Gearing up for its 2016 edition, the Tribeca Film Festival has set its first round of speakers — including Tom Hanks and Tina Fey — and a couple of virtual reality offerings, along with sessions with tech and creative types during a day-long symposium dubbed Imagination Day.
Hanks, who figures prominently in the current awards season thanks to his role in Steven Spielberg’s “Bridge of Spies,” and Fey, whose latest film “Sisters” goes into wide release later this week, will be part of a new platform of programming for the fest, a series of live discussions called Tribeca Talks: Storytellers.
The VR offerings include Baobab Studios’ alien-invasion tale “Invasion!” as well as the work of VR-focused Felix & Paul Studios, such as as “Inside Impact: East Africa” and “Cirque du Soleil’s Inside the Box of Kurios.”
The focus on virtual reality and immersive programming, which will again be showcased in the festival’s Storyscapes category, falls in line with Tribeca’s recent interest in crossplatform storytelling and in innovation overall. That strand of programming also encompasses Imagination Day, presented with New York-based tech firm the Hatchery, which has liend up speakers including Richard Branson, Google ATAP’s Regina Dugan, STRIVR Labs’ Derek Belch and tech exec Philip Rosedale.
All festival events announced so far will take place at the festival’s hub in the Tribeca neighbhorhood of Manhattan. The 2016 fest runs April 13-24, with Imagination Day set for April 19, with feature film programming to be announced in the coming months.
