Tribeca Festival 25th Anniversary: An Interview With Robert De Niro, Jane Rosenthal, Rebecca Glashow

When the actor Robert De Niro and Jane Rosenthal held the first Tribeca Festival in May 2002, memories from the Sept.11 attacks eight months before were still fresh.“I just remember thinking we had to get people back downtown,” said Rosenthal, a longtime film and TV producer who worked with De Niro and her then-husband, Craig Hatkoff, to plan the first event.More than 150,000 people attended the first Tribeca Festival, a remarkable turnout for an event organized in only a few months.

The five-day showcase featured 150 films, included an appearance by the former South African president Nelson Mandela and generated more than $10 million worth of economic activity for New York City.Over the nearly 25 years since then, the now-annual event has expanded to 12 days, screened more than 5,000 films from 126 countries and yielded more than $1 billion for the city.The 2026 edition, which runs Wednesday through June 14, will feature more than 118 feature films and 86 shorts from 44 countries, including 103 world premieres....