The 2014 Tribeca Film Festival (TFF), presented by AT&T, today announced its jurors – a diverse group of 33 industry leaders, including award-winning filmmakers, writers, producers, acclaimed actors, respected journalists and entrepreneurs. The jury will be divided among the seven competitive Festival categories. The winning films, filmmakers and actors in each category will be announced at the TFF Awards Night ceremony on April 24. The 2014 Festival runs from April 16 –27.
“The diverse group of voices that make up this year’s jury will make for very interesting deliberations,” said Jane Rosenthal, co-founder of the Tribeca Film Festival.
The seven TFF juries will award $150,000 in cash and prizes. Announced earlier this year, 8 of the winners will also receive a work of original art by an acclaimed artist as part of the Tribeca Film Festival Artists Awards program, sponsored by CHANEL. In addition to the Festival’s main competition juries, the three jurors for the second annual $25,000 Nora Ephron Prize, recognizing a female writer or director, were also announced.
The 2014 TFF Juror Welcome Lunch will be presented for the first time by Condé Nast. Later this year the media leader will relocate to its new global headquarters at 1 World Trade Center where it will play a prominent role in the resurgence of Lower Manhattan.
Following is a list of all 2014 Festival jurors and their respective categories.
World Competition Categories
The jurors for the 2014 World Narrative Competition are:
- Lake Bell: Independent Spirit Award-nominated triple threat whose recent film, In A World…,she directed, wrote, and starred in. Other acting credits include Black Rock, which debuted at the Sundance Film Festival, and the soon-to-be released Million Dollar Arm, The Coup, and Man Up.
- Steve Conrad: Screenwriter and director whose writing credits include The Weather Man, The Pursuit of Happyness, The Secret Life of Walter Mitty and the soon to be released The Business Trip. He directed and wrote The Promotion and the upcoming film, Belushi.
- Bart Freundlich: Director, screenwriter, and producer whose credits include The Rebound, Trust the Man, Catch That Kid, World Traveler, his feature-film debut and Sundance hit, The Myth of Fingerprints, and numerous episodes of Showtime’s Californication.
- Catherine Hardwicke: Director best known for the blockbuster hit Twilight. Her critically-acclaimed debut feature Thirteen received the Director’s Award at the 2003 Sundance Film Festival, an Academy Award nomination for Best Supporting Actress, two Golden Globe nominations, and an Independent Spirit Award. Additional directing credits include Red Riding Hood and Lords of Dogtown.
- Ben Younger: Independent Spirit Award-winning screenwriter and director whose credits include Boiler Room, Prime, and the soon-to-be released, Bleed for This.
The jurors for the 2014 World Documentary Competition are:
- David Edelstein: Movie critic of New York Magazine, NPR’s Fresh Air with Terry Gross, andCBS Sunday Morning. He guest hosted for Turner Classic Movies in 2011 and 2013. He has written for Slate, The New York Times, and Vanity Fair.
- Nick Fraser: London-based journalist, independent television producer, and program editor. He is currently Commissioning Editor of Storyville, the BBC’s long-running and award-winning series of international documentaries.
- Andrea Meditch: Founding president of Back Allie Films whose executive producing credits include Academy Award®-winning Man on Wire, Academy Award®-nominated Encounters at the End of the World, Grizzly Man, and Buck.
- Jenni Wolfson: Executive Director of Chicken & Egg Pictures, which supports women nonfiction filmmakers whose diverse voices and dynamic storytelling have the power to catalyze change, at home and around the globe.
- Marina Zenovich: Director and producer whose films have screened at Tribeca, Cannes, Sundance, New York, and Toronto Film Festivals. Credits include NAACP Image Award-winningRichard Pryor: Omit The Logic, Emmy Award-winning Roman Polanski: Wanted and Desired, and Roman Polanski: Odd Man Out.
Emerging Competition Categories
The jurors for the 2014 Best New Narrative Director are:
- Jeff Goldblum: Renowned Academy Award and Emmy Award-nominated actor and director. Film credits include Jurassic Park, Independence Day, The Grand Budapest Hotel, Igby Goes Down, Adam Resurrected, Nashville, and Death Wish. He starred on television in Law and Order: Criminal Intent and appeared on Broadway in The Pillowman.
- Nadine Labaki: Lebanese filmmaker and actress named to Variety’s 2008 list of “10 Directors to Watch” for her first feature film Caramel, which premiered at the Cannes Film Festival and won numerous prestigious awards. Her second feature film, Where Do We Go Now?, debuted at the 2012 Sundance Film Festival, won a Special Mention from the Cannes Film Festival, and received the Cadillac People’s Choice Award at the Toronto Film Festival.
- Dorothy Lyman: Emmy Award-winning actress best known for her roles as the dynamic “Opal Gardner” on ABC’s All My Children and “Naomi Harper” on Mama’s Family. Film credits include acting in Ruby in Paradise, I Love Trouble, Blow, and The Departed, as well as directingThe Northern Kingdom and Split Ends.
- Adepero Oduye: Independent Spirit and NAACP Image Award-nominated actress. Credits include Pariah, Twelve Years a Slave, and the 2012 television adaptation of Steel Magnolias with Alfre Woodard. She debuted on Broadway in the acclaimed revival of The Trip to Bountiful with Cicely Tyson.
- Mickey Sumner: Actress whose film credits include Noah Baumbach’s critically-acclaimedFrances Ha, 2014 SXSW Film Festival selection, The Mend, recently shot indie, The End of the Tour, directed by James Ponsoldt, festival award-winner Missed Connections, Girl Most Likely, and CBGB. She’s had recurring television roles in Low Winter Sun and The Borgias.
The jurors for the 2014 Best New Documentary Director are:
- Rebecca Cammisa: Emmy Award-winning and Academy Award-nominated documentary film director, producer, and cinematographer. Credits include Sister Helen, Which Way Home, andGod is the Bigger Elvis.
- Heather Graham: Independent Spirit Award-nominated actress for her breakout role in Gus Van Sant’s Drugstore Cowboy. Additional credits include Swingers, Boogie Nights, Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me, The Hangover 1 & 3, and At Any Price.
- Nate Parker: Actor honored as one of Variety’s 2012 “10 Actors to Watch” and Sundance fellowship recipient for his screenplay for the Nat Turner biopic, Birth of a Nation. Film credits include The Great Debaters, Arbitrage, Red Hook Summer, The Secret Life of Bees, Red Tails,Ain’t Them Bodies Saints, and Non-Stop.
- Doug Pray: Emmy Award-winning feature documentary film director focusing on American subcultures and maverick individuals. Work includes Art & Copy, Surfwise, Big Rig, Infamy,Scratch, Hype!, and the upcoming Levitated Mass.
- Michael Stuhlbarg: Golden Globe Award-nominated and Independent Spirit Award-winning actor best known for his role in Boardwalk Empire, which won him two SAG Awards. Film credits include A Serious Man, Blue Jasmine, Lincoln, Hitchcock, and Hugo; television credits include Damages and Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip; theatrical credits include The Invention of Love, Cabaret, and The Pillowman, for which he received a Tony Award Nomination and Drama Desk Award.
Short Film Competition Categories
The jurors for the 2014 Narrative Short Film Competition are:
- Alfonso Arau: Award-winning Mexican character actor and prominent filmmaker of the Latino community in Hollywood. He made his American debut in The Wild Bunch and achieved international acclaim for directing Like Water for Chocolate, one of the most successful foreign-language films ever released in the U.S.
- Whoopi Goldberg: One of an elite group of artists who have won an Academy, Grammy, Emmy, and Tony Award. Film and television credits include The Color Purple, Ghost, Sister Act, Boys on the Side, The Lion King, For Colored Girls, and The View on ABC. She made her directorial debut with the 2013 TFF selection Whoopi Goldberg Presents Moms Mabley.
- Christine Lahti: An Emmy, Golden Globe and Oscar-winning actress and director of film, television, and theater.
- Sheila Nevins: President, HBO Documentary Films. She has been responsible for overseeing the development and production of more than 1,000 documentaries for HBO, HBO2, and Cinemax. As an executive producer or producer, she has received 26 Primetime Emmy® Awards, 31 News and Documentary Emmys®, and 37 George Foster Peabody Awards. During her tenure, HBO’s critically-acclaimed documentaries have gone on to win 23 Academy Awards®.
- Paul Wesley: Actor currently starring in the CW’s Vampire Diaries. Made his directorial debut with the episode “Resident Evil.” He co-produced and co-starred in the feature film Before I Disappear, which premiered in competition at the SXSW Film Festival. Film credits includeShot in the Heart, Peaceful Warrior, Baytown Outlaws, Roll Bounce, and the forthcoming Sam & Amira. Television credits include Fallen, Everwood, American Dreams, 8 Simple Rules, and24.
The jurors for the 2014 Documentary and Student Visionary Award Competitions are:
- Lindsay Burdge: Actress, producer, and casting director who has starred in films screened at Tribeca, Sundance, and SXSW Film Festivals. Credits include A Teacher and First Winter as well as the soon-to-be-released The Midnight Swim and Some Beasts.
- Toni Collette: Australian Emmy and Golden Globe Award-winning actress. Best known for her performances in Muriel’s Wedding, The Sixth Sense, for which she received an Academy Award nomination, About A Boy, The Hours, Little Miss Sunshine, the acclaimed Showtime series The United States of Tara, The Way, Way Back, and Enough Said. She is currently co-starring in The Realistic Joneses on Broadway and will next appear in the upcoming films Lucky Them and A Long Way Down.
- Regina Dugan: Vice President of Engineering at Google named Fast Company’s “Most Creative People in Business 1000” and CNN’s “Top 10 Thinkers.” She leads the Advanced Technology and Projects group charged with breakthrough innovations in mobile computing and accelerating the development of promising technologies to market.
- Simon Kilmurry: Twelve time Emmy Award and three time George Foster Peabody Award-winning executive producer of POV, the long-running PBS showcase of independent documentaries. Serves as chief executive of American Documentary, POV’s non-profit parent organization.
- Anton Yelchin: Critically-acclaimed actor with performances in Star Trek, Terminator Salvation, The Beaver, and Charlie Bartlett. He was honored for his starring role in Like Crazywith the “Artist to Watch” Award at the 2011 Aspen Film Festival and the “Hollywood Spotlight Award” at the 2011 Hollywood Film Festival. Upcoming films include Only Lovers Left Alive,Cymbeline, Rudderless, and 5 to 7, which will premiere at the 2014 Tribeca Film Festival.
Storyscapes
The jurors for the 2014 BOMBAY SAPPHIRE Award for transmedia are:
- Paola Antonelli: Senior Curator of Architecture and Design at MoMA whose work investigates design’s influence on everyday experience. Appointed to direct a new research and development initiative in 2012 and named one of the top 100 most powerful people in the world of art by Art Review.
- Kira Pollack: Director of Photography at TIME Magazine and executive producer of Red Border Films, TIME’s new documentary film project. Named Photo Editor of the Year at the 2011 Lucie Awards and spearheaded TIME’s Emmy Award-winning Beyond 9/11 project.
- Caspar Sonnen: Curator and festival organizer working in the still largely undefined spaces between cinema, digital storytelling, and interactive art. He started the new media program IDFA DocLab at the International Documentary Film Festival Amsterdam as well as co-founded the Open Air Film Festival Amsterdam.
Nora Ephron Prize
The jurors for the 2014 Nora Ephron Prize are:
- Delia Ephron: Best-selling author, screenwriter, journalist, and playwright. Film credits includeSleepless in Seattle, You’ve Got Mail, The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants, Michael, andHanging Up. She has written numerous novels, non-fiction essays, humor books, and a hit play,Love, Loss, and What I Wore, in collaboration with her sister Nora Ephron.
- Natasha Lyonne: Successful on stage and screen, Natasha Lyonne continues to display her creative versatility and talent after more than two decades in the industry. She will soon return as “Nicky Nichols” in Orange Is The New Black, the popular Netflix drama series.
- Gary Ross: Four-time Oscar nominated writer and director whose credits include The Hunger Games, Big, Pleasantville, and Seabiscuit. His first book, Bartholomew Biddle and the Very Big Wind, an illustrated children’s fantasy, was released last year.
