and
Robert De Niro Launch: 2002-2006 The Tribeca Film Festival was founded in 2002 by
Jane Rosenthal,
Robert De Niro, and
Craig Hatkoff, in response to the
September 11 attacks on the
World Trade Center and the consequent loss of vitality in the
Tribeca neighborhood in
Lower Manhattan. The inaugural festival launched after 120 days of planning with the help of more than 1,300 volunteers. It opened May 8, 2002 with
About A Boy. The first festival was attended by more than 150,000 people and featured several up-and-coming filmmakers. The festival included
juried narrative, documentary and short film competitions; a restored classics series; a best of New York series curated by
Martin Scorsese; 13 major panel discussions; an all-day family festival; and the premieres of independent and studio films
Star Wars: Episode II – Attack of the Clones - made independently, the American remake of
Insomnia,
Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood, and
The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen. The 2003 festival brought more than 300,000 people. At the end of 2003, De Niro purchased the theater at 54
Varick Street which had housed the recently closed Screening Room, an art house that had shown independent films nightly, renaming it the Tribeca Cinema. It became one of the
venues of the festival.
Expansion and New Media: 2006-2016 In an effort to serve its mission of bringing
independent film to the widest possible audience, in 2006, the festival expanded its reach in New York City and internationally. In New York City, Tribeca hosted screenings throughout Manhattan as the festival's 1,000-plus screening schedule outgrew the capacity downtown. Internationally, the Festival brought films to the
Rome Film Festival. As part of the celebrations in Rome, Tribeca was awarded the first-ever "Steps and Stars" award, presented on the
Spanish Steps. A total of 169 feature films and 99 shorts were selected from 4,100 film submissions, including 1,950 feature submissions, three times the total submissions from the first festival in 2002. The festival featured 90 world premieres, nine international premieres, 31 North American premieres, 6 U.S. premieres, and 28 New York City premieres. In 2009, Rosenthal, Hatkoff, and De Niro were named number 14 on ''
Barron's'' list of the world's top 25 philanthropists for their role in regenerating TriBeCa's economy after September 11. In 2011,
L.A. Noire became the first video game to be recognized by the Tribeca Film Festival. In 2013,
Beyond: Two Souls, featuring
Elliot Page and
Willem Dafoe, became only the second game to be premiered at the festival. From 2015, Spring Studios, located a few doors down from the Tribeca Cinema at 50 Varick Street, became the festival's main venue. In 2016, the festival announced the introduction of separate narrative award categories for U.S. and International films in order to "deepen [their] support of American narrative filmmakers."
COVID-19 Pandemic Response: 2020 The 19th Tribeca Film Festival, originally scheduled for April 15–26, 2020, was cancelled due to the
COVID-19 pandemic. In the weeks and months that followed, Tribeca launched several digital offerings to highlight filmmakers and creators who had hoped to premiere their latest works at the spring gathering. It provided a secure digital platform for 2020 Festival films seeking distribution to be viewed by press and industry and hosted a virtual gathering space for Tribeca N.O.W. Creators Market. In response to the global pandemic, Tribeca organized
We Are One in partnership with
YouTube, a free 10-day digital festival that provided entertainment and connection for audiences at home and raised international COVID-19 relief funds. The program was co-curated by 21 of the top international film festivals including
Cannes,
Sundance,
TIFF and
Venice and showcased over 100 hours of shorts, features, talks and music to an audience of 1.9 million people in 179 countries. On August 7, 2020, organizers announced that the 20th anniversary edition of the festival was to be held from June 9 to June 20, 2021, with a dedicated space to celebrate films whose premieres were not able to take place in the festival that was cancelled in 2020. In a first for the festival, Tribeca also hosted community screenings — in both indoor and outdoor venues — in all five New York City boroughs.
2020s The festival added a dedicated video games category beginning with the 2021 event. Games nominated are presented in online presentations during the Festival, similar to film screenings. That year, the festival dropped "Film" from its name. Since 2022, the festival has combined the US and International "Best Actor" and "Best Actress" categories into a US and International "Best Performance" categories. The Tribeca Festival also presents the Artist Awards, an annual program that selects contemporary artists to offer works to winning creators at the Festival; it is currently sponsored by
CHANEL. Its 2024 cohort was curated by
Racquel Chevremont, who also curated the Tribeca Festival Artist Awards in 2022 and 2023. 2026 edition of the festival, the 25th anniversary, runs from June 3 to 14 and will showcase 118 feature films, including 103 world premieres, alongside 86 shorts. ==Awards==