The Tribeca TV Festival will return this fall for a second annual edition, with an expanded program running Sept. 20-23 and encompassing indie pilots, organizers said Thursday.
Tribeca Enterprises, which runs the TV festival along with the Tribeca Film Festival, said the TV extension will be three days, compared with last year’s two-day debut. New series will once again hold premieres during the fest, and there will be season sneak peeks, season finales and conversations with TV directors, producers, writers and actors.
New to the Tribeca TV Festival this year is Indie Pilots, a showcase of the most exciting new independent voices in episodic television. The program, previously held during the Tribeca Film Festival, aims to identity and provide visibility for independent creators’ episodic work.
“The options for both what and how we watch television continue to expand. We’ve seen this evolution in the one year since we first launched the TV Festival, which was created to help audiences and creators alike discover new voices, to showcase exciting stories, and to celebrate fan favorites. We’re excited for the TV Festival to return as a destination for episodic storytelling,” said Paula Weinstein, EVP of Tribeca Enterprises.
The festival landscape is increasingly accommodating the cultural embrace of TV and episodic video. Traditional film festivals, from Sundance to Toronto, have bulked up TV offerings, and dedicated TV festivals, among them ATX in Austin, aTVfest in Atlanta, Series Fest in Denver and Split Screens in New York, have launched this decade.
Last September, Tribeca’s debut stand-alone TV event hosted world premieres of shows such as “Will & Grace” and “At Home With Amy Sedaris.” There were also sneak peeks of returning shows like “Better Things,” “Red Oaks” and “Gotham.”
“Our vision for Tribeca TV is a celebratory space that connects these two groups of viewers and creators that would otherwise be separated by the television screen through unique, live, big-screen events,” said Cara Cusumano, director of programming at the Tribeca Film Festival.