Tribeca fest going to market
Film festival strives to beef up acquisitions
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"It happens, and it happens slowly. It will take one picture to pop out of the festival. We've had pickups. But there hasn't been that frenzy of competition," said Rosenthal at a news conference in lower Manhattan on Thursday to kick off the fourth annual Tribeca Film Festival.
The theme of 9/11, which sparked the first fest, remained pervasive. The festival helped boost the economy and "lift our broken spirit," Rosenthal said.
"Three years ago, when I came into office, smoke was still rising from the World Trade Center site. ... People flocking to see films was an uplifting sight," said New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg.
He said the first three fests drew nearly a million people and generated $125 million in "economic activity."
Bloomberg mixed fest kudos with a paean to thriving Gotham film and TV production due to new tax incentives. He even managed to slip in a pitch for Gotham's 2012 Olympics' bid.
More massive than ever, Tribeca boasts 600 "discrete events" including 250 pics, parties and panels. "There's something for everyone. We are a retail and a wholesale festival," Rosenthal said. But "the core is film."
"Winter Solstice" and upcoming "House of D" -- pickups from the '04 fest, "are in the marketplace. It is starting for us, slowly. But we need some bigger sales," she said.
"We learn every year how to make it better," De Niro said. A high-profile pickup "helps. It's good to identify the festival with certain movies. It's not necessary. But it helps."
The Tribeca duo were flanked by fest's director Peter Scarlet, co-founder; entrepreneur and Rosenthal's husband, Craig Hatkoff; Charles Gargano, chairman of the Empire State Development Corp.; John Hayes, marketing chief for sponsor American Express; Bloomberg; and director Jonathan Hock, whose family-basketball docu "Through the Fire" has its world premiere Thursday.
Venue strain is nudging Tribeca events toward midtown -- Tuesday's opening night was held at the new MoMA, and fest may eventually dip into Brooklyn. "It might. That's OK. It's all New York," De Niro said.
Given the event's girth, one reporter asked, why not call it the New York Film Festival? It wasn't clear if he knew that name was already taken.
"Never," said Hatkoff quickly.
Rosenthal called Lincoln Center's New York Film Festival "the grandfather festival here in the city" and said Tribeca "would like to do more with that festival."
Founders also stressed Tribeca's international bent -- with pics from 45 countries and six continents. Rosenthal said she's been invited "to bring editions of the fest to other countries," as a kind of envoy for the U.S. film biz.
