Tribeca Festival 2025 Round-Up: Everything We Saw

The 2025 Tribeca Festival might have been the busiest and most power packed it has been in the last 10 years. As it inched closer to its quarter decade of existence, the Tribeca Festival has been a successful melting pot of film, music, sports, and video games. While the 2025 edition had all these avenues of entertainment available for the viewing public, its film offerings were jam-packed with big premieres and top tier talent.

Den of Geek was privileged to have a smattering of some of our favorite stars and talent join us in our Manhattan studio to discuss their movies, shows, and favorite things about the industry in general. You can find clips and videos of all these wonderful interviews on YouTube, TikTok, Instagram, or wherever you find your favorite media clips of the day. But we’re also pleased to share with you some choice highlights below from our guests’ stop over at the Den of Geek Studio. 

Long Live the State

Guests: Thomas Lennon, Kerri Kenney-Silver, David Wain, Todd Holoubek, Ken Marino, Michael Patrick Jann, Michael Ian Black, and director Matthew Perniciaro

These days, members of comedy troupe The State are probably more well known for projects like Reno 911!, Brooklyn Nine-Nine, Wet Hot American Summer, and many, many, many other beloved comedy titles. But they all got their start creating and starring in the MTV mid-’90s sketch comedy show, The State.

That is certainly where this writer knows them from and the same goes for the director of the new documentary about the show, Matt Perniciaro. “Everyone knows members of this group, but they don’t necessarily know where it all started,” he says. Their style of comedy also grew from a place that most comedy groups don’t jump start their careers from. David Wain explains, “We came up as a sketch group made up of film students at NYU. It wasn’t an improv group. We were as much about making film shorts, as we were about creating sketches.”

While their style may be well known and almost mainstream to many viewers now, that wasn’t the case when they first started. It was almost as if they were the punk rock kids of comedy. “We thought we were really cool. We started out of the gate with this anti-establishment mentality,” Kerri Kenny-Silver says. “I think it’s possibly from high school and feeling like you don’t necessarily fit in here and then you find this band of weirdos.” Fellow cast member Todd Holoubeck follows up, “Nobody asked for The Sex Pistols but they got The Sex Pistols. Nobody asked for The State, but they got The State.”

Whether you’re a massive fan of The State or just someone who recognizes some of the most well known faces in comedy, you’re doing yourself a disservice by not checking out Long Live The State once you can.

Rosemead

Guests: Lucy Liu and Eric Lin

Modern day perceptions of mental health care are much kinder and more open-minded than they once were. Still, too many stigmas persist throughout the general public. Based on real events, this directorial debut of cinematographer Eric Lin focuses on the lives of Irene (Lucy Liu), and her son Joe (Lawrence Shou), a diagnosed schizophrenic who battles with his condition since the passing of his father. Hiding her own terminal cancer diagnosis from many, including Joe, Irene fights to take care of Joe as his mental state spirals out of control. 

While the themes of Rosemead are universal, Lucy Liu reports that the film speaks directly to some stigmas that perpetuate the Chinese community. “It is a stigma that is very current…a lot of times people say there is just a lot of pressure and stress from school; it’s going to be fine. Just keep pushing through it,” Liu says. “And I think that is what this movie is trying to bring to light. The idea that it’s something we sweep under the rug and we find embarrassing and we try to create a face that is different from what is reality.”

Portraying schizophrenia in a realistic way was also on the forefront of everyone’s minds when making this film. As director Eric Lin puts it, “We did a lot of research on people’s experiences with schizophrenia and I will say that maybe one of the positive things about YouTube is that a lot of people record their psychotic episodes and put it online to talk people through it.” 

Rosemead is prepped to both impress audiences with its realistic depictions of life and its overarching themes of both the light and the dark.

Seasoned

Guests: Mandy Patinkin, Kathryn Grody, Gideon Grody-Patankin, Ewen Wright

It would be safe to say that Mandy Patinkin and Kathryn Grody are two actors you never thought would become social media stars. Thanks to their son Gideon Grody-Patinkin (and Covid in a strange “Thanks, Covid” moment), however, Mandy and Kathryn’s social media profile become a thing of beauty and now has now led to Seasoned, a new TV show that had its pilot play at the 2025 Tribeca Festival.

Seasoned is not merely the Mandy and Kathryn TikTok show put into a half-hour format. And thankfully, it isn’t what a lot of people pitched to the family first. “We were getting approached a lot for reality television shows and we had no interest in that,” explains Gideon Grody-Patankin. While this is a scripted show and not reality television, the way director Ewen Wright describes it, it is still very much Mandy and Kathryn. “The script is in their bones, but they’re dancing on top of it with the way they’d like to say something or add a line there,” he says. 

Adding on to what is already there seems to be part of Mandy Patinkin’s work ethic, too. As he likes to tell it, while there is always pressure to get things in on time, he wants to get as many options out into the air as possible, “My attitude is give them every possibility I can before we leave that angle. The clock is ticking, the sand’s running through the hourglass, we’ve got to move on.”

Though not exactly in the same realm, once Seasoned hits that airwaves, it will be a perfect replacement for people who want more Curb Your Enthusiasm. 

Paradise Records

Guests: Logic and T Man the Wizard

Paradise Records is not a biopic but it is in many ways based on the life of its writer/director/producer/star Logic. Some may wonder why, on his first film ever, Logic would put the weight of all those jobs on his shoulders. The performer has always known what he is capable of because he’s hit those barriers from others in the past, “I’ve been told ‘NO’ a lot,” he says. “And I get it. I’m like, ‘hey man, I rap, but I got this idea for a movie and I wrote the script and I want to direct it and I want to star in it and I want full creative control.’ You’d be like, ‘fuck you.”

And this is not a one time outing for Logic, either. Movies are just as important to him as music. He also is going to keep giving roles to people you may not expect to see cross over into acting, “As long as I’m blessed to keep making movies, I’m going to keep taking people that you might not typically see or may have never seen in a film and shed light on them.”

One of those people is his best friend, Tramayne Hudson, a.k.a T Man the Wizard. And while Logic (whose given name is Sir Robert Benson Hall II), had a lot of top tier talent to work with on Paradise Records, T Man knew he had something special none of those other actors had, “I had a cheat code because Bob is my best friend. So he could talk to me a little differently than he could talk to everybody else on the set.”

Fior Di Latte 

Guests: Tim Heidecker, Marta Pozzan, and Charlotte Ercoli

Sense memory can be quite strong. We’ve all had those moments where a single scent (good or bad) unlocks a memory or state of being. For Max (Tim Heidecker) though, a single scent has overtaken his life in the new comedy written and directed by Charlotte Ercoli, Fior Di Latte.

“If you point to any corner of this movie it’s either something that I’ve experienced or something that I’m interested in,” Ercoli says. And even though the lives of the film’s characters may be a little out there, they still remind the actors of themselves. Lead Marta Pozzan puts it best by saying, “I actually feel like Francesca’s a younger version of me. I don’t know if I’ll ever be that girl again but it was lovely to play her.”

For as important as it is to have people like Marta and Tim carry your film, it also is a great honor to have the great Kevin Kline take part in the process as well; a joy that isn’t lost on sometime likeTim Heidecker, “Kevin Kline was one of my heroes growing up, one of the greats. To work with him, it was a dream come true.” 

The Sixth Borough

Guests: Jason Pollard, Julian Petty, and Andrew Theodorakis

Fact: Hip-Hop was born in the South Bronx. You’d be hard pressed to find anyone who would say otherwise…and if they do, they’re wrong. And while the art form grew and evolved in other areas of the world, there is one spot of the globe that doesn’t get credit for birthing some of the most important artists; Long Island. 

Producer Julian Petty puts the blight of Long Island’s recognition pretty succinctly, “One of the most famous songs, ‘The Bridge is Over,’ is KRS-One and Boogie Down Productions talking about the Bronx, and this is where Hip-Hop originated and they were dissing MC Shan in Queens. So that whole concept of where you’re from defines you and defines your importance in Hip-Hop. And, Long Island just got ignored and left behind.”

Through the vision of director Jason Pollard, The Sixth Borough documents the history of some of the most important rap acts that were birthed in Long Island. So many people will know the names Public Enemy, De La Soul, EPMD, Eric B. and Rakim. But too many people don’t realize they all grew up and started their careers just minutes from each other in different Long Island towns. As Jason puts it, “Rakim is the godfather of lyrical dexterity…without Rakim you don’t have the artists that you have now, expanding the art form the way they are. So he deserves all the props we can give him.”

Oh, Hi!

Guests: Molly Gordon, Logan Lerman, and Sophie Brooks

Relationships can be hard. That shouldn’t be a shocking statement to anyone. Yet, we still live in a world where playing weird relationship games/being woefully non-committal is a thing. And when Isaac (Logan Lerman) drops the bomb of how he sees his relationship with Iris (Molly Gordon) whilst in a very compromising position…things don’t go the way anyone planned.

From a script co-written between Gordon and director Sophie Brooks, Oh, Hi! takes a high concept look at relationships. While the situations are heightened, everything starts from a real place for its creators, “The true jumping off point for this was that Sophie and I had relationships in our 20s that ended and we weren’t able to have a conversation that we wanted to have with them,” explains Gordon. Expanding on top of that, Sophie Brooks describes how that blossoms into what we see on screen, “There was certainly an element of wish fulfillment: In our darkest moments what would we do to try and keep someone’s attention?”

It also may be hard to find the right tone for telling a story like this. Do you go for the over the top comedy? Or do we make this a horror film? Sometimes these decisions come out of the shooting and editing process and not just the script. As Logan Lerman puts it, “There’s so many movies you could make out of the stuff we shot. Went in so many directions with it, tonally.”

No matter what you personally take away from Oh, Hi! you’re in for a treat because no character holds back in this one. Just take Molly’s word for it, “It was so fun to get to play a character that would say some of the things that I would actually say because I have a very dirty, wild humor.”

Man Finds Tape

Guests: Peter Hall and Paul Gandersman

Man Finds Tape isn’t necessarily a found footage film but rather a faux documentary about a man who notices some very strange things around his town, all compounded by a mysterious tape he finds in his basement. 

Though it is in essence a mockumentary, most people would think of a comedy when you use that term. Co-director Peter Hall explains how he and Paul found their footing for this film’s presentation, “The way we wrote this movie was we wrote essentially the events that happen. Then we had to reframe it as if documentarians found that footage. How would they go about making a documentary about it? This would be the found footage version of it.”

The film also has some very familiar names attached to it as producers such as C. Robert and Jessica Cargill as well as Justin Benson and Aaron Moorehead. “Justin and Aaron flew from the set of filming Daredevil: Born Again straight to us. It was crazy that they left Daredevil, came straight to us and they were doing things like carrying gear and ripping gaffer tape up.” 

But Justin and Aaron did have suggestions, they weren’t there just to break down a set, Peter continues, “They really wanted us to lean into the weirdness of the film, to keep things enigmatic. Anytime we thought we had to over explain or pander to the audience, they were like, ‘no guys.’” Paul follows up with just how important it is to have great collaborators, “It was incredible working with producers that just told you to make it weirder and answer less.”

When Man Finds Tape finds its way onto your screens, you’ll have to tell Peter and Paul if they answered too much, or they followed Benson and Moorhead’s advice to a T.