 |
| Tribeca Festival Artistic Director Frédéric Boyer with Anne-Katrin Titze: ”25 years!!! I think the mood for Tribeca is very positive. Seriously, I’m not promoting.” |
As has been tradition, Tribeca Festival artistic director Frédéric Boyer joined me on Zoom from Paris for a conversation on the highlights of this year’s 25th anniversary edition of the Tribeca Festival
Anne-Katrin Titze: Hi Frédéric! It’s May and time for our annual Tribeca talk. What should not be missed in this 25th anniversary edition?
Frédéric Boyer: We had 15,000 submissions! In the Americans there is one film I think is super good. It’s called Kingston. Probably one of the best films we have. Extremely smart debut film. I am doing mostly all international films.
 |
| Questlove’s (here with 99 Records Founder Ed Bahlman) Earth, Wind & Fire (To Be Celestial VS That’s The Weight Of The World) opens the 25th Tribeca Festival Photo: Anne Katrin Titze |
AKT: Did you see the opening night film by Questlove, Earth, Wind & Fire (To Be Celestial VS That’s the Weight of the World)?
FB: Not yet! But I want to see it. So far only a few people saw it. I love Earth, Wind & Fire. The one on Alicia Keys (Closing Night: Alicia Keys: Girl From Hell's Kitchen) is cool.
AKT: Apropos Questlove, Ed [Bahlman, producer of 99 Records] and I were at a film screening of Jacqueline Baylon’s award-winning short, Until He’s Back, hosted by Questlove. He is a big fan of Ed’s 99 releases! He was telling Ed that just the prior week he had given a copy of Ed’s ESG record to Scarlett Johansson for her birthday. Questlove loves 99.
FB: Wow! He has so much culture, this guy!
AKT: I noted Julian Schnabel has a film in Tribeca this year, In The Hand Of Dante.
FB: It was in Venice. I did not see it. But, on another note, there are many films about him, but this is the best on Basquiat.
AKT: Yes, that was on my list to ask you about. I made a list for you as I do every year. So Jean-Michel is good?
FB: Yes, there is a lot of Super 8 and 16mm footage, totally rare from friends. There’s new images of Basquiat. You are discovering new things. It’s super well done.
 |
| In The Hand Of Dante |
AKT: What about The Last Day? The Mrs. Dalloway film produced by Christine Vachon with Alicia Vikander and Wagner Moura, who was so fabulous in Kleber Mendonça Filho’s The Secret Agent?
FB: There was a private screening in New York at the Greenwich Room. I didn’t see it but I heard it’s pretty good.
AKT: Charlotte Gainsbourg and Quentin Tarantino are in Only What We Carry. What is that?
FB: I’m not sure. But Tarantino is coming for something. He’ll be at Tribeca.
AKT: What about threeASFOUR: Full Circle, directed by Sean Lennon. The only fashion film?
FB: It’s pretty good. It’s really interesting, about the collective
AKT: There’s a German film called I Spy With My Little Eye.
FB: It’s super girly.
AKT: Super girly in the sense of the German film Dead Girls Dancing by Anna Roller from two years ago?
 |
| Jean-Michel |
FB: Ah, no it’s different.
AKT: What about the Japanese Film Memorizu, directed by Miiku Sakanishi?
FB: It’s slow but it’s super stylish. It’s quite interesting. It’s a wonderful début. I think it’s great.
AKT: Young Washington?
FB: I didn’t see it.
AKT: Might be like Young Mr. Lincoln!
FB: Ha! With the title you cannot not see it.
AKT: The one with the reindeer, Árru?
FB: Yes, Árru was in Berlin. I think it’s really good. It’s a film from Norway. Sami filmmaker. And she is really living with reindeer. I really love this one. Árru is great.
 |
| Summer War |
AKT: The Siege Of Paradise, from Ireland and Switzerland!
FB: I love it!
AKT: You love it?
FB: Yes, it arrived at the last minute, but it’s so cool. It’s a film about this little city with all the coloured houses in Italy. They have 3000 people in December and three million during the summer. It’s not only about over-tourism, it is following two influencers, girls. They go to the sea, it’s super, of course with the phone. They are only filming themselves, they are watching nothing. The film is an Irish production. This one is very good.
AKT: Anything else you recommend?
FB: There is Stand Up, it’s one of the few films where the director (Mari Sanders) is in a wheelchair. He is Dutch, he did a film called Wheelchair Road Movie. It’s about friendship, love, punks on a wheelchair. The Chilean film, Summer War, I think it’s adapted from a Bolaño novel. It’s quite fascinating in terms of storytelling. I love this one. I really now want to read Roberto Bolaño.
AKT: I am curious about this one. It’s a good sign when a film can do what you describe!
 |
| Memorizu |
FB: There’s also one, because I’m a cinephile, it’s called Mineshaft: The Cruising Murders. It’s a film about a bar. There was a murder in this bar in the Seventies and William Friedkin made the film Cruising about this place. All the community of Christopher Street was against the film. There’s Al Pacino walking on the street, it’s 16mm. There is the guy from the Village Voice talking. It’s super cool. Now there is a rehabilitation about the film.
AKT: Cinephiles will appreciate this one.
FB: I also liked How to Feed a Dictator. It’s about five or six dictators.
AKT: What a sentence to say!
FB: There’s probably many more. You know, there’s less democracy than dictatorship in the world now. This film is interviews about their cooks. It’s light, it’s really quite interesting insight through the food. Let’s see what else there is in International.
Funk is pretty cool. It’s like a Cinderella in Brazil. It’s a début film; I really like this one. It’s about Baile Funk from the favelas. There’s a wave of things, there’s a club, so I hope we’re going to have a party. It’s in scope, it’s colourful. Conventional but exciting. I think this one is going to sell well.
 |
| The Keeper Of The Camphor Tree |
There’s a film called Zejtune from the only quite important Maltese filmmaker, Alex Camilleri. He made a documentary called Luzzu, which won Sundance. He’s always produced by Ramin Bahrani. The film is shot and set in Malta. It’s about a woman who is meeting an old man to find a territory in Malta. She’s not from there. The guy was the oldest of the traditional singers of Malta. So he is going to teach her how to sing, to have a battle of songs in the mountains. I think it’s super good. I really like this one.
AKT: It does sound original.
FB: For animation there is one that is super strong. The Keeper Of The Camphor Tree. It was released in Japan. Absolutely splendid animation, social. You forget that it’s animation. It’s adapted from a bestseller and was a big success in Japan.
AKT: It’s 25 years since 9/11!
FB: 25 years!!! I think the mood for Tribeca is very positive. Seriously, I’m not promoting. TV looks good, they have a series [Grandmasters] on Magnus Carlsen, I’m a chess player so this is interesting. The podcasts look very good, the talks too. It’s still good! They are selling tickets.
AKT: Because of the anniversary, I think people will be talking about that day and where they were.
 |
| The Last Day |
FB: Oh there is a film about 9/11 in the festival. It’s called IX XI. It’s five portraits of people talking about what they did from the beginning of the day to midnight and it’s super well done. It’s very strong. We all loved it.
AKT: I will definitely have a look.
FB: You were the first person in New York I remember who really had a fascination with Michelangelo Frammartino. Remember?
AKT: Yes, of course. That’s where we met for the first time at PS1.
FB: And you understood the film so well. And I thought, ah, New York, there’s a lot of good people! I was really impressed because most of the time …
AKT: Apropos understanding, you are probably one of the few people who will get right away what I am talking about. I have a favourite lipstick. It is called Jungle Red.
FB: [Frédéric laughs] That’s cool!
AKT: A reference to The Women, George Cukor.
FB: It’s on purpose, no? It was chosen for that reason?
AKT: Yes, of course. Nars, they had Scarlett Empress, Morocco, Funny Face.
 |
| The Siege Of Paradise |
FB: Oh!
AKT: Casablanca! They had all these wonderful names for their colours. This morning I tried to order a fresh Jungle Red from Sephora and they don’t have it anymore!
FB: Look at this detail that makes you so happy.
AKT: Those films, like The Women, were so meaningful to me. They were part of my education of how to behave, how to be a human being.
FB: Exactly. They are also in your body. Lipstick is a body thing, it’s not intellectual. It’s beautiful. I think the reference is great.
AKT: It’s what you wanted to be like, Katharine Hepburn or Cyd Charisse, Fred Astaire or Cary Grant. There was also a moral code attached that told you what you can get away with and what is too much. It’s what a lot of people who grew up in the second half of the 20th century were exposed to, via TV mostly. Not so much anymore.
FB: Not anymore.
AKT: In any case, it was lovely catching up with you! See you in New York in June!
FB: Thank you, Anne-Katrin, as always! See you soon in New York! Take care! Ciao!
The 2026 Tribeca Festival runs from June 3-14.
