The Tribeca Film Festival begins today in Lower Manhattan, 25 years after it was founded, by actor Robert De Niro and his producing partner Jane Rosenthal.
This year, the festival is set to open with the premiere of Earth Wind & Fire (To Be Celestial VS That's the Weight of the World), a new documentary by musician Ahmir "Questlove" Thompson. After winning an Oscar for his doc Summer of Soul (... Or, when the Revolution Could Not Be Televised), and after chronicling the career of Sly Stone in Sly Lives! (aka the Burden of Black Genius), Questlove now explores the history and impact of the 1970's funk and soul band known for hits like Shining Star, September, and Reasons. It will also debut on HBO and HBO Max on June 7.
There are other musical documentaries premiering this year at the festival, about 70's rocker Peter Frampton, pop rock singer Sara Bareilles, pop singer Katy Perry and r&b singer Alicia Keys.
Over the next two weeks, more than a hundred independent films from around the world will screen here at the festival, from horror flicks to comedies. Also premiering: a live action docudrama completely generated by AI: It's called Dreams of Violets, about the violent protests in Tehran earlier this year.
The Tribeca Film Festival began to take shape in 2001, after terrorists attacked the World Trade Center on September 11. Actor Robert De Niro and his producing partner Jane Rosenthal, who together founded Tribeca Productions, remember what it was like in lower Manhattan in those days.
"Surreal," recalls De Niro. "The whole thing was so strange. Every day and night, there were trucks going up from ground zero, bringing debris from it."
"For months after, you would hear the sound of the fire trucks," says Rosenthal. "And if it made one loooong sound of the siren, it meant that they had found the remains of someone. The other thing is that there were helicopters. You couldn't help but think of Apocalypse Now."
People were afraid to go downtown, but DeNiro and Rosenthal say they wanted to change that.
"We did these dinner downtowns," Rosenthal recalls, "to bring people into the neighborhoods of Chinatown, Little Italy, you know, Lower Manhattan to have a meal, save a job."
What began as dinner parties at local restaurants morphed that Spring into a family street fair and ultimately a way to celebrate cinema in Tribeca— the neighborhood known as the Triangle Below Canal Street.
"120 days ago, we set out to launch a film festival," De Niro told the crowd outside of City Hall, as he welcomed them to the opening of the inaugural one in 2002. "Our goal was to celebrate the power of filmmaking. But more importantly, to revitalize our neighborhood that was devastated on September 11."
De Niro and Rosenthal introduced invited guests, including South African leader Nelson Mandela, former President Bill Clinton, director Francis Ford Coppola, actors Whoopi Goldberg, and Hugh Grant— whose film About A Boy was the first screening.
Over the years, the Tribeca Film Festival has become a yearly cultural highlight in New York, and has introduced new filmmakers. It's where Alex Gibney showed his first documentary Taxi To the Dark Side. It's where Oscar winner Ryan Coogler– then a student at the USC School of Cinematic Arts– screened his six- minute film Locks. And it's where Oscar-winning director Damien Chazelle made his debut, with the musical Guy and Madeline on a Park Bench.
This year, along with films and TV episodes, the lineup includes musical performances, and will celebrate podcasts and video games. It's also screening a film De Niro starred in 50 years ago: Taxi Driver.
"Taxi Driver has had an impact, which I'm not surprised at, but I am surprised. I just didn't know," De Niro says. " I'm looking forward to the 50th anniversary."
Co-star Jodie Foster is expected at the celebration, which will include an onstage conversation between the film's director Martin Scorsese and De Niro.
"I've made a lot of my movies just for this very reason, so that they could be in the festival as the years go on," De Niro told NPR with a smile. "So I'm lucky that I've made a few that we put here at the festival. It helps."
Not that Robert De Niro really needs any help getting people to his movies.
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