The 2019 Tribeca Film Festival seemed to zoom by and here we are at the final weekend. But, as the saying goes, some of the festival’s best has been saved for last. From talks and free screenings to immersive experiences and the festival’s first-ever day-long Pride celebration, there’s still so much to soak in at this downtown New York City inhabitant. Below are our recommendations for what to hit up before the curtain closes on Sunday, May 5, 2019.

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Tribeca Celebrates Pride

Last year, Tribeca partnered with TIME’S UP and devoted the last Saturday of the festival to talks around attaining equality in the workplace. For 2019, the organizers are taking their activist activities in a different direction. In honor of the 50th anniversary of the Stonewall riots, Tribeca is launching the inaugural Tribeca Celebrates Pride. The day-long event includes conversations with LGBTQ+ luminaries such as Neil Patrick Harris, John Cameron Mitchell, Larry Kramer, and Asia Kate Dillon, a short film program, panels on activism, media visibility and storytelling, and the world premiere of HBO’s Wig followed by a performance by Lady Bunny. All the festivities take place at the Tribeca Festival Hub.

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Tribeca Film Festival Awards Screenings

Wendell Pierce in Burning Cane, photo by Phillip Youmans.

The last day of Tribeca is mostly devoted to screenings of audience award winners and films honored by the festival’s juries, which for 2019 count Angela Bassett, Steve Zaillian, Chloë Sevigny, Debra Messing, Topher Grace, David Cross, and Jonathan Ames as members. Our favorites aren’t always in lockstep with those selected by the juries, but this year we are very much in agreement with their choices.

Burning Cane picked up three awards, the Founders Award for Best Narrative Feature, Best Cinematography in a U.S. Narrative Feature Film, and Best Actor in a U.S. Narrative Feature Film for Wendell Pierce. Written, directed, shot and edited by the promising young Phillip Youmans, who is currently a 19-year-old NYU student, Burning Cane is a Terrence Malick-esque snapshot of life in an African-American community in rural Louisiana.

Another big Tribeca winner returning to theaters is Bora Kim’s poignant and understated coming-of-age tale set in 1994 Seoul, House of Hummingbird. The film won Best International Narrative Feature, Best Cinematography in an International Narrative Feature Film, and Best Actress in an International Narrative Feature film for Ji-hu Park. Other narrative features awarded prizes that we highly recommend include Bridget Savage Cole and Danielle Krudy’s quirky Coen Brothers-style dark comedy Blow the Man Down, and Carlo Mirabella-Davis’ delicious satire Swallow, which won the film’s mesmerizing star Haley Bennett an award for Best Actress in a U.S. Narrative Feature.

In the documentary realm, the staggering Scheme Birds was given its proper due, walking off with Best Documentary Feature and the Albert Maysles New Documentary Director Award. The film, written and directed by Ellen Fiske and Ellinor Hallin, follows Gemma, a teenager living in a former Scottish steel town. Davy Rothbart’s 17 Blocks, which delivers a first-hand account of a family’s struggles with addiction and gun violence, is also worth investigation. It picked up the Best Editing in a Documentary Film award. Shuang Liang’s meditation on mortality, Our Time Machine, also returns, as it won an award for its cinematography.

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Tribeca Immersive

The Key

Tribeca’s Virtual Arcade and Cinema 360 are still very much open for business the final Saturday of the festival. The tools we have to tell stories are evolving and the Tribeca Immersive program exposes you to the pioneers operating in the areas of VR and AR.

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AT&T’s Free Film Friday

Scheme Birds

Cash in on this great perk offered by the Tribeca Film Festival. The screenings on Friday, May 3, 2019 are free. Most tickets have been snatched up, but if you give RUSH a go, we bet you’ll be able to get into something. For more information, go here.

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Special Anniversary Screening of Boyz N the Hood

Tribeca has made a last-minute addition to its lineup. In honor of John Singleton, who passed away on April 29, 2019, the festival has added a free screening of Boyz N the Hood. Starring Ice Cube, Morris Chestnut, and Cuba Gooding Jr., the critically acclaimed 1991 teen drama is about growing up in South Central Los Angeles. The film earned Singleton Academy Award nominations for Best Director and Best Screenplay.

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Tribeca Talks

While Tribeca might be leaner on Q&As the final weekend, there are still pearls of wisdom to be had. On Saturday, the festival is hosting two talks. There is a Directors Series discussion with Marielle Heller, whose credits include The Diary of a Teenage Girl, Can You Ever Forgive Me? and the upcoming film based on the relationship between Mr. Rogers and journalist Tom Junod, A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood. Heller’s talk is followed later in the day by a master class with the creators of HBO’s High Maintenance. The conversation will revolve around how the show went from web series to TV. As for Sunday, Tribeca marks the 10 year anniversary of ESPN’s 30 for 30 series with a panel featuring Academy Award-winner Alex Gibney, 30 for 30 creator Connor Schell, Academy Award-winner Ezra Edelman, and Emmy Award Winning director Marina Zenovich.

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Anniversary Screening: Reality Bites

The 2019 Tribeca Film Festival was very much about 90s nostalgia. So, it seems fitting to spend the last Saturday of the festival revisiting Ben Stiller’s slacker romantic comedy Reality Bites (1994), at the world premiere screening of a new restoration. The film stars Ethan Hawke, Winona Ryder, Janeane Garofalo, and Steve Zahn as a bunch of 20-somethings set adrift, trying to find themselves. The film’s soundtrack is also killer, featuring songs by New Order, Lisa Loeb, Crowded House, and The Knack. The Tribeca screening will be followed by a conversation with Ben Stiller, writer Helen Childress, Ethan Hawke, Winona Ryder, Janeane Garofalo, producer Michael Shamberg, and executive producer Stacey Sher.

Image courtesy of the Tribeca Film Festival.