Tribeca 2024: Five Cinematic Experiences Not to Miss

By Sean Boelman

In recent years, the Tribeca Festival has been working to expand its offerings beyond purely film screenings. Although the films in the lineup are often excellent — a combination of buzzed-about, starry premieres and some hits from earlier festivals in the year — some of the biggest highlights are the talkback sessions and other post-screening events that enrich the experience.

Here are a few things we think you should check out at this year’s Tribeca, from great films to once-in-a-lifetime events paired with film screenings:

---

Between the Temples

Nathan Silver’s Between the Temples premiered at this year’s Sundance Film Festival and immediately cemented itself as one of the most hilariously uncomfortable films of the year. Starring Jason Schwartzman as a cantor who has recently become a widower and Carol Kane as his former elementary school teacher, the film switches between heartwarming, awkward, and funny — often all within the same scene. If you’re looking for an entertaining movie to watch at this year’s Tribeca, you’ll have a hard time finding one better than this.

Kneecap

The music dramedy Kneecap perfectly splits the line between crowd-pleasing and incendiary, which is why it has been such a hit on the festival circuit so far. The film, a fictionalized telling of the story of the formation of the eponymous Irish hip-hop group, also offers some unexpected insight into the need for cultural preservation. If the buzz around the film wasn’t enough to attract festivalgoers to see the movie, the band will be doing a special performance for ticketholders, making this a night you absolutely will not forget.

She Loves Blossoms More

Tribeca is unique among mainstream festivals in that it features not one but two sections devoted to the cinema bizarro that exists on the fringes of the fest circuit. Launched last year, the Escape From Tribeca sidebar is separate from the traditional Midnight programming, featuring wild, crazy, and — most importantly — fun genre films. There isn’t a film that better encapsulates this in this year’s lineup than the Greek sci-fi film She Loved Blossoms More, which blends horror, comedy, and trippy experimental cinema in a way that is equal parts hypnotic and hilarious. The sickos of the cinephile community (a term endearingly used by one of your own) will *not* want to miss this.

Skywalkers: A Love Story

However, it’s not just the limits of good taste that festivalgoers can expect to see pushed at Tribeca this year, they can also expect to see the limits of human capability tested. The documentary Skywalkers: A Love Story premiered to great acclaim at this year’s Sundance to great acclaim, and Tribeca is offering a rare opportunity for attendees to see the film about two Russian daredevils in IMAX. It’s a beautifully shot and unexpectedly compelling film, and you won’t want to miss the opportunity to see this on one of the best and biggest screens in NYC.

Treasure

Although its Berlinale premiere was overshadowed by the premiere of the similarly-themed (and buzzier) A Real Pain at Sundance, Julia von Heinz’s Treasure is making a stop at Tribeca ahead of its theatrical release later this month. The film stars Lena Dunham and Stephen Fry as a daughter and father who return to his homeland of Poland, which he left after surviving the Holocaust. It’s not a particularly subtle film, but it offers an interesting perspective on this story and explores a side of this conflict that hasn’t really been shown before.

---

The 2024 Tribeca Film Festival runs June 5-15 in New York City.