Tribeca And YouTube Partner On “We Are One” Online Film Festival

We Are One will include selections from Tribeca, Cannes, New York, and more

Tribeca Enterprises, the organization behind the Tribeca Film Festival, will partner with YouTube to run an online film festival. The festival, entitled “We Are One”, will stream for free on YouTube from May 29 through June 7, 2020. The event will serve as a fundraiser for the World Health Organization’s COVID-19 Solidarity Response Fund and local relief groups.

“We often talk about film’s uniquely powerful role in inspiring and uniting people across borders and differences to help heal the world,” said Jane Rosenthal, CEO of Tribeca Enterprises. “All of the world needs healing right now.”

The Official Curation

Dubbed “A Global Film Festival”, We Are One will include features, shorts, documentaries, Q&As, and “masterclass content” from film festivals around the world. As of this writing, some of the co-curators in addition to Tribeca will be:

• Annecy International Animated Film Festival (France)
• Berlin Film Festival (Germany)
• Cannes Film Festival (France)
• Guadalajara International Film Festival (Mexico)
• International Film Festival & Awards Macao (China)
• Jerusalem Film Festival (Israel)
• Karlovy Vary Film Festival (Czech Republic)
• Locarno Film Festival (Switzerland)
• London Film Festival (United Kingdom)
• Marrakech International Film Festival (Morocco)
• Mumbai Film Festival (India)
• New York Film Festival (United States)
• San Sebastián Film Festival (Spain)
• Sarajevo Film Festival (Bosnia and Herzegovina)
• Sundance Film Festival (United States)
• Sydney Film Festival (Australia)
• Tokyo International Film Festival (Japan)
• Toronto International Film Festival (Canada)
• Venice Film Festival (Italy)

“We Are One: A Global Film Festival unites curators, artists and storytellers to entertain and provide relief to audiences worldwide,” Rosenthal continued. “In working with our extraordinary festival partners and YouTube we hope that everyone gets a taste of what makes each festival so unique and appreciates the art and power of film.”

According to Deadline, We Are One will feature both new and classic movies but that “[the] features are largely expected to be library titles which had little exposure at the time”. Assumedly, some of the festivals’ bigger draws will probably not be premiering at We Are One, for what Deadline dubs “obvious financial and rights reasons”. Specific titles that will play We Are One will be announced in the coming weeks.

Shift to Digital

We Are One is the second major online film festival event to take shape in the wake of COVID-19 cancellations. SXSW partnered with Amazon for the SXSW Film Collection, a small assortment from the selection of their cancelled in-person festival. Those films are streaming for free on Prime Video from April 27 through May 6, 2020.

Also, despite the circumstances, We Are One won’t serve as a full-on substitute for these individual co-curators’ own festivals. The Tribeca Film Festival, which Rosenthal announced back in March had been postponed to a later date, still seems to be in the works; Venice and Toronto are both holding steadfast to their late-summer and early-fall dates; and Cannes resiliently remains up in the air without any official cancellations, despite two postponements.

It’s already been a wild ride thus far to see how the film industry has adjusted to the restrictions put in place by this pandemic. It’ll be interesting to watch how the move to digital – for all portions of the cinematic pipeline – will continue to evolve.

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