It was the first in-person first North American film festival to return since the COVID-19 pandemic.
This month’s Tribeca Festival was historic on several fronts. It was the first in-person first North American film festival to return since the COVID-19 pandemic. And on its final night last weekend—fittingly Juneteenth—its world premiere of Dave Chappelle’s new documentary, This Time This Place, reopened the fabled Radio City Music Hall, shut since March 2020 because of the pandemic. Kicking off the program at Radio City, Jane Rosenthal—who founded the festival in 2001 with actor Robert De Niro and Craig Hatkoff to spur the economic and cultural revitalization of lower Manhattan after the September 11 terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center—told the almost 6,000 members of the audience, who had to provide proof of vaccination to be there, “We’re fully vaxxed and social squeezed together… It seemed right to end (the festival) at Radio City Music Hall, the biggest indoor theater in the world.” Introducing the documentary, Steven Bognar—who made the film with Julia Reichert—said, “We live in a small town in Ohio. We have a neighbor. His name is Dave. We see him at the grocery store.” Addressing the audience, Chappelle, who, like the filmmakers, lives in Yellow Springs, Ohio, said, “I literally just knocked on their door the same way Black people do when they’re having barbecues.
