April 29th, 2013

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

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New York, NY – (April 29, 2013) – The 2013 Tribeca Film Festival (TFF), co-founded by Robert De Niro, Jane Rosenthal and Craig Hatkoff, and presented by American Express, today announced that more than 450,000 people attended screenings, panels, talks and free community events – including the Tribeca Drive-In series, Family Festival Street Fair, Tribeca/ESPN Sports Day, as well as the Storyscapes installation at the Bombay Sapphire House of Imagination, the Tribeca Disruptive Innovation Awards and the Tribeca Film Institute Interactive Day – during the Festival’s 12th edition.

From April 17 through 28, the Festival hosted nearly 400 screenings and panels with more than 95% attendance. A total of 89 features and 60 short films from 37 countries were screened for more than 117,000 movie-goers and panel attendees during the course of the 12-day Festival.

“Experiencing the films and events with our audiences over the past 12 days has been incredible,” said Jane Rosenthal, co-founder, Tribeca Film Festival. “It is so rewarding to watch their reactions and hear them engage with our filmmakers at the Q&As after the screenings. It proves there is no better audience than New Yorkers!”

Audiences from across the country received front row access to exclusive Tribeca content through the fourth annual Tribeca Online Festival (TOF), which returned with free streaming of a selection of three world premiere features and four shorts, as well as panel conversations with filmmakers and the TFF awards ceremony. TOF also hosted a new online contest, the #6SECFILMS Vine Competition, a juried competition using the six-second, micro-movie making app, as well as video highlights from the “Future of Film Live” conversation series, featuring seven talks  during TFF with filmmakers and industry leaders on the evolution of the film industry.

The popular free community events returned with the Tribeca Drive-In movie series on the Hudson River, which featured the classic Hitchcock film, The Birds, followed by Tim Burton’s beloved comedy Beetlejuice and a screening of Lil Bub & Friendz, co-sponsored by AT&T and JetBlue, and hosted by Brookfield. Despite the unseasonable weather, more than 6,000 visitors came out for the free, outdoor films and participated in games and activities, including movie trivia, a live bird show performance, a ghoulish costume contest, face painting, prize giveaways and more.

Festival organizers and NYPD Community Affairs Officer Gene Schatz estimated that a crowd of 325,000 enjoyed the signature Tribeca Family Festival Street Fair and Tribeca/ESPN Sports Day on Saturday, April 27, including live performances from the casts of Broadway shows and visits from New York sports teams in the Tribeca neighborhood. The day also featured a sneak preview of the upcoming summer comedy The Smurfs 2, alongwith a free family screening The Smurfs withappearances by cast members. More than 2,400 attended the Festival’s free talks, including the “Future of Film Live” program, and the Tribeca Talks: Industry and Tribeca Talks: Pen to Paper panel discussions.

The 2013 Festival closed with the 30th Anniversary of Martin Scorsese’s The King of Comedy, restored in association with The Film Foundation, Regency Enterprises and Twentieth Century Fox. The screening was followed by a Q&A with Scorsese and cast members Robert De Niro and Jerry Lewis.

2013 Tribeca Film Festival anecdotes:

• In all, 832 industry delegates attended TFF, representing 36 countries including Israel, Sweden, South Africa, Poland, Italy, France, The Netherlands, South Korea, Norway and Australia.
• The Tribeca Film Institute screened Festival films and student-made work for 1,395 New York City students through its educational programs, including 150 inmates at Rikers Island, who attended a screening of Inside Out: The People’s Art Project as part of the Youth Screening Series.
• 415 Vines were submitted to the first-ever #6SECFILMS Vine Competition.
• At the world premiere of Bending Steel, subject Chris Schoeck bent a steel rod into a tightly bound circle in front of the audience, noting that he has no trouble with the ladies when he does the trick in a bar.
• Films Elaine Stritch: Shoot Me, Lenny Cooke, and Flex is Kings received standing ovations; as did Clint Eastwood following the screening of Eastwood Directs: The Untold Story before his Tribeca Talks Directors Series discussion; President Clinton when he introduced Bridegroom at its premiere; and Jerry Lewis when he came out on stage to join Robert De Niro and Martin Scorsese for the conversation following closing night film The King of Comedy.
• During the Q&A for the documentary Dancing in Jaffa, a graduate of subject Pierre Dulaine's program who was in the audience raised her hand and Pierre brought her up to dance the Merengue together in front of the crowd.
• Several cats joined their owners in the audience at the premiere of Lil Bub & Friendz.
• Tribeca’s new juried section Storyscapes, created in collaboration with BOMBAY SAPPHIRE® gin had over 3,200 registrants to experience the five interactive projects, which included 20 robots from Robots in Residence that roamed the Festival interviewing attendees.

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MEDIA CONTACTS:
Anna Dinces
VP, Rubenstein Communications
212-843-9253
adinces@rubenstein.com

Tahra Grant
Senior Account Executive, Rubenstein Communications
(212) 843-9213
tgrant@rubenstein.com

Tammie Rosen
VP of Communications, Tribeca Enterprises
(212) 941-2003
trosen@tribecaenterprises.com