Tribeca Studios will look back at the history of the film festival with a new documentary, “Tribeca 25,” from “Valentino: The Last Emperor” and “Studio 54” director Matt Tyrnauer.
The film will cover the festival’s first 25 years, which include its dramatic founding in the wake of 9/11 by Robert De Niro and Academy Award-nominated producer Jane Rosenthal. Tribeca was launched in an effort to help revitalize Lower Manhattan, but has since grown into a major celebration of the arts and media.
Reflecting on the inspiration behind founding the Tribeca Festival, De Niro shared: “In 1989, Jane [Rosenthal] and I started the Tribeca Film Center. If you look left out my office window, you could see the Towers. They were always there — which means after a while, you stop noticing them. And then… they were gone. People needed to come together. And that’s what art does. It unites us.”
Rosenthal added: “At our ‘Dinner Downtown’ series after 9/11, there was a Con-Ed worker who had lost his son sitting next to Bob [De Niro] at a Chinese restaurant. He said he felt like it was finally okay to leave the house, to do something besides mourn. That was in November of 2001. That was when we realized — how do we bring people out, and give them a reason to live again?”
