Tribeca Film Fest returns in force this June
BY EMILY DAVENPORT
The city’s most popular fi lm
festival is coming back this
summer, in person, for an
outdoor celebration.
The Tribeca Festival™ will
transform prominent New York
City locations into an in-person
multi-screen celebration spanning
multiple boroughs. Presented by
AT&T, the event will take place
from June 9-20.
“Tribeca is a community of the
most resilient and talented storytellers
on the planet. In 20 years,
our community of creators and
partners have become a family,”
said Jane Rosenthal, Co-Founder
and CEO of Tribeca Enterprises
and Tribeca Festival. “This summer
we are excited to reunite as
Tribeca becomes a centerpiece of
live entertainment in neighborhoods
across New York City.”
Since its inception 20 years
ago, Tribeca has set out to
create opportunities and champion
emerging storytellers. The
Tribeca tradition will continue
this year with a lineup of diverse
programming, immersive exhibitions,
games, fi lms, concerts and a
A rendering of the Tribeca Film Festival at the Battery.
commemoration of the Juneteenth
holiday, which will fall on Closing
Night for the fi rst time.
“The Tribeca Film Festival was
born out of our mission to bring
people together in the aftermath of
9/11,” Robert De Niro, Co-Founder
of Tribeca Festival. “We’re still
doing it. And as New York emerges
from the shadow of COVID-19, it
seems just right to bring people
together again in-person for our
20th anniversary festival.”
For this 20th anniversary of the
festival, ticket-holders can safely
gather together to enjoy screenings
throughout all fi ve boroughs.
Tribeca is working with the New
COURTESY TRIBECA FILM FESTIVAL
York State Department of Health
to ensure all public gatherings
are in full compliance with COVID
19 safety protocols.
So far, the following venues
have been confi rmed to host
Tribeca screenings: Brookfi eld
Place New York, Pier 57 Rooftop,
The Battery, Hudson Yards
(Manhattan); Empire Outlets
(Staten Island), and The MetroTech
Commons (Brooklyn).
The Tribeca will host screenings
with 40-foot state-of-the-art LED
cinemas, the fi rst mobile HD
screens in the country.
“The story of the Tribeca Film
Festival, like New York’s, is a story
of resiliency and reinvention.
The festival was born from the
idea that we can mourn and heal
through the power of storytelling
and coming together as a community.
Today, as we emerge from
the worst of a horrifi c pandemic,
it’s events like the Tribeca Film
Festival that will give New Yorkers
hope for a better and brighter
future in the days ahead,” said
Scott Rechler, CEO and Chairman
of RXR Realty and Chair
of the Regional Plan Association.
Signature screenings including
Opening and Closing Nights will
be announced at a later date. For
more updates on the complete
list of programming for the 2021
Tribeca Festival in coming weeks,
visit tribecafilm.com/festival
or follow @Tribeca on Twitter,
Instagram, Facebook, YouTube,
LinkedIn.
Family sues Soho’s Arlo Hotel for racial profiling
BY DEAN MOSES
Parents of Keyon Harrold Jr, a 14-yearold
boy who was falsely accused of
theft, announced they have offi cially
fi led a lawsuit for racial profi ling against
Arlo Hotel.
Accompanied by attorneys Ben Crump
and Paul Napoli, the parents of the teen,
Keyon Harrold Sr. and Katty Rodriguez,
called for a press conference in City Hall
Park on March 24 to declare they will now
hit Arlo Hotels, its manager, and the boy’s
accuser Miya Ponsetto with a lawsuit. The
complaint accuses the hotel of racially
profi ling Keyon Harrold Jr.
“This happens to marginalized people of
color all the time. We are falsely accused of
stuff then we have to prove our innocence.
It is assumed that we are guilty, it is assumed
that the burden of proof is on us,”
Crump said.
On Dec. 26, Keyon Harrold Jr. and his
father entered the lobby of the Soho hotel
they were staying within when a white
woman by the name of Miya Ponsetto began
accusing the Black minor of stealing
her cellphone. When the father and son
Attorneys Ben Crump and Paul Napoli posed with Keyon Harrold Sr. and Katty
Rodriguez as they hold up a copy of their lawsuit against Arlo Hotels.
pair attempted to remove themselves from
the situation, Ponsetto is seen on camera
tackling Harrold Jr. to the ground. The
phone was later found in the back of an
Uber and not at the hotel.
The boy’s parents and lawyers declared
the hotel is at fault for siding with the
PHOTO BY DEAN MOSES
accuser by demanding the young man
hand over his own phone to prove that
he did not steal it, something Crump calls
“racial profi ling 101.” This is a situation
the group says Black people have to deal
with every day in America, which they
fear could have ended in tragedy if police
would have arrived to discover a Black
individual wrestling with a white female,
who they added was not a patron of the
hotel.
“The nineteen second video the public
has seen is only nineteen seconds of a
four-minute video, and that four-minute
video is just a little bit of what happened
that day. Our son—who was fourteen at
the time—he has suffered something that
will mark him forever. To be accused of
theft when you have never stolen anything
in your life and then to be attacked for
something that you haven’t done has an
impact, and it has an impact on a person
of color,” Katty Rodriguez said, mother of
Harrold Jr.
Rodriguez and Harrold Sr. work as
prominent musicians and over the course
of their travels they have seen and experienced
racism, but they shared that is something
their son should never have to face,
especially as paying customers of a hotel
that should have been a place of refuge.
Harrold Sr. concluded the conference by
playing the song “This land is your land”
on his trumpet before stating: “Thank God
my son is still here.”
4 April 1, 2021 Schneps Media
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