Danny Boyle’s ‘Yesterday’ World Premiere Closes Out ‘Crucial’ Tribeca Film Festival
Tribeca Film Festival’s 2019 edition closed out Saturday night with the world premiere of Danny Boyle’s highly anticipated “Yesterday.”
The Oscar winning director spoke to Variety about the “great honor” of having his work highlighted among hundreds of films that played over the past two weeks.
Related stories
Tribeca Film Review: 'Gay Chorus Deep South'
Tribeca Film Review: 'Yesterday'
“Film festivals are crucial, more and more crucial, especially as television grows in importance,” he stated, as the audience packed into the sold-out Stella Artois Theatre. “The singular vision that a film says, that is one event, one event in time for you to experience…Tribeca is really crucial to that, to hearing new voices.”
Inside the venue, Tribeca Film Festival co-founders Robert De Niro and Jane Rosenthal took the stage to welcome attendees. The audience roared with laughter as the legendary New York actor opened up by saying, “When I heard that the film is about a world that wakes up and has never heard of the Beatles — it made me sad to think about it. It gave me another idea for a film. One where the world wakes up and no one has ever heard of Trump. That would be a film that would make us all very happy.”
After the film played, audience members including Josh Lucas, Piper Perabo and Zachary Quinto gave Boyle’s love letter to the world’s most famous band a two-minute standing ovation. The flick’s leading man, Himesh Patel, then took the stage to sing a compilation of the Beatles’ hits to the thrilled group, who swayed their heads gently to the music.
The after-party at iconic Palm Restaurant saw the likes of Saoirse Ronan and friends toasting Boyle on his successful moment.
Boyle likened TIFF’s celebration of filmmakers to the way the world remembers the Beatles — it would be hard to envision one without the other.
“It’s impossible to imagine it actually…They changed the world really,” he said. “They were the first really to say, we want to concentrate on love and pleasure and music…we want to celebrate humanity. And they do that in a wonderful way.”
Sign up for Variety’s Newsletter. For the latest news, follow us on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.
