2024 Tribeca Film Festival opens with tribute to co-founder Robert De Niro
NEW YORK — The 23rd edition of the Tribeca Film Festival kicked off Wednesday night, and features a tribute to one of the festival’s co-founders, legendary actor and New York icon Robert De Niro.
Along with a lineup of feature length and short films, Q&As and special performances, an event dubbed“De Niro Con” is one of the highlights of this year’s festival.
Celebrating the Oscar winner’s 80th birthday, a career-spanning exhibit and immersive installation projected on six screens features over 40 of his iconic characters.
Running from June 6-16 at Spring Studios, “De Niro Is an Icon” showcases more than 300 items, many sourced from the actor’s own archive, including rare images and video, annotated scripts and research materials. Tickets for the exhibit ($50-70) can be purchased through the Tribeca Festival website.
Special screenings of De Niro’s films will also take place next weekend (June 14-16), with appearances from Hollywood stars including Martin Scorsese, Billy Crystal, Whoopi Goldberg, Christopher Walken, John Turturro and Quentin Tarantino.
The “Goodfellas” star launched the film festival in 2002, along with Jane Rosenthal and Craig Hatkoff, in an effort to revitalize a post-9/11 New York City.
The showcase has since evolved into a major cultural affair in the city.
One of the festival’s priorities this year was broadening its storytelling scope, festival director and VP of programming, Cara Cusumano, told CBS News.
“That’s been kind of our guiding light and the root of where all these other programs evolved from. Where is the most interesting storytelling happening? How are audiences today consuming stories? Increasingly it’s not always a 90-minute feature film experience,” she added.
Along with 114 feature-length narrative and documentary films, a variety of other formats including TV, podcasts, immersive presentations and games will be represented, with the intent of introducing audiences to new formats and creating an interconnected community in the storytelling industry, Cusumano said.
The festival’s opening night featured the Hulu documentary “Diane von Furstenberg: Woman in Charge,” profiling the acclaimed designer. The coming days bring numerous highly anticipated narrative projects.
The road-trip movie“Sacramento” touts a stacked cast of Michael Cera, Maya Erskine and Kristen Stewart, while “ Firebrand” features Jude Law as King Henry VIII and Alicia Vikander as his sixth wife, Katherine Parr.
“Treasure” stars Stephen Fry and Lena Dunham as a Jewish father and daughter visiting Poland and the landmarks of his youth.
“Between the Temples,” featuring Jason Schwartzman and Carol Kane, is a tale about a recently widowed cantor reentering the dating world.
The festival runs now through June 16.
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