April 21, 2010 11:30AM EDT

Tribeca Welcomes NY Filmmakers

Hard Rock Havana

TFF 2010 might be starting today, but we jumped the gun a bit last night and threw a special party at the Bowery Hotel for our homegrown NY filmmakers, sponsored by our friends at Company 3. Filmmakers in attendance hailed from Queens to Brooklyn, the Bronx to Manhattan. (Staten Island, were you represented?) What did they all have in common, in addition to being from the greatest city in the world? They were ecstatic that the Festival is finally here, and they cannot WAIT to show their films to the best audience in the world: Tribeca’s.
 

American Mystic

Tribeca filmmakers in attendance included Keith Bearden (Meet Monica Velour), Ahmed Ahmed (Just Like Us), Alex Mar (American Mystic), Nicholas Brennan (Hard Rock Havana), and Francisco Bello (The Spirit of Salsa), to name just a few. Bello described his hopes for his big screening at the Tribeca Drive-In on Thursday night: “The Santo Rico Dance School—the Bad News Bears of salsa!—will have their best dancers dancing and giving lessons, and our dream is to have people dancing in the aisles.” NYU student Brennan is delighted his film is available on TFF Virtual Premium, because all four screenings of his short film program have already sold out: “Luckily, people who aren’t able to get to the screening can watch online with a Premium pass.”
 

Meet Monica Velour

Marcelo Gandola, VP of Operations for Company 3 NY & LA, explained their interest in getting involved with Tribeca as an industry sponsor: “For some time, Company 3 has been known as the post-production house of choice in LA. Our projects include studio blockbusters and solid, creative, successful indie films such as 500 Days of Summer and The Hurt Locker.” As they are now opening a 30K-sq-ft facility in New York, Company 3 found Tribeca to be an ideal way to introduce themselves to New York filmmakers—and the party was the icing on the cake. “I’m a native New Yorker, born and raised in Brooklyn, so I am thrilled to welcome New York filmmakers for both personal and professional reasons.”
 
Company 3 also has ties to this year’s TFF lineup—three films in the Festival used the house for post-production: The Lottery, Meskada, and Freakonomics. And they are also happy to provide a total of $100K in post-production services to the winners of the Best New York Narrative and Best New York Documentary awards at TFF 2010. Nice perk, huh?
 

The Spirit of Salsa

Before we left, we asked some party guests what films were on their radar, and we got a broad range of answers. Filmmaker Jacob Gitzis was looking forward to Thieves By Law, Just Like Us, and William Vincent (“James Franco is just so NY! Doesn’t he go to Columbia?”), and he’s interested in checking out the TFF Virtual Premium line-up. “I’m curious from a marketing perspective how TFFV will work—both in promoting the films and in expanding the audience outside New York.” He’s also a fan of the website—“new material up every day!”—and the brand-new iPhone app (recently updated to version 1.1).
 
Entertainment lawyer Ray Javdan chimed in: “This year I am getting to know other parts of the Festival. I met with some emerging filmmakers through Tribeca All Access, and it’s been great to have the entire film community descend on our hometown.”