Wife Tries To Abort And Poison Husband's Lovechild
Man Injured By Tree Limb Files Suit Against City
Charles Barron Will Run For Council Speaker
Alleged Tiger Mistress Is Unrecognizable To Dead Fiancee's Dad
New Jersey State Senate To Vote On Gay Marriage
Has the Tribeca Film Festival been using 9/11 as way to garner publicity and interest in their event? NYMag reports that an anonymous emailer sent out a press release today "accusing the Tribeca Film Festival of lying when they claim that Jane Rosenthal, Robert De Niro, and Craig Hatkoff founded the festival in response to the 9/11 attacks."
It's clear that the vision for the festival was imagined some time before the attacks, as the domain name for their website was registered in April of 2000. This was explained by Steven Rubenstein, the festival's publicist, to NY Mag. He said, "I've heard the founders talk at press conferences and in interviews for years about how they'd discussed founding a film festival but couldn't decide whether New York needed another one. It was 9/11 that created an urgency for it — that made them say, 'Let's stop doing our day jobs and make this happen.'"
The press release is archived here, and states:
"The Tribeca Film Festival was founded in 2002 by Robert De Niro, Jane Rosenthal and Craig Hatkoff as a response to the attacks on the World Trade Center." So claims the "About Us" page of the Tribeca Film Festival's website. De Niro, Rosenthal and Hatkoff, and scores of publicists and journalists, have repeated this claim endlessly over the last five years. That claim, however, is demonstrably false. Easily accessible records reveal that The Tribeca Film Festival was being developed long before September 11, 2001.
With rising ticket prices, a "feud" with Bowie and the High Line Festival and accusations like the above, it seems no one is on Team De Niro these days.
add to stumble upon
add to reddit
tweet this
post to facebook
NY'ers should be kissing their asses for creating this festival, whenever they did. When will people realize that the more events this city hosts, whether you support the participants or not, the better off we all are. The ancillary impact this has had on the NY production community has been huge, and this is a market that was virtually shut down by the unions, and once recovered was shut down again post 9-11.
I applaud them on multiple levels, and Bob deserves kudos as a true NY'er and not some carpetbagger wannabee, or worse a defector to LA!
F this festival and F anyone using 9/11.
hey, deNiro, not everyone likes chocolate.
take your festival with you. The festival is crap and any REAL ny'er couldn't give two rats asses about it.
^ (#2) Spoken like a true Midwestern transplant!
J.C.
This is a tempest in a teapot - TFF is great and here to stay. This is made-up news and the Bowie thing is a made-up fight. Go out on the streets and find me people clamouring for the end of the TFF or hating on DeNiro. Hell, most of NYC is on Team DeNiro and always will be.
BS J.C., BS.
You think I'm from Kansas?
I remember when the subway platforms had vending machines. One that sold Ice cream and It actually worked. I remember when Delancey street was off limits when it got dark. same with downtown brooklyn. and before that, My father used to sleep in sara roosevelt park and not get mugged.
did you ever take a subway with overhead fans or a wicker seat? I did.
so, who's the transplant?
Ok fine, then you are just a grumpy old man.
and, you're just a spoiled, entitled lil bitch.
You know, I used to love the Tribeca Film Festival. WHEN IT WAS IN TRIBECA.
This year it's 20 BUCKS a ticket...2 dollar "service fee" PER ticket ain't a "service fee" - it's a lie.
Oh, and their whole claim of them wanting to "bring people back into Tribeca after 9/11"...shutup, there was nobody in Tribeca before, either...the people buying lofts in tribeca are doing it to escape others.
Now drop the ticket prices back to reasonable prices and stop the lies. Upgrade your computers so they don't shit the bed when tickets go on sale (like they have for EVERY SINGLE YEAR). And ask your snotty volunteers to smile every now and then, at least the kids at Kim's video know what they're talking about. Jesus christ look what you've done to me.
The festival WAS great, but they are f'ing themselves. They pissed off a lot of people this year, the very ones they claim they are doing this for.
and, you're just a spoiled, entitled lil bitch.
For an old man, you act a lot like a baby.
and, you still at like a whiney, spoiled lil bitch.
a heartless bitch.
boo hoo hoo.
The festival is good for the city, no matter if it has or had anything to do with 9/11. 9/11 Wasn't as cool as the festival and lets enjoy NYC, while it lasts.
#9 and #10 please take your juvenile name callings to Gawker or other useless sites. Neither of u are good enough to lick DeNiro's shoes...Waahhh.
$18 a ticket? Don't forget Amex's $2 per ticket so-called "convenience fee"
I attended four films this year, not one of them sold out. The screening of "Nobel Son" at BMCC's auditorium was a joke: while waiting for my wife to arrive, I was repeatedly asked what I was doing by earplug-wearing ex-Marines on security detail. Is this what my $20 pays for? Is this festival "accessible" to New Yorkers, who cannot even wait by the entrance to the auditorium for his wife to arrive? And then, I had to deal with the terrible distraction of two American Express logos spotlighted on either side of the screen during the entire screening. I'll take the Film Society of Lincoln Center's NYFF anyday...at $10 to $12 a seat. This festival has outlived its usefulness and is now an advertisement for American Express and other sponsors.
As someone who has volunteered with TFF since year one, I have a unique perspective and I hope the following can enlighten all to the mess that is TFF.
Year One of the TFF was a mismanaged cluster F. No one in 'upper management' knew what they were doing or how to get it done. The only things they did do correctly were 'spin' and 'hide'
Spin the bad press into great press.
Hide the fact that they created TFF for $$$$.
The volunteers were made to jump through flaming hoops that could've be avoided if they bothered to hire people who had real film festival experience rather than FOD's (friends of De Niro).
I volunteered with the TFF up until this year. Last year I was stuck out in a venue (Museum of Jewish Heritage at Battery Park) that no one wanted to go to.
Hell, our dept head said and I quote "No one will show up at this venue because there's no way to get there. If you can find out how to get there you're better than I am." As it turned out two major bus routes run right by it. Talk about a carpetbagger leading the blind tourists...
The TFF needs to fall back onto it self, scale it down, lower the ticket price and make it about NYC. And much as I respect De Niro, I know he'll never be Redford.
Forget about High Line vs. Tribeca, I want to see Tribeca vs. Sundance.
And how soon until we the Tribeca Channel?
Make my words if De Niro, Rosenthal and Hatkoff can find a way to some extra pocket change from that idea they will do it in less time than it takes for De Niro to pick up a hot Black supermodel.
In closing, please note that I am a native New York, born in 1969 in MANHATTAN. I’m neither a carpetbagger nor a transplant. I love my city and I hate when mistreat it line their pockets.