Tribeca to Merge with Renew Media, Creating Major Funding & Granting Source for Nonfiction

The Tribeca Film Institute announced this morning that it will merge with Renew Media, creating a large and important film arts organization that will continue and expand the work of both entities.  Eugene Hernandez, fresh from True/False, has a full report at indieWIRE:

"Hoping to 'break the tradition' of nonprofit groups to create 'an unprecedented arts organization,' the new Tribeca Film Institute will begin detailing ambitious goals on Monday morning as they announce the marriage of TFI and Renew. The organization will be lead by Renew Media's Brian Newman, capping a deal that took more than a year to arrange. It combines the programs, staff, and boards of the two organizations. The move, which has no direct impact on the leadership of the six-year old Tribeca festival, seems aimed at launching a major organization to rival such established entities as the Sundance Institute, Film Independent, and the Independent Feature Project (IFP), although it will not be a membership group.

'What we are trying to say is that the Institute is a year-round home for filmmakers and new media artists,' Brian Newman told indieWIRE this weekend as the Tribeca Film Institute began to get the word out about its move. 'We are developing it into a true institute, based in New York, with an international focus.'"

As we noted in our survey of top doc film festivals, this year's edition of the Tribeca Film Festival seems to have been making a strong effort to "to right a wayward ship": 

"Last year's fest was much derided, what with increased ticket prices, far flung screening venues, lackluster titles and lack of communication with press, but Tribeca seems to be trying to right past wrongs, including lowering prices, scaling back venues and reaching out to bloggers."

Add to this the establishment of the Gucci Documentary Fund and it appears that the new Tribeca Film Institute will seek to rival the work done by the Sundance Institute in the realm of nonfiction film grants.  More to come on this development...

Comments

[Chris]

Good to hear about this merger. If they really want to be like Sundance however, the first thing they can do is to stop charging an application fee for their grant program (Gucci Doc Fund) and mentoring program (Tribeca All Access). Sundance has never done this...