Get your popcorn ready. The Tribeca Film Festival, now in its 13th year, returns to downtown Manhattan today to host 12 days of obsessive moviegoing and compelling conversation about film. Co-founded in 2002 by the actor Robert De Niro with his producing partner Jane Rosenthal and the real estate financier Craig Hatkoff, the festival was originally conceived as a cultural response to Sept. 11. And while its reach has expanded significantly over the years — a staggering 6,117 films were submitted for this year’s festival, increasing both the quality and diversity of the offerings (fans will remember, though they might prefer not to, that “Star Wars Episode II: The Clone Wars” premiered at the inaugural fest) — the spirit of the original outing has remained intact.
Whether you’re a lover of documentaries or all about indies, here’s what you can look forward to at this year’s festival.
Docs that rock
Music documentaries are front and center in this year’s lineup, starting with the opening-night film, “Time is Illmatic.” Tonight’s screening of the documentary, which celebrates the 20th anniversary of Nas’s classic debut album, “Illmatic,” will be followed by a live performance by the artist at the Beacon Theater. Of course, if hip-hop isn’t your thing, there are still plenty of other music-flavored offerings in the days to come, including a multidimensional concert from the enigmatic Icelandic artist Bjork (“Bjork: Biophilia Live”) and documentaries about Alice Cooper (“Super Duper Alice Cooper”), the Grateful Dead’s Bob Weir (“The Other One: The Long, Strange Trip of Bob Weir”) and the legendary trumpeter Clark Terry (“Keep On Keepin’ On”). Perhaps most intriguing, Alex Gibney’s newest film, a “work in progress” about the late soul singer James Brown, will also take its bow as a late addition to the lineup.
Pedigreed premieres
While Tribeca may not receive the same prestige as, say, Cannes or Toronto (you won’t find the next “Gravity” or “Twelve Years a Slave” here), it has earned a reputation for introducing a number of actors and filmmakers — many of whom seemed fated for success — into the collective moviegoing conscious. Among those looking to break through at this year’s fest are the handsome young actor Jack O’Connell (“Starred Up”), who earned raves in his native England for his performance on the TV series “Skins,” and the first-time director Chris Messina (“Alex of Venice”), a veteran actor known for his scene-stealing turns in such films as “Vicky Cristina Barcelona” and “Argo,” and most recently on the Fox sitcom “The Mindy Project.” Throw Gia Coppola into the mix — the granddaughter of Frances Ford makes her directorial debut with “Palo Alto,” which premiered at the Telluride Film Festival last August — and there’s plenty to be excited about for both the present and the future.
Reliable indies
The very words “film festival” can elicit images of jerky handheld camerawork and vaguely recognizable actors holding mumbled conversations over a lo-fi indie soundtrack. Fair enough. Tribeca has indie cred in spades. “The One I Love,” Charlie McDowell’s rom-com with a twist that played to appreciative crowds at Sundance, is here, as is “Night Moves,” an eco-thriller that premiered in Venice starring Dakota Fanning, Jesse Eisenberg and Peter Sarsgaard. There’s also a modern riff on “The Big Chill” called “About Alex,” with indie darlings Aubrey Plaza and Jason Ritter; the Rory Culkin-starring “Gabriel” from the first-time writer-director Lou Howe; and from the writer-director Nicole Holofcener (“Enough Said,” “Friends with Money”), the promising-sounding crime drama, “Every Secret Thing.”
The best of the rest
Tribeca’s greatest asset is its variety — there are 89 feature-length films and 58 shorts to consider, as well as countless panels and discussions. Have a thing for Jon Favreau, star of the 1996 cult classic “Swingers” and director of “Iron Man”? He’ll be at Tribeca with “Chef,” a comedy he wrote, directed and starred in about a failed chef who opens a food truck. So will President Obama’s chief speechwriter, also named Jon Favreau, interviewing the long-winded “Newsroom” scribe Aaron Sorkin about what it means to be moral in 2014. They’re not alone: Brian Williams holds a one-on-one with the director Ron Howard; Bryan Cranston sits down with the “Boardwalk Empire” show runner Terence Winter to talk onscreen baddies; and the brain trust of “The Wire” creator David Simon and his “House of Cards” counterpart, Beau Willimon, discuss Big Data in the realms of film, art and journalism.
And if you’re looking for free options, look no further than the festival’s popular Drive In series, which returns to the Hudson riverfront this weekend to screen flicks both old and new. Crowds should swell Thursday evening for “Mary Poppins” and for Friday’s screening of “Splash,” celebrating its 30th anniversary. But it’s the Saturday night film, “Next Goal Wins,” about the hapless American Samoan national soccer team (a.k.a. the world’s worst team), that provides the most intrigue. It’s proof that — as has been the case so many times before — it’s the least heralded films that sometimes offer the greatest reward.
For more information, go to tribecafilm.com/festival.
