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Festival of streams: Tribeca to feature documentaries from Netflix, Amazon, and Hulu

Keith Nelson Jr.
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Keith Nelson Jr/Digital Trends
Over the last 15 years, the Tribeca Film Festival has become one of the main events for movie studios and independent creators looking for a venue to show off their latest works. On Thursday, the festival announced 82 of the 98 feature films participating at this year’s event, and films from streaming services Hulu, Amazon, and Netflix will be among the offerings.

The films from the three streaming services will be documentaries. Netflix’s Get Me Roger Stone will focus on Roger Stone, controversial Republican consultant and political adviser of Donald Trump, and will feature an interview from Trump. Amazon’s City of Ghosts chronicles the lives of three activists from Syrian opposition group Raqqa is Being Slaughtered Silently (RBSS) as they document the repugnant daily transgressions in the volatile Syrian city, Raqqa. Hulu’s Dumb: The Story of Big Brother Magazine will document the audacious history of the legendary skateboard magazine, and features interviews with Tony Hawk.

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Netflix’s Get Me Roger Stone and Hulu’s Dumb will be seen by an audience for the first time ever at this year’s Tribeca Film Festival. Amazon purchased rights to Academy Award-winning director Matthew Heineman’s City of Ghosts after it was screened at this year’s Sundance Film Festival. It will be making its New York premiere at this year’s festival.

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The Tribeca Film Festival has proved to be a good testing ground for originals from the three streaming services in the past. Netflix debuted its first original short documentary Extremis at last year’s Tribeca Film Festival before its September 2016 release. Amazon’s first original film, Elvis & Nixon, world premiered at last year’s festival. Hulu has been the exclusive streaming partner of Tribeca Film Festival selections such as the animated film Niko. But this year’s world premiere of Dumb appears to be the first Hulu original to debut at the festival.

The streaming giants are not the only ones packing this year’s festival with must-watch material. Showtime will world premiere its documentary Whitney. “can I be me,” an extremely personal account of the life of the late musical icon Whiteny Houston. HBO, IFC Films, and ESPN will also world premiere documentaries.

The full list of films featured at this year’s festival, along with the virtual reality and Storyscapes selections, will be revealed at a later date. You can keep up to date on what films will be screened at the Tribeca Film Festival here. The Tribeca Film Festival takes places between April 19 to April 30.

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Keith Nelson Jr.
Keith Nelson Jr.
Former Digital Trends Contributor
Keith Nelson Jr is a music/tech journalist making big pictures by connecting dots. Born and raised in Brooklyn, NY he…
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