We’re delighted to announce that Tribeca has teamed up with IMG Artists (IMGA), the global leader in the performing arts and lifestyle events management, to create Tribeca Firenze. In conjunction with this year’s Tuscan Sun Festival in Florence, Italy (June 11-18, 2012), Tribeca Firenze will add an international film layer to the Festival’s cultural mix—which also celebrates music, theater, food and wine—presenting a carefully selected collection of international film premieres over five days. The Tribeca Firenze screenings will be held at Florence’s Renaissance-era Odeon Cinema, originally built in 1462.

“The Tuscan Sun Festival has been a labor of love for me and IMGA. The Festival is at its core a platform for the world’s greatest artistic talent and a celebration of the arts. The Tribeca Firenze film program is a natural extension of the Tuscan Sun Festival and will also reflect the quality it has come to represent,” said Barrett Wissman, IMGA Partner and Tuscan Sun Festival Founder and Director.

Fresh from his appearance at the 2012 Tribeca Film Festival, legendary performer and 17-time Grammy winner Tony Bennett will revisit his Italian roots when he accompanies The Zen of Bennett to Florence this June for the film’s European debut. Conceived and created by Tony’s son Danny Bennett, the acclaimed documentary illustrates the making of Bennett’s #1 album Duets II, with appearances by John Mayer, Lady Gaga, Michael Bublé, and, in a heartbreaking sequence, the late Amy Winehouse.

Filmed by Academy Award-winning cinematographer Dion Beebe, the documentary not only goes behind the scenes at the poignant and artful recording sessions, but also travels with Bennett from Los Angeles to Nashville to London to New York City to Bennett’s ancestral home in Padagoni, Italy. Fitting, yes?

“Tribeca’s mission is to provide filmmakers with audiences who are passionate about film, to make independent film accessible to a broad international community, and to move people with the power of cinema. These ideas are at the heart of our partnership with IMGA and the Tuscan Sun Festival,” said Geoffrey Gilmore, Chief Creative Officer of Tribeca Enterprises.

In addition to introducing the film, Bennett will also connect the dots between music, theater, and performance via the Festival’s 24 Hour Plays project. Four of Bennett’s songs will serve as the inspiration for four plays that will be written, rehearsed, and performed in, yes, just 24 hours, and Bennett himself will sing each song as preambles to the individual plays.

“[With] this fabulous new relationship with Tribeca, [w]e’ve connected two organizations that strive to promote and sustain the arts. Tribeca has a film-lover’s eye for finding and promoting the world’s best movies, so their contribution to the Tuscan Sun Festival will be immediate and lasting,” said Jerry Inzerillo, IMGA President and CEO.

The full schedule of films will be announced over the next few weeks, so stay tuned for more news about Tribeca Firenze.

The Tuscan Sun Festival, presented by the Associazione Culturale del Sole and produced by IMG Artists and its strategic visionaries Barrett Wissman and Alexander Shustorovich, is expanding its horizons by holding the festival for the first time in its new home of Florence, the capital of Tuscany and the jewel of the Italian Renaissance.