If you can’t beat them don’t join them, but instead grab their top dog. Geoff Gilmore will be trading in his parka for Spring attire as he has ends his 19-year stint at Sundance and joins New York’s Tribeca film festival. In the press statement issued today, Tribeca says “he will be responsible for Tribeca’s global content strategy and lead creative development initiatives and expansion of the brand”.
This means as Chief Creative Officer, Gilmore will have the task of making sure that the filmmakers with who he has built a relationship with over the last two decades take this end of April festival more seriously (Tribeca is world film premiere hungry when it comes to homemade slate and could use some prestige titles from the indie leaders), and unlike Redford who, on appearances seems clueless as to the potential of working with the Middle East, Gilmore will brand the Tribeca label outside of the U.S.
John Cooper will most likely be one upped into the vacant position over at Sundance, but I wouldn’t expect any significant changes to the festival since Cooper has been a fabric of it for almost as long as Gilmore and has championed the cutting edge categories such as the New Frontier stuff and Short Film programs.
