Media Free-for-All on the Final Friday of Tribeca Film Festival MARCH 18, 2014 By ANDREW ADAM NEWMAN AT&T has been offering free Wi-Fi in New York City parks since 2011 but now, as part of its sponsorship of the coming Tribeca Film Festival, it will be offering park users a reason to switch off their devices: free movies. As the presenting sponsor of the festival for the first time, the company is introducing an effort, “Film for All,” that aims to expose the festival to more New Yorkers. Along with showing a film at parks this summer, AT&T also is paying for thousands to see a film on the final Friday of the festival, April 25. “This is about democratizing film in a way that as many New Yorkers as possible can experience film,” said Marissa Shorenstein, president of AT&T’s New York division. “The power of mobile technology has really changed the world, and our goal is to bring that same sense of connectivity and content to the festival and to all New Yorkers.” Tickets for what is being called Film for All Friday will be available at about 60 company-owned AT&T retail stores in the New York area from April 14 to April 17, and at festival box offices at three cineplexes. An estimated 3,000 to 5,000 tickets will be given away. A campaign that will include advertising on bus shelters and atop taxis will ask, “What is the one film every New Yorker should see?” Votes can be cast on Twitter using the hashtag #filmforall, and the most popular — or one near the top, if the popular-vote winner has distribution hurdles or may be inappropriate for younger viewers — will be shown outdoors in all five boroughs during the summer. (While some new films at the festival will doubtless garner votes, the intention is for participants to vote for the best film of all time.) The winner will most likely be screened in city parks, where many outdoor movies are shown during the summer, but AT&T has not yet settled on locations. A 30-second silence-your-phone announcement shown before screenings at the festival will encourage viewers to quickly vote, using the hashtag before doing so. AT&T, which declined to reveal financial details of the sponsorship, spent $1.41 billion on advertising in the first nine months of 2013, making it the second-biggest advertiser in the United States for the period, behind Procter & Gamble, according to the Kantar Media unit of WPP. American Express had been the presenting sponsor of the Tribeca Film Festival for 12 years and remains a sponsor. As in previous years, American Express cardholders will get first dibs on purchasing tickets, beginning on April 8, followed by downtown residents (April 13) and the general public (April 14). The festival runs from April 16 to April 27. Other sponsors include Bombay Sapphire Gin, ESPN, Heineken, the Lincoln Motor Company and United Airlines. Robert De Niro founded the festival with Jane Rosenthal and Craig Hatkoff in 2002 after the attacks on the World Trade Center, with the stated mission of helping Lower Manhattan recover economically and culturally. Paula Weinstein, an executive vice president of Tribeca Enterprises, the parent company of the Tribeca Film Festival, said the idea to have a day when the public could see films free came entirely from AT&T. “They came up with the idea for Film for All Friday, which is simply from our point of view a spectacular idea,” Ms. Weinstein said. As part of the festival, AT&T also is sponsoring a hackathon where designers and developers will brainstorm ways to put smartphones and tablets to better use for storytelling. Six solar-powered charging stations, which the company introduced in New York in 2013, will also appear at festival events. Ms. Shorenstein of AT&T said that sponsoring the festival was consistent with the initiatives like the power stations, as well as helping to provide free Wi-Fi for city parks and subway platforms. “Our goal is to showcase the connectivity that AT&T brings to New Yorkers and the world,” Ms. Shorenstein said. “We’re always looking for ways to use our products and services to help people connect and interact.” A version of this article appears in print on March 19, 2014, on page B4 of the New York edition with the headline: Free-for-All on the Final Friday of a Film Festival . Order Reprints|Todays Paper|Subscribe
Posted on: Wed, 19 Mar 2014 04:29:18 +0000
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