This year’s Tribeca Festival is coming to the outer boroughs (Photo: TribecaFilm)
May 19, 2021 By Michael Dorgan
The Tribeca Film Festival will be held across all five boroughs this summer with screenings set to take place at a number of outdoor venues in Queens.
Movie-goers will be able to watch films on a 40-foot tall cinema screen next month at Astoria Park, Flushing Meadows-Corona Park and Rockaway Beach.
The acclaimed festival, now in its 20th year, is being held from June 9 through June 20 and tickets for all screenings in Queens are free.
It will be the first in-person film festival to take place in North America since the COVID-19 pandemic began, according to the governor’s press office. There will be three screenings at Flushing Meadows Park, five at Astoria Park and nine at the 30th Street playground at Rockaway Beach.
Film lovers can look forward to a mix of classics movies, family flicks and new releases.
The first movie to be shown as part of the series in Queens will be In The Heights, a new musical drama based on the Tony Award-winning play of the same name. It will be screened in Flushing Meadows Corona Park on June 9 at 7 p.m. Tickets have already sold out for the screening.
The movie Selma will kick off screenings at Astoria Park on June 19 at 2:30 p.m. It chronicles Dr. Martin Luther King’s campaign to secure equal voting rights during a famous march from Selma to Montgomery, Alabama, in 1965.
The festival will also feature exhibitions, talks, as well as live performances— and the organizers say that the event will be reminiscent of summertime block parties. The public will be required to adhere to the COVID-19 guidelines in place at the time of each screening.
The event is typically held in the Tribeca area of Manhattan but organizers say they want to expand into the outer boroughs this year to mark the 20th anniversary of the festival and to generate much-needed revenue for local economies.
“Tribeca was started to bring people together and that’s what we aim to do again this year,” said Jane Rosenthal, a film producer and organizer of the festival.
Organizers want communities from across the city to come together to experience the Tribeca Film Festival while helping to support local businesses that have been devastated by the pandemic, Rosenthal said.
The festival was founded by Rosenthal, actor Robert De Niro and real estate investor Craig Hatkoff in 2002 to revitalize the Tribeca area in the wake of the 9/11 attacks on the World Trade Center. The organizers held virtual showings last year having been forced to cancel the in-person festival.
This year’s festival will culminate with a full capacity crowd for a movie screening inside Radio City Music Hall in Manhattan which has been closed for more than a year. Each person will have to provide proof of being vaccinated against COVID-19 in order to attend.
Gov. Andrew Cuomo said the festival marks a turning point in the fight against COVID-19.
“As our numbers continue to decline and more and more New Yorkers get vaccinated, we can begin to turn the page on COVID and look forward to getting back to a new normal,” Cuomo said in a statement Monday – the same day he announced that vaccinated New Yorkers would be able to go mask-free in most settings from today.
“This is a huge step forward in our state and our nation’s reopening that will let the rest of the world know New York is back and better than ever.”
Tickets for each screening can be accessed by clicking here.
Flushing Meadows Corona Park
June 9 – In the Heights, 7:00 p.m.
June 18 – 2020 Animated Shorts Curated by Whoopi G, 6:00 p.m.
June 18 – The Sixth Sense, 8:00 p.m.
Astoria Park
June 19 – Selma, 2:30 p.m.
June 19 – Just Another Girl on the IRT, 5:30 p.m.
June 19 – Daughters of the Dust, 8:00 p.m.
June 20 – James and the Giant Peach, 3:00 p.m.
June 20 – Love and Basketball, 5:00 p.m.
Rockaway Beach, 30th Street Playground
June 10 – Belly, 5:30 p.m. *co-hosted by the Rockaway Film Festival
June 10 – Raising Victor Vargas, 8:00 p.m.
June 11 – Johnny Mnemonic, 6:00 p.m. *co-hosted by the Rockaway Film Festival
June 11 – Kiss the Ground, 8:00 p.m.
June 12 – Moana, 2:30 p.m.
June 12 – Stateless, 5:30 p.m.
June 12 – The Host, 8:00 p.m.
June 13 – Perfume de Gardenias, 4:00 p.m.
June 13 – Landfall, 6:30 p.m.
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