This year’s Tribeca Festival in June will open with the world premiere of HBO‘s two-part documentary Billy Joel: So It Goes.
The announcement was made Sunday by festival co-founder Jane Rosenthal during an appearance at the NAB Show in Las Vegas. The project’s presence on HBO’s 2025 slate was just revealed in late-March.
Opening night will be June 4 at the Beacon Theatre, and the festival is scheduled to run through June 15. Additional programming, spanning film, music, TV, audio storytelling, talks, games, and immersive media, will be announced in the coming weeks.
“For nearly 25 years, the Tribeca Festival has celebrated the artists who give New York its heart and soul, and on the opening night of the 2025 festival, we are thrilled to honor Billy Joel – an artist who has embodied that very spirit,” Rosenthal said in a statement. “Paying tribute to the legendary performer who captured the essence of a ‘New York State of Mind’ is a perfect way to kick off this year’s celebration of creativity and inspiration.”
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Joel, 75, wrapped up a lucrative residency at Madison Square Garden last July, ending a 10-year run of sold-out monthly shows. Several weeks ago, he postponed a planned tour, citing an unspecified health issue.
The HBO original two-parter is billed as “an expansive portrait of the life and music of Billy Joel, exploring the love, loss, and personal struggles that fuel his songwriting.” The project’s directors and producers, Susan Lacy (HBO’s Jane Fonda in Five Acts and Spielberg) and Jessica Levin (HBO’s The Janes and Jane Fonda in Five Acts) conducted extensive one-on-one interviews for the project. They were granted access to never-before-seen performances, home movies, and personal photographs.
Lacy and Levin thanked Rosenthal and HBO, adding their appreciation for Joel’s “trust in us to bring his story to the screen. There is no better place for this film to premiere than at the Beacon Theater, the venue for so many historic musical events for decades, and in the city so important to Billy Joel.”
The documentary is slated to air on HBO and stream on Max this summer after its Tribeca premiere.
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