Dispatch from Tribeca 2024
Live, from New York City, at the Tribeca Festival, some hot takes for you!
Tribeca Festival manages to be both small, as in exclusive, but also big, as in huge laurels (in a giant city). The event also deftly toggles between being a small Industry Event and a wide Audience Pleaser. It’s a tricky note to hit, but kudos to Davy Gardner, Audio Storytelling Curator at Tribeca, for attempting that 10-finger chord.
Most of the industry folks who attend wish it were easier to convene. New York is a big and expensive city…just being here is tricky and expensive. There are also long stretches between the events and shows, so make sure to pack your workbag so that you can be productive between events.
Instead of thinking about what it is, or is not, I think it’s helpful to remind ourselves about what role this Festival plays in the ecosystem.
If you’re looking for something to make you think and feel, look to Resonate. If you’re looking to power up your business, head to Podcast Movement; if your business straddles audio and documentary, head to Hot Docs; if you’re looking for the fans, head to OnAir Fest. And if you’re looking for Third Coast, you’re not alone. My best advice is to keep looking (or donate to the cause).
The job of Tribeca is to give prestige and excitement to the industry on a wider scale
The festival works on a few layers: There are Live events that offer a very different experience, a live listening event (Audio Flux and In The Dark), a live interview (Death, Sex & Money with Kara Swisher) and behind-the-scenes take for super fans (Gala award for The Daily).
There is also the Official Selections portion, which is both a premiere and a competition. Unlike other audio events, Tribeca follows the film festival charter, meaning they only accept unpublished work for consideration. This isn’t a fit for everyone; the show has to be far enough along to apply with something coherent and catchy, but then not so far that it’s ready to be released, and also able to wait for 4-6 months before the festival happens. Next year I think the creators would be jazzed to have their names and project names on the placard during the event.
And then it’s New York, so there are the epic parties, which are easier to get on the guest list for than other A-List festival events. As always, the audio community is quite open and inviting, should you gather up the gumption to walk in.
When it comes to the Official Selections, Tribeca does have a history of selecting truly independent productions for its program. Once there, the Jury separates entries that have commercial/industrial backing from those that have made it without significant production backing and gives one award per category.
This year it selected shows that are genuinely in production (like Empire City), shows that are using this as a launching pad (A Field Guide to Gay Animals); and shows that are looking for some more funding or a straight-up commission (The Beautiful Fire). And then there’s some other work; whether or not you get behind the laurels, it has helped to elevate narrative audio (both fiction and non-fiction) to a new place.
Tribeca awarded 8 non-fiction projects laurels to premiere this week (a further 8 fiction titles were later given the same treatment). On stage right, the three Critics At Large sat, and stage left had four other chairs, where one of the designated team members would sit.
Each project had a 3-5 minute reel that illustrated their project for the audience. The substance of these varied greatly from a basic audiogram, to beautiful animation, to a sizzle reel for a documentary film, complete with stunning footage. All four reels were played in a row, and then the Critics each asked each creator a question.
Ahead of time, I had been told, the Critics had given the creators a few questions, to prepare them for what they might ask. But in the moment, as it turned out for at least two of the presenters whom I spoke with, the questions were different.
Was this a satisfying amount of information to share? Not really. Did the audience each get just enough of a taste for what the story, or the project, might be about? Definitely. Were there any grand conclusions for the Critics to form, thus thrusting the level of conversation about the podcast world deeper into new depths? No, it did not.
It turns out I was not about to witness history as the Critics At Large elevated the art form of narrative podcasts to new heights. Perhaps my expectations were set a bit high.
They only had a roughly-3minute sample to convene their thoughts around. And, for all intents and purposes, these projects share a prototype, or a high-concept piece, not a fully-conceived idea. Recall, the job of this part of the Tribeca Festival is not to provide a deep and meaningful listening experience for the Official Selections; the job is to introduce the potential for what it could become, and hope that the laurels will help the project to get to that next place.
By chance, I sat beside Chris Bannon, Head of Global Audio at Condé Nast. As we walked out of the theatre, I admitted my internet crush on The Critics, and congratulated him on his “doula” role to help get the magazine material to a wider audience. He replied, thank you. But then also, he admitted how much work goes into each episode; meetings happen well ahead of time, a brainstorm and multiple plan revisions for the different episodes.
Anyone who thinks that podcasts like that happen like magic on the first take, after someone walks in cold from driving their kids to school is delusional. Yes, it’s made to go down easy, and their job is to make you feel awesome and connecting while listening. But that comes after a mountain of work.
This quick conversation sharply put everything in perspective. Sitting in that room was the equivalent to listening to raw tape, which could in the future be transformed into something transcendent, in terms of reflections from the Critics At Large, and how these non-fiction podcasts speak to and appear in our current cultural landscape. We will get there. I’m ready for that discussion.
Here are the “Red Carpet” moments I managed to gather from some of the creators from the Non-Fiction Official Selections at Tribeca :
A Field Guide To Gay Animals, with hosts Owen Ever and Laine Kaplan-Levenson, a Canadaland production:
"Delejos" created by Julie Piñero, produced by Cristal Duhaime and Mira Burt-Wintonick
Empire City, forthcoming from Wondery, produced by Chenjerai Kumanyika
The Audio Flux Podcast, forthcoming this fall, with host Amy Pearl
Back To The Water, from South Africa, a collaboration between Zolani Mahola, the one who sings, and Pippa Ehrlich, the Director of the hit documentary My Octopus Teacher
Our Ancestors Were Messy, forthcoming, a series that will bring pre-Civil Rights-era gossip columns a new life. Created by Nicole Hill
The Beautiful Fire, forthcoming, hosted by David Weinberg, with Pacific Content and Bad Robot Productions