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Updated: April 24, 2009, 12:44 am	Share    Print    Email

The Tribeca Cinemas Ticket Outlet, which is the main box office for the festival. Photos by Douglas Harrington

New York City - Starting this week, lower Manhattan will become the film mecca of the world as the 2009 Tribeca Film Festival begins its eighth season. The brainchild of actor Robert De Niro and his partners Jane Rosenthal and Craig Hatkoff, the long-percolating idea for the film festival was fast-tracked as a response to the World Trade Center tragedy.

Cover of the 2009 Official Festival Guide.

"I always wished that New York had something with a little more pizazz, a little more glamour, and a little more fun," says De Niro. The events of Sept. 11 and the devastation that it brought to the surrounding neighborhoods brought De Niro's wish to fruition ahead of schedule in 2002. The maiden launch of the festival was put up in a mere 120 days. According to Rosenthal, "At the time, the world didn't need another film festival, but Tribeca did; we needed to get people downtown. It was about bringing the community back outside, back together."

The inaugural festival not only brought out the neighborhood residents, it brought the world to the streets of Tribeca, including former President Bill Clinton and former South African President Nelson Mandela, along with film notables Martin Scorsese, Frances Ford Coppola and Hugh Grant, to name but a few. Since then, the festival has screened over 1,100 films from at least 80 countries, drawn more than two million attendees, and generated over $530 million in economic activity. To quote Grant from that first opening day press conference, "The festival will be a shot of vitamin B-12 in the buttocks of Manhattan."

Watching movies in the great outdoors, just one of the many unique draws of the TFF. Image courtesy of festival promotions

This year's opening night film is generating particular excitement as Woody Allen will world premiere his new comedy, "Whatever Works." The film stars Larry David, Ed Begley, Jr., Patricia Clarkson, Conleth Hill, Michael McKean and Evan Rachel Wood. The film is about "An eccentric New Yorker (played by Larry David) who abandons his upper-class life to lead a more bohemian existence."

The Tribeca Film Festival runs from April 22 through May 3 with screenings and events at over a dozen venues.

What follows over the next two weeks of the festival is no less impressive as this year's schedule, which includes over 700 features, documentaries and shorts from 36 countries, with 60 other world premieres and works celebrating the talents of 38 first-time directors.

Now numbered among the world's greatest international film festivals, like Cannes and Sundance, TFF '09 offers some unique opportunities for film fanatics. Among them, the Tribeca Drive-In at The World Financial Center Plaza, The Art Awards Gallery at Chanel SoHo, free outdoor family-friendly screenings and the Family Festival Street Fair, the Tribeca/ESPN Sports Film Festival which will kick-off with Spike Lee's "Kobe Doin' Work," and numerous talks, roundtables and Q&As that explore the art and business of film making.

The streets of lower Manhattan come alive with activity and attractions during the run of the festival. And of course, there are the neighborhood bars and restaurants that flourish as well. Most venues offer prix fixe menus and apres screening specials as well as live music, with special discounts for American Express cardholders (TFF's original and ongoing sponsor). "I'm grateful," Rosenthal says, "that we can highlight all that New York has to offer, while hosting filmmakers from all over the world, all over the city."

The Tribeca Film Festival 2009 runs from April 22 through May 3, with screenings and events at over a dozen venues and many films starting as early as 12 noon and as late as 12 midnight.

For more information go to www.tribecafilm.com or call 646-502-5296 or toll free at 866-941-FEST.