Tribeca Film Festival is off to a great start and today was no exception. CHANEL and Tribeca Film Festival (TFF) celebrated the outstanding women filmmakers presenting work at the 16th Tribeca Film Festival during the annual Women’s Filmmaker Luncheon at Odeon in New York City. This year’s Festival boasts an impressive 51 female directors (across both features and short films), the highest number of women filmmakers in the Festival’s history. That’s definitely a reason to celebrate.
During the luncheon, Tribeca Film Festival’s EVP Paula Weinstein announced the second annual THROUGH HER LENS: The Tribeca Chanel Women’s Filmmaker Program, a multi-faceted program designed to support emerging U.S.-based female writers and directors of short-form narrative films. Its purpose is to discover and empower rising filmmakers with project support, master classes, one-on-one mentorship, and awards production funds. Submissions will be open this summer for the program, which takes place in the fall. The program is also a collaborative effort with Pulse Films and facilitated by Tribeca Film Institute (TFI). Both Tribeca and CHANEL are dedicated to nurturing independent voices in storytelling, and in recent years have broadened their support of women filmmakers with the THROUGH HER LENS program, as well as the Nora Ephron Prize, awarded annually during the Tribeca Film Festival.
Attendees included Diane Lane, Dianna Agron, Christina Ricci, Joy Bryant, Mariska Hargitay, Carol Kane, Mary Stuart Masterson, Clea Duvall, Alice Eve, Zoe Lister-Jones, Melanie Lynskey, Amy Berg, Alma Ha’rel, Anne Carey, Ellen Burstyn, Lydia Pilcher and Bethann Hardison.
For more information on the program, head over to tribecafilminstitute.org.
Photos: BFA/Getty Images