Tribeca Festival Raising The Curtain On 2024 With Co-Founder Robert De Niro Front And Center

Jill Goldsmith
·5-min read

The June skies are clear as the Tribeca Festival gathers indie filmmakers from around the globe with a large slate of features and shorts, music, games, TV, audio storytelling and a major addition this year in De Niro Con, a tribute to the prolific actor and Tribeca co-founder.

The fest moved from April to June in part for the weather but that can’t be taken for granted — last year’s edition opened to a city blanketed with acrid smoke from Canadian wildfires as Mayor Eric Adams handed De Niro the key to the city at a press conference and Tribeca unveiled De Niro Con. Fan events and screenings with star power from Quentin Tarantino, Martin Scorsese, Billy Crystal, Ben Stiller, David O. Russell, Christopher Walken and others will unspool over the last four days of the festival.

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Other retrospectives and reunions will see Steven Spielberg screen and discuss his 1974 feature film debut The Sugarland Express, and David Chase with the cast of The Sopranos on the show’s 25th anniversary.

Opening the festival tonight is documentary Diane von Furstenberg: Woman In Charge to be followed over ten days by 108 features from over 50 countries, many international. The 86 world premieres include Sacramento, Griffin In Summer, A Mistake, The Shallow Tale Of A Writer Who Decided To Write About A Serial Killer, The Wasp, Jazzy and Lake George. Brats, LIZA: A Truly Terrific Absolutely True Story, Group Therapy and ¡Casa Bonita Mi Amor! featuring Trey Parker and Matt Stone are new docs. See the festival lineup here.

Winners will be announced June 13 as programming continues through the 16th.

Organizers noted more than 13,000 submissions, a record for the festival, which is known for supporting new indie directors.

Programmers, led by Cara Cusumano, “have worked tirelessly in finding those independent voices, those diverse voices, and films from all over the world,” says Jane Rosenthal, CEO of festival parent Tribeca Enterprises.

Tribeca has always been an unusual fest, looking to be both audience focused and industry forward with a wide range of independent narrative films, docs and shorts. There is no market, however, and it can take a beat for films that don’t go in with distribution to find it. Distribution overall is very tough now “but the fest does what it can,” Rosenthal tells Deadline.

“Our communications team works really hard with the filmmakers, with their representatives, with their publicists, with their sales agents to make sure that they’re screened. Sometimes they’re screened before the festival, making sure there’s access all the time. We’re not the biggest sales festival, it doesn’t have that the way Sundance, you know, does, and used to have even more because the business has changed. So sometimes what happens to us is that a film will get picked up several months later. You know, again, the business has changed. But we do try to make everything as easy as possible because we want to support them.”

Festivals are increasingly key in raising awareness for projects and filmmakers are thrilled to get a slot. But some reps worry that small projects which need exposure the most can have a harder time breaking out with Tribeca’s June date coming so soon after the tsunami of Cannes.

Personally, most agree that June in New York City is great.

“I was there a couple of days ago and the weather was exceptionally beautiful. I think [June] is the right time for the festival,” says producer Stephen Braun who has two films in this year. Sacramento by Michael Anganaro in his feature debut, stars Kristen Stewart and Michael Cera and is one of the festival’s buzziest titles. McVeigh by Mike Ott stars Alfie Allen as the perpetrator of the deadliest act of U.S. domestic terrorism.

The festival, launched in lower Manhattan after 9/11, has an activist heart. That’s reflected in its lineup, and, this year in particular, an election year, by co-founder Robert De Niro, who has been strenuously supporting Joe Biden. On the morning of Tribeca’s press junket, he was trading barbs with Donald Trump supporters at a Biden campaign event outside the lower Manhattan courthouse where the former president was on trial (and ultimately convicted) for falsifying accounts to hide hush money payments to porn star Stormy Daniels.

Films tackling hate and destructive geopolitics include America’s Burning, Hacking Hate, Antidote and The Cranes Call.

Tribeca’s TV lineup includes Jake Gyllenhaal’s Presumed Innocent and new season premieres of My Brilliant Friend and The Walking Dead: Daryl Dixon.

Music is and has been a key part of the fest. Docs this year include They All Came Out To Montreux with Prince, Sting, Carlos Santana, Aretha Franklin and Keith Richards; Satisfied, about Renée Elise Goldsberry; Linda Perry: Let It Die Here with Linda Perry, Dolly Parton, Brandi Carlile and Christina Aguilera. Goldsberry and Perry will perform.

Rosenthal said audience interest in the fest’s growing games showcase has been growing steadily. “We’ve always been an audience festival. Where is our audience going?” Yes, they go to the movies, she said. But over the course of the fest’s 23 years, moviegoing has changed. Game creators like film directors can take years on projects, she notes. There’s a VR element to the festival as well.

“We try to bring creators together from all different platforms … That’s our curiosity as individuals, and as a festival.”

Diane von Furstenberg: Woman In Charge, opening Tribeca Festival tonight.

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