Tribeca in the Fall

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Does it not seem likely (if not inevitable) that the Tribeca Film Festival will soon decide to become a mid-fall film festival, launching sometime in mid-October or thereabouts? I've been hearing that one for...I don't know, two of three weeks? Or maybe it started when Geoff Gilmore left his Sundance post to become the new TFF honcho, and the talk just didn't around to me until last month.

As the Tribeca Film Festival launches this evening with an opening-night screening of Woody Allen's Whatever Works, the back-in-New-York John Anderson essentially argues for a fall switchover in a Village Voice piece.

"Right now, fall is the New York Film Festival's turf," he explains. "Started in the '60s, the NYFF -- built around about two dozen of what are deemed the best films of the festival year -- represents a kind of classic, Cannes-style, two-week-long soiree: black-tie on opening night, an audience largely of subscribers, and a selection of films that have either gotten distribution already, or probably won't. As such, it's a purely cultural event.

Tribeca, however, "currently dwells in no-man's-land," he says. "It hardly wants to be a springtime NYFF, but at the same time, it can't be a major player in April because it doesn't have the cachet to draw films away from next month's Cannes, and is too long after January's Sundance to get producers to hold off premiering there.

"[But] if Tribeca moved to the fall, it could free itself from the spring season's logjam, wherein SXSW, the Los Angeles film festival, and even less competitively minded fests like San Francisco and Seattle vie for the same films. 'It would be a roll of the dice,' said Variety critic Todd McCarthy, 'but if studios knew they could open films in November at Tribeca, they wouldn't have to show them early in September at Toronto.'

TFF co-founder Jane Rosenthal "makes the very valid point that much of Tribeca is weather-dependent -- the annual street fair and even the drive-in movies are springtime events. But the cachet of a late-October/early-November TFF -- when distributors would be falling all over each other to premiere their awards-season films at a major New York festival -- might be more than its organizers could resist."

Rosenthal's weather argument has convinced me that TFF is definitely planning a fall move because it's so specious. Yes, New York City weather is a tad warmer in April than October, but not dramatically. Both months lean more towards pleasant and/or palatable than not. Okay, so you'd wear a sweater and jacket to a TFF street fair or drive-in movie in October...big deal.

"'I think there are old models here,' said Gilmore, asked to survey his new city and the future of festivals in general. 'To be honest, that's the kind of question I think about a lot: how to reinvent festivals, what they should be doing, whether or not their agendas-- which have evolved greatly -- need to be rethought completely.'

"It's worth noting," says Anderson, "that one of the things that occurred over the course of Gilmore's tenure at Sundance was its transformation from a 'discovery' festival to a market and showcase. It's probably a symptom of success, but thanks largely to Sundance, there's no such thing as a discovery festival anymore. The feeding frenzy goes on all year long."

The big Gilmore quote in Anderson's piece, already pointed out by Spoutblog's Katrina Longworth, is a lulu: "When one considers what's going on technologically and commercially, [Gilmore] said, there's a real question about whether festivals 'are going to be obsolete in a decade, because people won't find them valuable anymore -- they won't be the platform from which people need to operate.'"

Oh, sure -- let's start junking all the film festivals as we approach 2020 and henceforth just stay indoors and watch all the new independent movies on our iMacs. Who needs to discover new movies communally? Who needs to fraternize, gauge the mood, sip wine, laugh, exchange opinions, and get an organic sense of things? Let all of that go. In fact, if we plan it right it ten years from now we can limit our social-contact activities to (a) grocery-buying, (b) visits to 24-Hour Fitness, (c) the occasional play, and (d) family and in-law visits.

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Posted by Jeffrey Wells on April 22, 2009 at 8:47 AM

comment #1

MilkMan says ...

This film festival is completely irrelevant. It has nothing to do with discovering new films and everything to do with the Hamptons set having something to do in the city before they scurry out to their summer homes. It's a wank fest for those who are constantly getting wanked. The grossnicks in the New York film industry are no different than the grossnicks out here. The only difference is that they think they are different. I'm surprised they don't put a giant velvet rope around Tribeca during the festival to keep the riff-raff out. And by riff-raff, I mean everyone in the five boroughs who doesn't make at least a million dollars a year, which is about 95% of the population. I lived in NYC for ten years, and I think it's kind of funny that it's turning into the prison in Escape from New York, only reversed.

Posted by MilkMan at April 22, 2009 10:14 AM

comment #2

mutinyco says ...

Moving Tribeca to the fall is a legitimately stupid idea. That's the NYFF's place.

Can you imagine the chaos not just for distributors/filmmakers having to make a decision, but also the chaos and wear it would cause the journalistic community -- two fests in the same city within spitting distance of each other?

Not to mention Toronto and Telluride.

Too many much.

Tribeca moving to the fall is nothing but a self-serving idea.

Posted by mutinyco at April 22, 2009 10:16 AM

comment #3

mutinyco says ...

What the fuck does "Too many much" mean?

I have no idea.

Posted by mutinyco at April 22, 2009 10:18 AM

comment #4

mrbill says ...

The opposite of too little less I suppose.

Posted by mrbill at April 22, 2009 10:37 AM

comment #5

MikeSchaeferSF says ...

Too much of a muchness.

Posted by MikeSchaeferSF at April 22, 2009 10:45 AM

comment #6

BoshBarnetWonkyDonkey says ...

I agree with MilkMan - it seems the only people with Tribeca tickets are the press or Edie Falco or the super rich. A real wanker's festival.

Posted by BoshBarnetWonkyDonkey at April 22, 2009 10:48 AM

comment #7

George Prager says ...

The Tribeca Film Festival has about as much in common with art and the people who make it as a Shriner's convention.

Posted by George Prager at April 22, 2009 2:45 PM

comment #8

corey3rd says ...

Tribeca ought to just go after Sundance's turf. It's time for an East Coast bad boy to deflate Park City.

Posted by corey3rd at April 22, 2009 5:39 PM

comment #9

TM says ...

I have to agree with much of what has already been written. The fall is when the New York Film Festival unspools. That's a tradition. It's bad enough that NYFF has mostly been a stop for films that already premiered at Cannes and Sundance and also are scheduled for Toronto. But at least the NYFF treats the press with a measure of respect.

The years I covered Tribeca, the press went from being golden to being treated no better than chattel. My last year, I barely published anything about the festival because of the treatment. Also they had stopped press screenings, so we had to scramble to see as many films -- people connected with the festival said they were modeling themselves on Sundance. They hadn't told the press representatives that though and several were upset when I didn't/couldn't cover their films.

Right now Boston -- which is by no means a film town in the way it was decades ago when I was young -- is hosting 2 film festivals simultaneously. There's NO bloody reason for these festivals to overlap. I said to someone it would be a similar case if Tribeca decided to move to the fall and compete with the NYFF. I didn't know I was being psychic.

Posted by TM at April 22, 2009 7:50 PM

comment #10

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