Tribeca Festival Sets Opening, Closing & Centerpiece Films

Erik Pedersen
·2 min read

The Tribeca Festival has its opening-night, closing-night and centerpiece films.

Organizers said today that the documentary Kiss the Future will kick off the event on June 7 and a 30th anniversary screening of fest co-founder Robert De Niro’s A Bronx Tale will bookend it on June 17. This year’s Centerpiece Gala on June 10 will feature Disney-Pixar’s Elemental, which is set to close the Cannes Film Festival next month.

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Kiss the Future, which premiered at Berlin in February, follows the story of a community of underground musicians and creatives throughout the nearly four-year siege of Sarajevo and the 1997 U2 concert celebrating the liberation of the Bosnian capital. The docu is produced by Matt Damon, Ben Affleck, and Sarah Anthony and features U2’s Bono, The Edge, and Adam Clayton.

The Peter Sohn-directed Elemental is set in Element City, where Fire, Water, Land and Air residents live together. It follows Ember (Leah Lewis), a tough, quick-witted and fiery young woman whose friendship with a fun, sappy, go-with-the-flow guy named Wade (Mamoudou Athie) challenges her beliefs about the world they live in. It opens in theaters June 16 after its Croisette premiere Out of Competition on May 27.

Tribeca Festival
Tribeca Festival

A Bronx Tale, which hit theaters on September 29, 1993, follows a devoted father (De Niro) battling a local mob boss (Chazz Palminteri) for the life of his young son. Growing up on the racially divided streets of 1960s New York, 9-year-old Calogero, or C, idolizes sophisticated local gangster Sonny (Palminteri), despite stern warnings from his working-class father (De Niro). But when C gets older, he finds himself torn between two worlds and must choose between earning respect like his father or commanding it like Sonny. Francis Capra played the younger C, and Lillo Brancato Jr. played him at 17.

“A Bronx Tale is a very personal project that marked my directorial debut,” De Niro said in a statement. “I’m pleased to celebrate its 30th anniversary at Tribeca with my longtime producing partner and Festival co-founder Jane Rosenthal, the wonderful Chazz Palminteri and a live New York audience at the iconic Beacon Theatre.”

The 22nd annual Tribeca Festival runs June 7–18 in New York City.

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