Going beyond screen time
Movies are still a big focus, but live events and more add to the fest’s larger goals.
NEW YORK — Like many movie gatherings, the Tribeca Film Festival has sought to carve out an identity in the face of such encroachments as the emergence of high-end television and the proliferation of, well, other film festivals.
So this year the movie confab is doubling down in an unlikely area: non-film entertainment.
When the 14th annual New York event kicks off Wednesday night, it will do so with a fusillade of onstage interviews, reunions, performances and an expanded virtual-reality and transmedia section.
“The industry has radically changed, so the film festival business has radically changed,” said Jane Rosenthal, Tribeca’s co-founder and guiding hand. “You could almost call it a story festival now.”
There will, of course, be plenty of films this year too. An adaptation of the bestselling book “The Adderall Diaries,” starring James Franco, will make its world premiere at Tribeca, as will other anticipated narrative pieces, such as the rural coming-of-age story “King Jack” and the Greek financial thriller “Wednesday 04:45.”
On the nonfiction side, “As I Am,” a movie about the late music-world figure DJ AM, and “Thought Crimes,” a look at the tabloid fixture known as the “cannibal cop” (directed by David Carr’s daughter, Erin Lee Carr) will seek to maintain Tribeca’s reputation as a venue for quality fact-based storytelling.
But it is some of the live events that will attract the most interest. At the festival’s opening festivities Wednesday, a “Saturday Night Live” reunion of sorts will take place at the Beacon Theatre as assorted cast members past and present are expected to turn out. The fest will then screen Bao Nguyen’s “SNL”-themed “Live from New York!,” a retrospective piece that picks up where NBC’s anniversary special left off.
The comedians will be followed in the 12-day confab by John Oliver convening a rare reunion with members of the Monty Python comedy troupe (a documentary, “Monty Python — The Meaning of Live,” will also be shown); Jon Stewart interviewing cast and filmmakers for a “Goodfellas” reunion; and “Rifftrax: The Room,” a live event from the people behind “Mystery Science Theater 3000.”
Auteurs will be on display too and in interesting combinations: for example, “Foxcatcher” director Bennett Miller engaging in conversation with “Interstellar” helmer Christopher Nolan, and a talk from “Selma” director Ava DuVernay, who is collaborating with Rosenthal on a CBS pilot.
And in a match made in several kinds of heaven, Stephen Colbert will temporarily emerge from his late-night interregnum to interview George Lucas, eight months before “Star Wars Episode VII” hits theaters.
The changes are in part the result of Tribeca partnering with Madison Square Garden, which last year acquired a 50% ownership stake in the festival’s parent company, Tribeca Enterprises. Several of the events will take place at the MSGrun Beacon Theatre, and the fest’s goal is to create consumer buzz as much as create a deal-making atmosphere.
Some of the additions are also coming about as the result of Tribeca hiring Paula Weinstein, the producing veteran, to serve as an executive vice president two years ago. “To me, it’s all about ideas,” Weinstein said. “A film festival is a chance to put these on display, in so many forms.”
Indeed, Tribeca is also going the TV route, debuting the first episode of the new season of “Inside Amy Schumer” fresh off the provocative comedian’s MTV Movie Awards turn; Schumer and her team will make an appearance.
And in Storyscapes, the fest’s transmedia section, Tribeca will again showcase the interactive storytelling that it inaugurated three years ago, an addition that has since been embraced by other festivals. Separately, it will host exhibitions for virtual reality, drawing on native sons such as Chris Milk and hosting demonstrations from the likes of power-player Oculus and the technologists at Stanford’s VR labs.
Tribeca has tried on some different identities since being founded by Rosenthal, her producing partner Robert De Niro and Craig Hatkoff in 2002. The overall number of movies has swollen and then contracted, and taken on different characteristics.
Under current festival director Genna Terranova and senior programmer Cara Cusumano, it has settled into a mix of narrative premieres, debuts of personality-driven and socially relevant docs (this year they also include the Noam Chomsky-centric “Requiem for the American Dream” and the taser-themed “Tom Swift and His Electric Rifle”) as well as selections cherry-picked from other festivals.
Aiding in that effort has been Geoffrey Gilmore, the Sundance veteran who joined Tribeca years ago.
“To us, it’s less about the perfect execution of a movie as it is a place where audiences have a chance to see interesting new voices,” Gilmore said.
Tribeca has cut back in recent years on the glitzy premieres that studios often piggybacked onto the festival, including “Spider-Man 3” in 2007 and “The Avengers” in 2012. Instead, much of the celebrity quotient comes from the events as well as personality-driven documentaries. This year’s slate also includes “Roseanne for President” — about Roseanne Barr’s political-statement run in 2012 — and the ESPN sports section of the festival, which will open Thursday with a premiere of the Tony Gonzales doc “Play It Forward.”
The festival has also restarted a partnership with the Regal multiplex in Tribeca, allowing it to concentrate screenings closer to its headquarters instead of scattering them throughout the city.
“A lot of what’s changing is technological and virtual,” Rosenthal said. “But sometimes physical spaces and community are important too.”