Tribeca 25 Documentary Sets Netflix Debut for September 11
A documentary tracing the post-9/11 origins of the Tribeca Film Festival will premiere on Netflix on 11 September, with a trailer arriving exclusively through The Hollywood Reporter (The Hollywood Reporter).
Matt Tyrnauer directed Tribeca 25, which chronicles how a five-day, 150-film showcase launched in 2002 to help revitalise downtown Manhattan after the attacks of 11 September 2001. The festival has since grown into a fixture of the annual film-calendar — a spring event in New York that sits alongside Sundance, Cannes and Toronto on the circuit where films are bought, sold and launched.
The documentary features new interviews with Tribeca co-founders Robert De Niro and Jane Rosenthal, along with festival alumni Jon M. Chu and Nia DaCosta. Never-before-seen archival footage carries reflections from Martin Scorsese, Whoopi Goldberg, Bruce Springsteen, Nas, Bono, Denis Leary, Graydon Carter, Julian Schnabel and Sheila Nevins — a roster that spans the film, music and publishing worlds that converged on the festival in its early years (The Hollywood Reporter).
Tyrnauer produces alongside Jenny Ewig and Dan Crane. Berry Welsh serves as executive producer, with Keelin Ryan as co-executive producer. Tyrnauer is a journalist and filmmaker whose previous work includes Studio 54 and Where's My Roy Cohn?, both of which lean on deep archival research and access.
The choice of release date is deliberate. The 11 September premiere aligns the film's debut with the anniversary of the attacks that prompted the festival's creation — the event De Niro and Rosenthal built as a cultural response to a neighbourhood in crisis.
For a streaming audience, the documentary offers a chance to see how a major American festival came together not through industry calculation but through civic urgency. The founding rationale — drawing people and commerce back to lower Manhattan — sits at the centre of the story Tyrnauer tells.
