Tribeca Film Festival and Tribeca Film Institute support storytellers from around the world, connecting them to audiences in New York City and beyond. From video to participatory story creation, to games and alternate reality story-worlds, the way to experience stories is evolving on a daily basis, and Tribeca is committed to keeping in step with creators and filmmakers and their needs as they look for new outlets and platforms for their creative efforts.

From the Tribeca Film Institute’s New Media Fund, to TFI Interactive at the 2012 Tribeca Film Festival, to the recent announcement that the 2013 Tribeca Film Festival will be accepting transmedia submissions for Tribeca Storyscapes, a new Festival category (with BOMBAY SAPPHIRE_® Gin on board as a sponsor for this new initiative), Tribeca celebrates and supports new and emerging trends in digital media.

Tribeca Film Institute’s New Media Fund

In 2011, the Tribeca Film Institute established the TFI New Media Fund, offering grants of $50K to $100K and other support to non-fiction, social issue media projects that evolve beyond traditional screens to engage audience participation around issues of contemporary social justice and equality. These new media artists are integrating film with content across media platforms—their creations link together not just innovative interactive websites, but also video games, mobile applications, social networks, and much more.

Now in its second year, the TFI New Media Fund, in partnership with Ford Foundation’s Just Films Initiative, recently announced its next round of grant recipients: the six interactive, non-fiction projects—from artists around the world—explore everything from Guatemalan street gangs to rural West Virginia community issues to collaborative problem-solving facilitated by a robot named Laika. In addition to receiving financial support, grantees will also take part in regular peer-to-peer meetings as well as a lab to help them develop their projects and build engagement with audiences.

For a full list of this year’s projects, which will receive grants totaling $400,000, visit the Tribeca Film Institute website.

TFI Interactive

Bringing the interactive world offline for a day—and bringing new media artists together to share, collaborate, and network—was the impetus behind TFI Interactive, an inaugural one-day conference held during the 2012 Tribeca Film Festival in partnership with XO Labs from the U.K.

Tribeca Film Institute’s Director of Digital Initiatives Ingrid Kopp recently took readers on a tour of TFI Interactive, fittingly memorialized in a series of videos from a roster of prominent presenters, representing projects including the 9/11 Memorial Museum, Game of Thrones, the Mozilla Foundation, Hackasaurus Design, and the Hive NYC, among many others.

2013 Tribeca Film Festival: Tribeca Storyscapes

For the first time, traditional short and feature films will not be the only projects competing for a spot in the lineup. Tribeca Storyscapes will present the best fiction and nonfiction transmedia projects at the Tribeca Film Festival in 2013 and beyond.

The Festival now welcomes open submissions from transmedia creators who employ an innovative, interactive, web-based or multi-platform approach to story creation. These projects can be either multi-platform or interactive on a single platform, pushing beyond linear filmmaking in innovative ways while telling a compelling story.

In an effort to recognize and celebrate this new generation of storytellers, BOMBAY SAPPHIRE® Gin and the Festival will present an award during the 2013 Tribeca Film Festival.

Creators, submit your project for the 2013 Tribeca Film Festival.

Future of Film Blog

And last but not least, avid readers of this Future of Film blog—which launched in 2011—are becoming well versed in emerging storytelling platforms, often referred to as “transmedia.”

Over the next month, the blog will feature contributions from artists and creators in the trenches. We welcome you to follow along as their first-person narratives guide us through this brave new world of interactive storytelling.