actors Liam Neeson, Sir Ben Kingsley and Embeth Davidtz, moderated by New York Times critic Janet Maslin.
Director Alexandre Rock-
well’s In the Soup, the story of Adolpho (Steve Buscemi), who, in a desperate attempt to get his screenplay funded, connects with Joe (Seymour Cassel), a shady high-roller, marks its 25th anniversary with a 4K restoration. The film won the Grand Jury Prize at Sundance in 1992 and then vanished, with only one damaged archival print remaining. The premiere will be followed by a discussion with the director, actors Buscemi, Jennifer Beals and Sam Rockwell, and cinematographer Phil Parmet. It will be shown April 24.
With a feature film lineup — focusing on topics such as immigration, fashion, zombies and women’s issues — that includes 96 films from 103 filmmakers (46 percent of them directed by women), “We are proud to present a lineup that celebrates American diversity and welcomes new international voices in a time of cultural and social activism,” says Paul Weinstein, executive vice president of Tribeca Enterprises. “Our films succeed in being both entertaining and illuminating, which is what you desire from great storytellers.”
There will be 55 short films in 10 competition programs (five narrative, three documentary, one animation, and one hybrid), including 29 world premieres, by international and U.S. filmmakers chosen from a record 4,754 submissions. For the second year running, 40 percent of the selections are directed by female filmmakers. The program will also include the 12th annual Tribeca/ ESPN Sports Film Festival. And the kickoff episode of the second season of HBO’s Westworld will be shown, as will the opener of Season 5 of Drunk History and Netflix documentary Bobby Kennedy for President.
Small-screen tributes come via world premieres of Rest in Power: The Trayvon Martin Story from executive producer Jay-Z, Sweetbitter, a series on the New York restaurant scene, and Cobra Kai, with Ralph Macchio reprising his role from the Karate Kid franchise.
This year’s Tribeca Talks: Directors Series, in which noteworthy filmmakers discuss their work, will include Alexander Payne, Jason Reitman (whose new film Tully, written by Diablo Cody, is premiering at Tribeca on April 19), Laura Poitras (Citizenfour, which won a best-documentary Oscar), Nancy Meyers (Private Benjamin), and Leslie Linka Glatter (Twin Peaks, Freaks and Geeks, Gilmore Girls, The West Wing, Mad Men, Homeland) with Homeland’s Claire Danes.
Tribeca Talks: Storytellers, which spotlights filmmakers who work across mediums, will present the likes of Bradley Cooper, Robert De Niro, Alex Baldwin, Spike Lee, John Legend, Edward Burns and Jamie Foxx.
There’s more: The world premiere of Steven Sebring’s documentary Horses: Patti Smith and her Band, concerning the a performance of Smith’s 1975 Horses album at Wiltern Theater in Los Angeles in early 2016, will take place at 7 p.m. April 23 at the Beacon Theatre. It will be followed with a performance by Smith and her band.
Conversations on inequality in the workplace with Ashley Judd, Julianne Moore, Sarah Jessica Parker, Fatima Goss Graves and others in the Time’s Up movement will be held at 11 a.m. April 28 at Tribeca Festival Hub; proceeds will benefit the Time’s Up Legal Defense Fund.
An interactive program features storytelling via virtual reality and interactive experiences at the Tribeca Festival Hub in lower Manhattan from April 20-28. Established filmmakers participating include Terrence Malick, Laurie Anderson, Rosario Dawson, Lupita Nyong’o and Alicia Vikander.
Closing the festival at 8 p.m. April 28 at Borough of Manhattan Community College will be the world premiere of The Fourth Estate, directed by Liz Garbus, which follows The New York Times’ coverage of the Trump administration’s first year. The screening will be followed by a conversation with Garbus and Times executive editor Dean Baquet, Washington bureau chief Elisabeth Bumiller, White House correspondent Maggie Haberman and Washington investigative correspondent Mark Mazzetti. The documentary will air as a series on Showtime starting at 7 p.m. May 27.
Festival ticket packages start at $55. For information visit www.tribecafilm.com/ festival/tickets.