The Brooklyn Magazine guide to the 2024 Tribeca Festival

By Joshua Encinias

Talk around this year’s Tribeca Festival should focus on the creatives who sacrifice to see their visions and dreams become reality. But unfortunately, the artistic community is reckoning with the inclusion of five short films created with OpenAI’s Sora, a text-to-video AI model.

With this in mind, we spoke with local filmmakers and those who produced their movies and shorts in New York City. The filmmakers we spoke to focused on the strengths of their projects. Unsurprisingly, each of their stories has something unique to say about life, love, loss and everything in between.

AI models can only replicate movement and images with varying degrees of the uncanny valley — but the seven local movies we highlight will make you feel something — something AI storytelling can’t do.

The Tribeca Festival takes place at venues throughout the city and it’s happening right now through Sunday, June 16.

“Nepotism, Baby!”
Director: Tij D’oyen
Synopsis: Council Price-Grey has developed a penchant for petty arson in an attempt to fill the void created by her lack of stardom. But after a nepotistic connection fails to land her a gig, she fabricates a conspiracy to garner media attention and jump-start her career.
Brooklyn Magazine says: D’oyen initially wrote “Nepotism, Baby!” to cope with inaccessibility to break through in the film industry. “As the script developed, I found I was critiquing the fragility of privilege, while simultaneously questioning our societal obsession with fame,” says D’oyen. His project deals with these problems among micro-celebrities and asks how far we will go for fame in a world that celebrates the most self-absorbed.

“This Really Happened”
Director: Emily Cohn
Synopsis: Based on a true story. Kate and Zoe are two young creatives who discover they’re dating the same person. Determined to produce a brilliant revenge project, the women recount their experiences in filmed interviews and fantastical flashbacks full of (literal) red flags. But will it turn out to be cathartic or soul-crushing?
Brooklyn Magazine says: “This Really Happened” portrays the dumpster fire of dating apps in New York City. “My co-writer, Kallen Prosterman, and I met because we were dating the same guy! Filming in New York is also wild, but it’s made way easier by our supportive community,” says co-writer and actor Olivia AbiAssi.

“Rent Free”
Director: Fernando Andrés
Synopsis: Ben and Jordan are best friends from Texas and living a scrappy lifestyle in New York City. They want to stay in the city but their plans go awry, prompting them to fly back to Austin. Jordan’s girlfriend Anna takes them in but her generosity is short-lived. One drunken evening, the friends make a pact: to treat this meandering “couch surfing” lifestyle as a social experiment and aim to take advantage of their friends’ hospitality to live an entire year without paying rent.
Brooklyn Magazine says: “Rent Free” depicts New York City as the promised land. It represents freedom and possibility, but also a double-edged sword. “We wanted to give a reality check, a reminder of how quickly the New York fantasy can crumble when you don’t have the safety net of wealth,” says actor and producer Jacob Roberts. Director Fernando Andrés was excited by the microbudget movie. It allowed him to easily film the movie’s prologue in New York City. “It can seem challenging when that city is the most photographed and mythologized in American cinema.” Thankfully, Andrés and his crew made it their own.

“Bad Shabbos”
Director: Daniel Robbins
Synopsis: When friends return home for Shabbat dinner, an unexpected shadow looms over their night — an accidental death (or is it murder?) disrupts their plans. Throughout one night during this anything-but-typical New York City shabbos, their family get-together takes a turn for the worse.
Brooklyn Magazine says: “With ‘Bad Shabbos,’ we wanted to make a film that authentically portrayed New York Jews and captured the humor, eccentricities, and warmth in the culture,” says director Daniel Robbins. The director also wanted to distinguish “Bad Shabbos” by making it actually feel like a New York neighborhood. Robbins’ team accomplished it by setting the movie on the Upper West Side on 86th and Amsterdam. “Every b-roll shot is in the neighborhood, and our producer Adam Mitchell encouraged us to film a scene at Barney Greengrass where Gary Greengrass himself has a few lines. Gary also gave the cast and crew black and white cookies, which was a huge plus.”

“Sacramento”
Director: Michael Angarano
Synopsis: Flighty and unpredictable Ricky (Michael Angarano) is kicked out of his convalescent home following the death of his father and surprises his best friend, Glenn (Michael Cera), by forcing him on a road trip across California. Unbeknownst to Ricky, Glenn is about to start a family with his wife Rosie (Kristen Stewart) and is sick of Ricky’s inability to grow out of their past shenanigans. In the worn yellow seats of Glenn’s old college car, the two men reckon with the mistakes of their past and the questions lurking in their future.
Brooklyn Magazine says: “Sacramento” is a story about people in their 30s struggling with the idea of who they are versus who they want to be. “I have a feeling the audience in New York will appreciate that,” says director, actor, and Brooklyn native Michael Angarano. “Also, I really love that Tribeca is now in June instead of April; is there anything better than going out in the city on a Saturday night in June and watching a good movie? Or a bad movie for that matter? Either way, it’s a fun night.”

“Between the Temples”
Director: Nathan Silver
Synopsis: Ben (Jason Schwartzman), a young widower reeling from the sudden death of his wife, lives at home with his meddling mothers who not-so-subtly push him to start dipping a toe back into the dating scene. As a cantor at the local synagogue, suddenly a sense of purpose and unexpected connection shows up in the form of Carla (Carol Kane), his septuagenarian elementary school music teacher who yearns to become a bat mitzvah.
Brooklyn Magazine says: “Between the Temples” was written as a 50-page treatment that reads like a novella. The actors used it as a jumping-off point to improv and develop relationships between its characters. Together, the actors and Silver developed characters unlike any you’ve ever seen. “Ben and Carla come to find this friendship and maybe it’s a spiritual one,” says director Nathan Silver. “They have found some kind of love and that there’s no erotic aspect to it intrigued me.”

“All That We Love”
Director: Yen Tan
Synopsis: Following the death of her family dog, Emma (Margaret Cho) finds herself at a crossroads where grief and release play together: a midlife awakening is now in full throttle, and those closest to Emma feel the impact, including her best friend Stan (Jesse Tyler Ferguson) and her rambunctious daughter Maggie (Alice Lee). To make matters more complicated and ripe for comedic mishaps, Emma’s estranged ex-husband Andy (Kenneth Choi) returns to the city from Singapore down on his professional luck and aiming to rekindle things with his lost love.
Brooklyn Magazine says: In 2013, director Yen Tan’s dog Tanner died in his arms, similar to the way Emma’s dog dies in “All That We Love.” “I’m fairly emotionally reserved, but for weeks after Tanner left, my husband Jerry and I would cry at the drop of a hat,” says Tan. With “All That We Love” Tan makes a story about how relationships with the people around you can deepen during such a vulnerable time.