The Tribeca Film Institute (TFI) is a year-round non-profit arts organization founded by Robert De Niro, Jane Rosenthal, and Craig Hatkoff in the wake of September 11, 2001. TFI's mission is to empower filmmakers through grants and professional development, and train the media-makers of the future by bringing film into the classroom, developing young audiences for independent film, and promoting career development.
TFI is the City of New York Department of Education’s partner for the filmmaking component of the DOE’s Summer Arts Institute. TFI served as the primary cultural partner to develop the DOE’s Blueprint for the Teaching and Learning of the Moving Image. Released in October 2009, the Blueprint is a curriculum guide for the study of film, television, and animation from grades K – 12 and sets benchmarks for a city-wide standard for teaching media arts.
TFI's youth programs include Tribeca Teaches: Films in Motion, an in-school and after-school filmmaking residency; the Tribeca Youth Screening Series, a year-round program that provides students and teachers with access to relevant films and helps integrate film into the classroom curricula; Tribeca Film Fellows, a pre-professional development program that brings twenty NYC high-school students behind-the-scenes of the Tribeca Film Festival; the Summer Arts Institute; and Our City, My Story, an annual showcase of youth-made films.
TFI has six artist support programs, which all have an open call for submissions:
Tribeca All Access[5] promotes the careers of directors and screenwriters from diverse backgrounds through professional guidance and with seed grants of $10,000;
The TFI Documentary Fund[6] provides professional guidance and grants of between $10,000 and $50,000 to character-driven documentaries;
The Gucci Tribeca Documentary Fund[7] provides grants of $10,000 - $25,000 to feature-length documentaries which highlight and humanize issues of social importance;