Metallica, Billy Idol, Miley Cyrus and Depeche Mode — they are just a few of the music acts participating in the Tribeca Festival this month. The Korean rock band the Rose, Eddie Vedder of Pearl Jam, Wizkid and Anderson .Paak are also part of the mix.
These artists are either the subject of documentaries or have a hand in creating films premiering at the event, which starts Wednesday and runs through June 15. Following their screenings, some musicians, like Billy Idol and Eddie Vedder, are taking the stage to perform in intimate settings compared with their usual mass crowds. Others, including Depeche Mode and Metallica, are sitting for conversations with audiences.
Music has been a part of the event since its inception, according to the festival’s director and senior vice president of programming, Cara Cusumano. In its first edition in 2002, the festival partnered with MTV for a free community concert in Battery Park City with Sheryl Crow, Counting Crows, Wyclef Jean and David Bowie. “We have always considered Tribeca a storytelling festival, so music fits in alongside the other forms of storytelling we celebrate like games, immersive, TV, podcasts and, of course, film at the center,” Cusumano said in an email interview.
Much like the festival itself, the amount of music at Tribeca has only grown over the years, she said. The increased presence of musical programming is driven by its popularity with audiences. Cusumano said that the music events saw the highest number of attendees compared with the number of attendees at any other part of the festival. Tribeca is hosting more than 20 music events this year — the highest number yet — including documentaries, music videos and podcasts.
“Anecdotally, we often hear audiences speak about how special the experience was since they have usually just seen a doc about the artist, which puts the show and the artist themselves in a unique context,” Cusumano said
In 2011, Tribeca opened with “The Union,” a documentary about making the eponymous album from Leon Russell and Elton John. In his performance for audiences after the premiere, John dedicated his love ballad “Your Song” to New York. The film and John’s concert set the precedent for Tribeca opening with a music documentary whenever possible, Cusumano said.
In 2014, for example, the festival opened with “Time is Illmatic,” a story about the rapper Nas’s early life and the making of his album “Illmatic.” Nas performed the entire album after the movie. Jennifer Lopez was the big attraction in 2022 with “Halftime,” a musical documentary that gives a behind-the-scenes look into her career. Lopez did not sing for audiences, but she sat in the audience and accepted flowers when the movie ended.
This year, the festival opens with the world premiere of the 147-minute first half of the documentary “Billy Joel: And So It Goes.” The two-part film about Joel’s life includes unreleased performances and never-before-seen interviews with him and is titled after a song that he wrote amid an affair. Joel recently announced he has a brain disorder known as normal pressure hydrocephalus and canceled all of his upcoming concerts and tours.
Festival organizers still plan to screen the film. Jane Rosenthal and Robert De Niro, the event’s co-founders, shared their support with the singer and his family in a statement, noting “we’re deeply honored that this year’s opening night celebrates his remarkable legacy and enduring influence on New York’s cultural landscape.”
Most musicians at Tribeca star in documentaries about themselves. The singer Becky G, whose real name is Rebbeca Marie Gomez, is the lead in “Rebbeca” and an executive producer. In an email interview, she described the 98-minute documentary as “both a personal archive and a living portrait, a reflection of the journey between where I come from and who I’m still becoming.”
Becky G said that the movie came to fruition because she wanted to capture and share her life story during a transition. The singer was gearing up for her first headlining tour and working on her first musica Mexicana album, she said.
“On paper, it was a career high. But emotionally and spiritually, I was standing at a crossroads,” she said. “I wanted to create something that wasn’t polished or performative, I didn’t just want to show Becky G, the star. I wanted the world to meet Rebbeca, the daughter, the granddaughter, the human behind the headlines.”
Compared with Becky G, Metallica had less of a creative hand in the 135-minute “Metallica Saved My Life.” Directed by the Grammy-winning filmmaker Jonas Akerlund, the documentary delves into the heavy metal group’s impact on its legions of fans. “We were not super involved in it,” said Lars Ulrich, the group’s drummer and a founding member. “Our history with him goes back to the ’90s when he directed a bunch of our music videos.”
Ulrich said that the documentary featured interviews with their followers and was intended to spotlight who exactly these fans are. The movie was Metallica’s idea, he said, and dated to their WorldWired tour, when they introduced the “black ticket,” which gave fans access to all the tour’s shows.
As Ulrich told it, Metallica’s four members saw the same faces at their concerts during the tour and started interacting with them. “The more we realized how diverse and unique this group of fans were, it felt like diving deeper into who they were, getting a little of their back story, and connecting some dots and highlighting them would be a super fun project to share with the world,” he said.
A handful of the musicians in the spotlight at Tribeca will be behind the camera, experimenting with a different medium from singing or songwriting.
The pop singer Miley Cyrus is making her mark as a director, screenwriter and producer with the 55-minute pop opera “Something Beautiful,” featuring songs from the eponymous album. Cyrus is the only person onscreen, and she said that the film used her songs to take audiences on a journey.
“It’s not linear like a traditional movie,” she said in a phone interview. The movie included moments of abstract visuals, Cyrus said, as well as her performing songs onstage, such as “End of the World.” “It’s a unique blending of a lot of different things I like to do,” she said. “I am not a character-based artist.”
Cyrus’s impetus for creating “Something Beautiful” was her interest in an album becoming a theatrical release. She picked up several skills during the filmmaking process, she said. “Technically, I learned how to be very effective with a small space and minimal crew,” Cyrus said. “The thing I love about music is that it’s instant gratification. You can walk into a room, and a song doesn’t exist, and then you can walk out of that room, and a song can exist. It’s not that way with films.”
Whether as directors, producers, stars, or in multiple roles, these musicians have positive takeaways from these films.
Beckie G said that “Rebbeca” taught her that “no documentary, no album, no interview can fully contain a life.”
“But there’s power in trying,” she added. “There’s healing in sharing.”
As for Ulrich, he said that “Metallica Saved My Life” emphasized how he and his bandmates were fans just as much as their admirers were. “The fact that we’re fans, like our fans, keeps us grounded and keeps us in check, keeps us curious and still thinking that our best years are in front of us, not behind us,” he said.
And Cyrus said that creating “Something Beautiful” allowed her to connect with herself and find camaraderie among fellow filmmakers. “I’ve never had that sense of community in the music industry,” she said. “I’ve found myself and found my community with other filmmakers in a way that I never quite felt at home with music.”
Shivani Vora is a New York City-based travel writer who considers herself a very savvy packer.
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