Whoopi Goldberg, Tony Goldwyn and other notables from entertainment, politics and business gathered Tuesday in New York to raise a glass of Portugese bubbly to Tribeca Festival Lisboa.
The venture spearheaded by Tribeca co-founders Robert De Niro and Jane Rosenthal announced the lineup for its first edition earlier in the day. The event is slated for October 17 to 19 in the City of Seven Hills, which has become known as an incubator of tech startups in recent years. In addition to a slate of films, programming devoted to podcasts, music and talks will round out the new fest, much as it does at the flagship Tribeca event in New York.
Attendees at the kick-off reception also included U.S. Ambassador to Portugal Randi Levine, Lisbon Mayor Carlos Moedas and Grupo Impresa CEO Francisco Balsemão.
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“What we’re doing today feels like a small yet essential step forward,” Rosenthal told guests at the Tribeca Film Center. “By exchanging cultures, ideas and stories, we’re contributing to something powerful, helping to build a more empathetic, understanding and unified world.” She noted that the gathering was being held on the eve of Wednesday’s 23rd anniversary of 9/11. The terrorist attacks galvanized the effort to stage the first edition of Tribeca in 2002 as Lower Manhattan was in its earliest stage of rebuilding.
In her remarks, Goldberg cited another aspect of Lisbon’s appeal. “For me, it’s very exciting because I’ve always heard that it’s a diverse city,” she said. “And I will say, since people are trying to erase diversity, I’d like to be someplace where it is thriving.”
Also in the crowd at the event was Tony Goncalves, a key architect of the Tribeca Lisboa venture. Goncalves left WarnerMedia in 2022 shortly after it merged with Discovery after rising to the post of Chief Revenue Officer. A native of Portugal, he has since focused on his home country as a consultant and made a number of key introductions for the new fest’s stakeholders.
Chris Brady, who joined Tribeca as Chief Revenue Officer in January 2023 after holding executive posts at CNN, Turner and WarnerMedia, told Deadline the Lisbon venture can “serve as a model for the kinds of partnerships we aim to pursue.”
About 15 years ago, Tribeca embarked on a previous push to expand globally, creating a fall event in Doha, Qatar, and putting its banner on festivals in cities including Florence, Italy. It eventually pulled back on those ambitions amid ownership changes and sponsorship challenges that hit most events on the festival circuit. Yet Brady noted that a recent shift of the main Tribeca Festival to mid-June (from about six to seven weeks earlier in springtime) has resonated strongly. “This past year was one of our most successful ever in terms of sponsorship,” he said.
A controlling stake in Tribeca Festival parent Tribeca Enterprises was acquired in 2019 by a group of investors led by James Murdoch’s Lupa Systems.
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