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Episode Transcript

Charlie Melcher:

Hi, I'm Charlie Melcher, founder and director of the Future of StoryTelling. Welcome back to the FoST podcast. My guest today is Jane Rosenthal, co-founder, CEO, and executive chair of Tribeca Enterprises. Jane started her career as a producer working in film and television, and her credits include such beloved features as About A Boy, Meet the Parents, Bohemian Rhapsody, and most recently the Oscar nominated Netflix hit The Irishman. She's a multi-talented producer working in film, TV, and stage. She sits on the boards of numerous cultural organizations, and she runs the much beloved Tribeca Film Festival.

Jane co-founded the Tribeca Film Festival with Robert De Niro and Craig Hatkoff in the aftermath of September 11, 2001 as a way to help revitalize Lower Manhattan. The festival was initially formed with a focus on film, but over the years has expanded its mission through initiatives such as Tribeca Immersive and Tribeca Games to showcase a broad range of creative storytelling. I think of Jane as a comrade in arms in the work of promoting new voice and new pioneering forms. Through her work, she's made a tremendous contribution to both the art and craft of storytelling, and the cultural fabric of New York City. I'm thrilled to welcome her to this episode of the FoST podcast. Jane Rosenthal, it's such a pleasure to have you on the Future of StoryTelling podcast. Welcome.

Jane Rosenthal:

Thank you. It's a pleasure to be here. I'm such a fan of yours, Charlie.

Charlie Melcher:

The feeling is mutual, Jane. Tell us, to start, how Tribeca got its start.

Jane Rosenthal:

How did Tribeca get its start? Well, first of all, you don't quit your day job to start a film festival.

Charlie Melcher:

Tell me about it.

Jane Rosenthal:

Even though Bob De Niro and I had talked for years about starting a film festival, it wasn't until after 2011, when our neighborhood was hit by the terrorist attack, that we felt that we needed to do something to help our community. We weren't firefighters, we weren't engineers. What could we do to help? The only thing we knew was how to put on a show and how to hopefully bring a new memory to our community, something to look forward to, and to tell the world that we're still here and our voices were going to rise up louder and prouder than ever. We put that first film festival together in 120 days after 9/11. My motto was no was not an option, and we just kept going. I did only think it'd be one festival, that was going to be it, and we just had our 20th anniversary.

Charlie Melcher:

I can't help but see the comparison to 20 years later, and us this year, you being one of the first New York festivals to go live again coming out of the pandemic.

Jane Rosenthal:

It was pretty emotional. We were the first North American film festival to be in person. We had hoped and thought based on information we were getting that COVID would decline in the summer months, and we had moved the date to June and created what I like to call outdoor multiplexes. We were able to be in all five boroughs, so it was very special, but it was that feeling of people coming out of isolation and having to create a sense of new rituals. The first few days it was a bit awkward, but it was exhilarating, because it was just the sense that we were together again. That's, I think, what we all missed most during that time of COVID.

Charlie Melcher:

Well, first of all, I really applaud your will, your drive. I mean, I had to make the same decision about Future of StoryTelling last November, and decided it was too risky or it wasn't the time. I also can't help but see that, with the first Tribeca Film Festival, you were trying to bring everyone to Tribeca, to Lower Manhattan. In this one this year, you really brought the festival to the rest of New York. You really were this distributed festival this year, and that must have been so much more complicated, infinitely more complex to just get it out into all those boroughs.

Jane Rosenthal:

It was definitely a bit more complex, but I jokingly say that Tribeca stands for the triangle below Canada, and for years our footprint has been actually much larger than Tribeca. We've hosted screenings in venues all over the city. Some of our openings and sometimes our closing night have been at The Beacon, at Radio City Music Hall, at Apollo in Harlem. Of course, this year we were up at the United Palace Theater in Washington Heights. It was important to us this year to be in all those neighborhoods and to help communities that have suffered so greatly, and to the restaurants, and to just be able to bring not just our films and our stories, but some people, too

Charlie Melcher:

Yeah, our dollars, yeah. I'd love to hear your thoughts about how the film festival's evolved over those 20 years. I also noticed that you decided you lose the word film in the title of Tribeca Festival.

Jane Rosenthal:

Well, at the end of the day, we're an artist-driven festival, and it becomes our curatorial voice and spotlighting new and diverse voices. That's at the core of whatever we do, whether that's in anything within the linear film space, television space, or in games or podcasts or our VR arcade. Theaters are important and the experience to go to theaters and have that communal experience is important as community, as part of our humanity, as just things that we do as humans. But, there's so many other different ways of telling stories and experiencing entertainment, and that's what we like to do.

Charlie Melcher:

We share that, as you and I have discussed many times over the years, of our passion for storytelling in its many forms, and in discovering the new media or technologies that enable storytelling in new ways. Tribeca's always been an innovator there, featuring games early on, and all different types of interesting work. The fact that the models for film have been disrupted, I mean, that's a big deal, and certainly COVID accelerated some of that disruption. Right? It wasn't new, but it certainly did accelerate some of those. How do you feel about all that personally? I mean, as a person who's made so many wonderful, literally some of my favorite movies of all time, Meet the Fockers and so many great ones. How are you feeling about that personally?

Jane Rosenthal:

I'm excited about it, because it's almost like, what's the weight of the story? What's the best way to tell this story? Now there are more options. What platform is going to hold the story the best and will be able to present it to the audience in the best way? As a producer, it's exhilarating. It's very freeing to the creative mind and what you can do.

Charlie Melcher:

I love that. Of course, I share that. I come from the background of book publishing, and that got disrupted also seriously with digital technology. I found there were people who were very threatened by those changes and wanted to sort of hide under their desks and hoped it would all go away, and then there were a smaller group of people who would embrace the new opportunities and get excited about them. Part of our role is to help inspire that next generation of storytellers, the innovators, the people who are going to take what's been done so far and push it to that next level, with the next iteration, see something, and also have a place to be recognized, a platform to be celebrated and encouraged. Do you agree? Have you been thinking the same way about the work that you all do at Tribeca about the role in terms of inspiring next generation artists?

Jane Rosenthal:

Well, it's always about inspiring the next generation and being inspired by the next generation. Those voices might be a little raw when you first see them, but eventually they'll come back another year, and they've massaged their talent more. We also have a market for new works, and again, that's to give opportunities to both the industry and to filmmakers, storytellers to show new online works.

Charlie Melcher:

I find that it's a time when you're seeing these first examples, particularly in the new media space, okay, not specifically in new filmmakers, but where they're just figuring out that relationship to the new tools, to the new technologies, and a lot of the things sometimes don't feel fully realized in these first examples. But, that there's this important role of, and because of that, by the way, there's also not an economic model for many of these things. Right? They're not going to just get picked up and distributed by a major studio or game shop. The role that Tribeca plays, and others, provide such an important role in terms of the encouragement, sometimes even allowing them to connect to economic support for the next iteration, or just to feel like they're part of a community, because trailblazers are working alone often in a studio. I just think that you've played such an important role in all of those ways to help support that next generation of new media storytellers.

Jane Rosenthal:

Cool, thank you for saying that. I wish that there could be a better business model for them, but it's been interesting to see unexpected changes in where people have gone. You look at Chris Milk, who was clearly, you know, early adopter into VR, and those early pieces that he did with Gabo Arora, and the piece he did with Beck, and the work that he's been doing with Aaron. He and Aaron have now developed Supernatural, which is a way to exercise in VR, and it's fun and it's different, but it's kind of, you didn't think that's where Chris would be when you watched his first pieces.

Charlie Melcher:

Jane Rosenthal:

I don't know about you, but one of my early experiences in going to a movie was The Rocky Horror Picture Show. You went there, especially if it was midnight on St. Mark's Place, clearly dating myself, but you were there to dance, and you were there to-

Charlie Melcher:

Throw rice.

Jane Rosenthal:

It was, you're going to watch the movie, but you're doing some other stuff too. I don't know if it's changing or it's always been there. It hasn't been tapped enough. We screen Good Fellas for an anniversary screening a couple years ago, and it was fascinating sitting at The Beacon Theater and listening to the audience talk back to every character in that movie. Now it's, how can you take that and twist it and have more fun with engaging your audience? There is a time and a place to have an interactive audience in a movie, and then there is a time that you just want everyone to lean back and listen. I do think that's one of the great things about movies, you get to listen to people talk without interruption, and perhaps you'll hear a point of view that you hadn't thought about before.

Charlie Melcher:

I mean, it reminds us, or it makes me want to ask the question, what do you think stories are for? What role do they play in our lives?

Jane Rosenthal:

Oh, they take us to places that we've never been. They can give us a historical context. They can take us to a fantasy realm. Whether you're talking about the cave people sitting around telling stories, the history of oral culture and how important it is to have a connection with stories and feel like something has actually happened. It also, if you look at the Vatican as one of the first VR experiences, going into a church as a VR experience, it provides you with a sense of hope and awe.

Charlie Melcher:

Do you find that, for you, that Tribeca continues to be engaging and meaningful personally because of the opportunity to continue to learn?

Jane Rosenthal:

Absolutely. If it wasn't, I'd just curl up and die. I mean, I met a young filmmaker today who actually is a former dancer at the New York City Ballet, and he's got this amazing visual sense and style. Of course, his whole life in the ballet has been about movement and how you move through space, and now he's taken what was his physical expression as his body, and is now doing that to move a camera and to tell his story. You just never know when you're going to turn around and meet someone like that, and I don't know, then I get excited and want to do more.

Charlie Melcher:

As somebody who's had the opportunity to produce and help make so many amazing films over the years, how do you feel that impacts your role as a curator and producer of the festival? What's the relationship for you between those two parts of your brain?

Jane Rosenthal:

Look, you certainly know as a producer how hard it is to do anything, and what kind of limitations you have sometimes. By the way, the more limitations, the more creative you could be, or you're forced to be sometimes. I think it certainly gives me an appreciation when looking at film to see how the director, the producer, what they had to work with, and how they were able to create something and have a real appreciation for how hard it is. It's not as easy as it looks all the time. I think we talked a little bit about this, but there's all this technology, and everybody can have access. There's to cameras, and you can take your phone, and you can write a script, get it financed, cast it, distribute it all from your phone, and edit it. But, that doesn't mean it's any good. There is a discipline to all of these things, to making great stories. Hopefully part of what we curate and part of what we can spot are those that have the potential to go on, and that you just want to follow 'til the ends of earth.

Charlie Melcher:

Let's talk about the need for more diversity and diverse voices telling stories. We both know that there's not as much diversity as there should be, let's say in film and television, and in publishing, in gaming and XR, in so many of the storytelling fields. How have you approached that Tribeca, and what are your thoughts on how to help solve that problem?

Jane Rosenthal:

First of all, at Tribeca this is not new to us. We have been, even before we started the film festival, we would host screenings of unfinished films, and from diverse filmmakers. That said, that's not enough. Everyone has to do that. We have pro at Tribeca that are, whether it's Through Her Lens with Chanel for women filmmakers, or the work that we've done with P&G and Queen Latifa, we do a number of programs. But, the other thing in terms of our company is mentoring and bringing people up within your company. It's also about mentoring on film sets, and it is finding those who are not so much the people who are in the middle, if you will, that need to be able to, that are already in the system, but they're sort of stuck in that third tier. How do you mentor them to go to two and one? Again, it's about discovering talent, and it's not just about discovering talent that is going to be creating, it's who's also going to be making.

Charlie Melcher:

It's funny, it makes me think about the hero's journey, Joseph Campbell's classic hero's journey, which I refer to all the time. I just always love that idea that it's the mentor's role to encourage our hero out on their quest, and that mentor gives them a magical gift, often, to help them on their way. I think about what you do at Tribeca as kind of that magical gift that you give to help mentor so many people on their path as artists and storytellers.

Jane Rosenthal:

You're very kind to say that, but there's somewhat a method to my madness in that Charlie, because I view that if you mentor enough people, you're helping them on their way up, that when you're on your way down, that they're going to help you.

Charlie Melcher:

Last question. What's your favorite interactive story you've ever experienced? Is there one that stands out in your mind that just, you thought the world's different from me now that I've done this?

Jane Rosenthal:

I suppose I go back to early days of Clouds Over Sidra that Ban Ki-moon had commissioned, and realizing that I could be in that refugee camp and see the horizon and the walls that kids were seeing, or sit on the floor with the mother as she was trying to prepare meals and putting her children to bed, and being right there was so powerful. The other VR piece was a piece that actually Baobab did a couple years ago, Jack, which was Jack and the Beanstock that was with live actors, and you were interacting with the live actors in animation and VR. It was just suddenly realizing how you were now going to be able to take children's theater, and theater, and take it into a whole other realm. It's a different way of taking theater on the road. I think some of the VR animation is some of my most favorite pieces, because you already are suspending your sense of belief of where you could be, and those to me become some of the most successful pieces.

Charlie Melcher:

I think I use this expression, I forget who said it, but that the future's already here, it's just unevenly distributed. I think that you and I have this job of trying to help aggregate it and bring it back, so that other storytellers and other creators and marketers and audience can see it and get excited by it and want to help make it even more powerful and glorious. Well, Jane, thank you. It's such an honor to get to spend this time with you. I so appreciate everything that you do. You don't know it, but you're a mentor to me. I didn't bother you with all the details of that, but you are.

Jane Rosenthal:

Oh, gosh. Charlie, thank you. Well, I look forward to seeing you soon. I always learn so much from you all the time, and really honored to be on your podcast, and look forward to seeing you in the real world soon.

Charlie Melcher:

Thanks for listening to the FoST podcast. If you enjoyed this episode and would like to hear more, please subscribe and share it with a friend. Of course, I'd like to give a special thanks to Jane Rosenthal for joining me today. You can find a full transcript of our conversation, and learn more about Tribeca, by visiting the link in this episode's description. The FoST podcast is produced by Melcher Media in collaboration with our talented production partner, Charts and Leisure. FoST also said out a monthly newsletter that features articles, upcoming events, and original content showcasing the cutting edge of storytelling. Join the FoST community by subscribing at fost.org/signup. I hope we'll see you again in a couple of weeks for another deep dive into the world of storytelling. Until then, please be safe, stay strong, and story on.