New York’s Tribeca Film Festival obviously could not take place as planned this April, because of the coronavirus pandemic. But the competition continued, with jury members able to view the films online and vote for their favorite.
The big winner of the award for Best Narrative Feature went to Netflix’s “The Half of It.” Directed by Alice Wu, the film tells the classic story of Cyrano de Bergerac through a modern high-school lens, and it will be released on the streaming service on Friday.
“We are fortunate that technology allowed for our jury to come together this year to honor our filmmakers,” said Tribeca Film Festival co-founder and CEO Jane Rosenthal. “Despite not being able to be together physically, we were still able to support our artists, which has always been at the heart of the Festival.”
Also winning major awards were the Polish film “The Hater” for Best International Narrative Feature, and “Socks on Fire” for Best Documentary. Steve Zahn (“Cowboys”) and Assol Abdullina (“Materna”) won the U.S. Best Actor and Actress awards, respectively.
“The jury chose to recognize a daring, innovative, entertaining, diverse group of films and filmmakers,” Festival director Cara Cusumano said. “The festival is pleased to honor all of them with our first ever virtual awards ceremony.”
