HOW THE 25th TRIBECA FESTIVAL BECAME AN UNEXPECTED WIN FOR BLACK STORYTELLING

The Tribeca Festival has wrapped its milestone 25th anniversary after delivering one of its most expansive lineups to date. this year’s festival featured 118 films, including a record-breaking 103 world premieres, 86 short films, panel discussions, Storytellers conversations, and more. And with 50 percent of the selected films directed by BIPOC filmmakers, the lineup was sure to make plenty of room for the kind of stories that kept this year’s festival feeling fresh.

opening & closing night.

Tribeca opened with Earth, Wind & Fire (To Be Celestial vs. That’s The Weight Of The World), Questlove’s now-streaming HBO documentary about the formation of one of the most influential funk and soul groups of all time. Not a bad way to start, honestly. If you are going to celebrate 25 years of a New York film festival, you might as well begin with horns, harmonies, sequins, spiritual ambition, and one of the greatest bands to ever make standing still feel impossible.

The film looks at Earth, Wind & Fire through the life and vision of Maurice White, tracing the ambition, discipline, sacrifice, and leaps of faith behind the music. Questlove builds the documentary through archival footage and interviews with the people who loved White, worked with him, were inspired by him, and, in some cases, were hurt by him. It's affectionate and honest. And while Questlove isn’t an innovator as a documentarian, he’s such a sharp director, with such an intoxicating appreciation of his subject, that he’s able to put the audience right inside the music.

And in this case literally; Right after the film wrapped, the screen rose and the band, Earth, Wind & Fire, performed live alongside The Roots. And yes, if you're wondering, they still got it. The room was on its feet, hunty.

Closing Night brought another music doc, One9's Alicia Keys: Girl From Hell’s Kitchen, the story of Alicia Keys becoming Alicia Keys alongside the story of Alicia Keys turning becoming Alicia Keys into a hit Broadway musical. It takes us through Keys’ childhood, her relationship with her mother, that early pull toward music, her rise, and the behind the scenes nitty gritty of turning it all into the Broadway show, Hell's Kitchen (including the daunting task of casting someone to play you).

Then, what was intended to be a run-of-the-mill closing night after party immediately turned into a Knicks watch party (broadcast live on a screen on the dance floor), with a full quarter and change left in the game. And immediately after a historic Knicks win, Keys hopped on the keys and performed a set I'll never forget. She opened with Barbra Streisand’s “The Way We Were,” brought out Nas for “Represent,” “N.Y. State of Mind,” and “Streets of New York.” She did her own rendition of Billy Joel’s “New York State of Mind” before closing, naturally, with “Empire State of Mind.”

It was the perfect little celebration of not only Keys’ legacy, but NYC, baby. And exactly the kind of sendoff Tribeca’s 25th anniversary deserved.

docs that knocked my socks off.

Now, the big music-doc energy of Opening and Closing Night was fun, obviously, but the rest of the slate had plenty going on too.

Jean-Michel, from Quinn Whitney Wilson and Viridiana Lieberman, offered one of the festival’s more intimate artist portraits. Instead of treating Basquiat like a symbol to decode, the film brings him back down to human scale through family memories, archival footage, and a clear-eyed look at the art world that celebrated him while constantly trying to diminish his Blackness. It's thoughtful, personal, and grounded in the life behind the work.

Harvest held a different kind of charm. The documentary follows the Nelson brothers, fourth-generation farmers in Sondheimer, Louisiana, as they try to keep building something on land that asks a lot from them. It’s warm, funny, and definitely heart-tugging, with the brothers’ relationship doing a lot of the heavy lifting. You leave almost feeling like you know them, which is always a good sign.

Then March Forth shifted the mood. The film follows Reginald Dwayne Betts, who was sent to adult prison at 16 and went on to become a poet, lawyer, and one of those people whose life sounds impossible until you hear him tell it. The documentary has weight, but it also has Betts’ humor, intelligence, and refusal to let the worst thing that happened to him become his whole story.

And Jail Time Records was one of the most memorable docs I saw, so it was no surprise when it won Best Documentary Feature. Set inside New Bell Prison in Cameroon, the film follows the first prison recording studio on the African continent and the incarcerated artists using music to be heard on their own terms. It's visually stunning, emotionally intense, and filled with absolute musical artistry. And seeing that artistry—born of frustration, fear, hope, rage, love, and everything in between—does so much more to argue for safer, more humane prisons than any traditional doc.

narratives that stuck.

On the narrative side, three films especially stuck with me: They Fight, Never Change!, and The Revisionist.

They Fight stars André Holland as Walt Manigan, a recently released ex-con trying to rebuild his life while coaching a group of young boxers at a D.C. youth gym. It’s a heartfelt sports drama about second chances, mentorship, and community, with Holland giving the film a calm center and the younger cast bringing the spark.

Never Change! is easily the most unserious of my narrative highlights, and I mean that as praise. The film follows the Class of 2008 (which also happens to be my class) after a diploma loophole forces them back to high school as adults, which is exactly as ridiculous as it sounds. It’s silly, fully committed to the bit, and a nice reminder that festival programming doesn't always have to be "important" to be worth talking about.

My favorite was The Revisionist, a tense, clever writer movie about a blocked novelist who starts treating the people around her like material. Alison Brie plays Elise, a writer whose creative desperation gets messier when an old friend returns and the line between inspiration and manipulation starts to blur. The cast is great across the board, especially André Holland (in his second Tribeca appearance), but what made the film stick for me was the question underneath it: how much of other people’s lives are artists allowed to take?

talk that talk.

One of my biggest highlights was a special screening of the first two episodes of the final season of Survival of the Thickest, followed by a conversation with Michelle Buteau and Amber Ruffin. Buteau, who created the series and serves as writer, executive producer, and star, brought the show to Tribeca ahead of its final chapter, and the whole thing felt like a proper farewell: warm, celebratory, and full of the kind of energy you only get when a whole theater is laughing together.

Based on Buteau’s essay collection of the same name, Survival of the Thickest follows Mavis Beaumont, a plus-size Black stylist rebuilding her life with the help of her chosen family, her eye for fashion, and her refusal to shrink herself for anyone.

The conversation afterward kept the laughter going. Ruffin was a great moderator, quick witted and generous, and Buteau was hilarious, loose, and completely herself. (She even dropped it like it's hot during a standing ovation.)

Other talks added their own highlights, too. Jane Rosenthal’s conversation with Spike Lee and Ed Burns gave the festival a chance to look back at its own origin story. Keke Palmer’s conversation with Whoopi Goldberg included reflections on love, growth, and moving through a very public breakup. Teyana Taylor’s conversation with Janicza Bravo dug into what it means to build a creative voice across acting, directing, choreography, music, and everything else Teyana decides to casually be good at. And Passing the Torch Between the Past and Future of The Handmaid’s Tale brought Elisabeth Moss, Chase Infiniti, and Lucy Halliday together to talk about The Testaments, Hulu’s next chapter in that universe.

As the festival came to a close, its 25th anniversary edition reflected Tribeca’s continued evolution as a platform for underrepresented voices and films and events that explored culture, identity and community. More importantly, the week served as a powerful celebration of Black stories, Black creators and Black storytellers whose work continues to shape the cultural landscape both on screen and beyond.

Hope to be back for more next year.