Edition: U.S. / Global

FILM; The Festival That Ate Manhattan

Published: April 25, 2004

SEVERAL weeks ago, the organizers of the third annual TriBeCa Film Festival realized that they had a scheduling problem: they had planned an outdoor movie screening for the evening of May 6, during the very same moment NBC would be broadcasting the final episode of ''Friends.'' ''Why be in competition with 'Friends'?'' said Jane Rosenthal, the movie producer who is one of the festival's four co-founders. So the screening was moved to another evening. In its place, on the same outdoor screen, the ''Friends'' episode will be broadcast.

Film festivals -- known for black-clad audiences, velvet-rope attitude and insider-deal-brokering -- don't usually bend over backward to accommodate laugh-tracked sitcoms. But the TriBeCa Film Festival is used to this kind of cheerful accommodation. In its inaugural year, the director George Lucas told Robert De Niro, another of the festival's co-founders, that he would be willing to preview ''Attack of the Clones,'' the upcoming ''Star Wars'' installment, at the festival but warned that the movie might not be completed in time. According to Craig Hatkoff, Ms. Rosenthal's husband and another festival co-founder, his wife's immediate reaction was, ''Well, move the festival.'' They did.

Such pragmatic, populist decisions help explain how the TriBeCa Film Festival has become one of the fastest-growing cultural institutions in New York. This year's festival, budgeted at $15 million and featuring 250 feature-length and short films over nine days, will begin on May 1. Around the same time, the Lower Manhattan Development Corporation is expected to announce its decision about which cultural institutions will participate in a new cultural center planned for ground zero -- and the film festival, which has been short-listed as a potential programmer for the space, will likely play a role. It is expanding with such alacrity and brawn that it's sometimes hard to remember that it is only two years old, or that one of this year's biggest draws will be a screening of the shamelessly lightweight Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen adolescent caper movie, ''New York Minute.''

Unlike the many film festivals that have started in obscurity and only slowly developed a cachet, TriBeCa began with a flash of celebrity. The festival's founding goal was to lure New Yorkers back downtown, to reinvigorate the neighborhood's economy and spirits after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. Working quickly, and following a primary mission that was civic rather than artistic, the organizers came up with a festival that might be described as quirkily broad -- or hopelessly unfocused. How else to explain a program that last year featured a sing-along to ''Grease,'' and this year will include an original copy of the Declaration of Independence on display at Federal Hall? ''It's hard to describe how it all fits together,'' said Mr. Hatkoff. ''But it's very much -- throw 27 different ideas an hour, two stick, 25 we throw out.''

To the organizers, the festival's lack of focus is its strongest suit, giving it a popular appeal that more-established institutions lack. ''Every place has a women's film festival, and a Jewish film festival, and a Latino film festival, which are all very important,'' said Peter Scarlet, the festival's executive director. ''We have a festival that can bring everyone into the tent.'' He continued: ''We are committed to overcoming the sense that a film festival is a wholesale experience, where you have to be a member of that trade to get in. This is retail. You can walk in off the street.''

Robert De Niro agreed. ''We have always been about being a serious festival,'' he said, ''but one that's not taking itself too seriously, where it becomes elitist or snobbish or super-serious.''

Ms. Rosenthal said: ''The festival reflects what the city is. So if you're interested in that midnight movie you can do that, but if you prefer to hear Marty Scorsese talk about music in the movies, you can do that, and if you want to go to the Mary-Kate and Ashley movie with your 10-year-old you can do that too.''

If the TriBeCa festival's power is hidden beneath a deceptively frothy exterior, then it has something in common with Ms. Rosenthal, who for years has been known as Mr. De Niro's business partner, but whose energy and vision drive much of the festival's expansion. ''She's kind of like the main person who things revolve around, and that I rely on to get anything done,'' said Mr. De Niro. Ms. Rosenthal, 47, is tall, with big round eyes, a girlishly flipped haircut, and a soft, high-pitched voice. She spent a decade working in movie and mini-series production (''Adventures in Babysitting,'' ''The Women's Room'') in Los Angeles before Martin Scorsese (the fourth co-founder of the festival) recommended her to Mr. De Niro in 1989. ''I thought the most important thing was someone who he could be comfortable with, and who could get the job done whatever the job became,'' said Mr. Scorsese. In partnership with Ms. Rosenthal, the remote, prickly star of films like ''Raging Bull'' and ''Taxi Driver'' has transformed himself into a multiplex crowd-pleaser with comedies like ''Analyze This'' and ''Meet the Parents.'' Ms. Rosenthal even convinced him to play Fearless Leader in the ill-fated ''The Adventures of Rocky and Bullwinkle.'' Call her influence a dumbing down or a democratizing force; either way, it dramatically elevated Mr. De Niro's box office grosses.