Tribeca hopes for rebound after criticism last year
Jake Coyle

NEW YORK—In 2007, the Tribeca Film Festival underwent a modern-day rite of passage: the backlash. Co-founded by Robert De Niro after Sept. 11 to help heal his Manhattan neighborhood, the festival had previously enjoyed a thankful reception. But as it expanded further into New York and the number of screenings quintupled, some began to resent Tribeca’s growth into the already crowded festival circuit.
“You can’t please everybody,” De Niro said in a recent interview. “If everything’s going nicely, there’s always going to be somebody to say something.” The seventh annual festival, which opens Wednesday night with the premiere of the Tina Fey comedy “Baby Mama,” has responded to the complaints of last year. To help moviegoers wade through the thicket of largely unfamiliar titles, the number of feature films has been cut from 157 to 120 (even though total submissions increased from 4,550 to 4,835). Screenings have been refocused geographically to a “hub” of downtown Manhattan, and average ticket prices have been brought down from $18 to $15.
Tribeca, it’s clear, is still trying to win over New York and the film community. “There were some very valid criticisms and we’ve listened to our audience the way when you’re producing a movie and you have a test screening,” said Jane Rosenthal, De Niro’s producing partner. She is also a founder of the festival, as is her husband, entrepreneur Craig Hatkoff.
Though the festival trumpets its economic impact on the city (it says $119 million was generated last year), the Tribeca neighborhood no longer needs commercial help. One need look no further than the ultra-luxurious Greenwich Hotel that De Niro opened earlier this month. “Would I have predicted sitting there on Sept. 12 that seven years from then, things would feel pretty normal in lower Manhattan?” said Hatkoff. “It’s rebounded very, very quickly.”
While the Sundance Film Festival is ground zero for quirky independent fare, Cannes specializes in international arthouse and Toronto launches studio Oscar contenders, Tribeca is without a specific identity.