NEW YORK (WCBS 880) — The Tribeca Festival is opening Wednesday with 13 simultaneous screenings of "In the Heights" across NYC.
The film is finally opening a year after its original release date was put on hold due to the pandemic.
Some of the locations showing the film include Pier 76, the United Palace Theater in Washington Heights and Hudson Yards.
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Tribeca Festival co-founder Jane Rosenthal says there will be outdoor showings throughout the city – something that has never been done before and was added as a pandemic precaution.
“Starting tonight, two 40-foot LED HD screens will travel the five boroughs. We will have outdoors theaters across the city, including right here on Pier 76, screening free to the public,” she said.
Rosenthal notes that a lot of planning went into this year’s festival, and they had been considering several options to ensure the event could go on, despite the pandemic.
“The limitations imposed by COVID forced us to reimagine what a film festival could be,” Rosenthal said. “At one point we wanted to hang screens from the Brooklyn Bridge and the Manhattan Bridge. We wanted to have barges floating down the Hudson and people watching movies on the shoreline.”
Rosenthal spoke during a press conference at Pier 76 with Gov. Andrew Cuomo, who kicked off the film festival by praising New York City’s arts and culture.
“The arts are the energy and the rhythm of New York. The arts are what make New York, New York,” Cuomo said. “It is the creative tension that is New York City. It brings people from all across the globe; and Tribeca has institutionalized that every year in this film festival.”
He said the film festival coming back is a sign that the pandemic is nearly over, and New York City is returning to normal.
“This is the reopening of New York. We are back,” the governor said. “We have announced that we are going to hit a 70% vaccination rate. We're going to hit it early. We're going to relax virtually all of the restrictions.
Today we are at 69.1%.”
Among other movies to see at the Tribeca Film Festival are Ilana Glazer’s “False Positive,” Amber Sealey’s “No Man of God,” Steven Soderbergh’s “No Sudden Move” and more.
Lin-Manuel Miranda’s “In the Heights” will open in theaters across the country and will be available to stream on HBO Max on Thursday.
The Tribeca Festival closes Sunday, June 19 with a ceremony at Radio City Music Hall, which is opening its doors for the first time in over a year at 100% capacity with a fully vaccinated audience.
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