Tribeca Festival Kicks Off With Celebratory Doc ‘Halftime,’ Low Key Presence By Star Jennifer Lopez
09.06.2022 - 19:05
/ deadline.com
“Thank you so much for coming I didn’t plan to say anything. I was going to sneak out,” said Jennifer Lopez from somewhere near the stage but hard to spot at the end of Halftime, the Amanda Micheli documentary on the iconic pop star that opened the 21st Tribeca Festival Wednesday night.
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United Palace, the massive Byzantine-style 1930s movie house that seats 3,000 was packed to bursting for Lopez, who grew up nearby in the Bronx and — we learn in the film — left home at 18 to become a dancer, her first passion. The streets outside in Washington Heights were also mobbed with fans of the star behind 80 million records and billions of streams. Her films, from star turns in Selena (1997) to Hustlers (2019), have grossed over $3 billion at the box office.
Organizers had promised an unspecified “special performance” post screening. It wasn’t J-Lo but a band of talented kid musicians, dancers and singers backed by flashing lights and multi-colored confetti. “You were great!” she told them, then she was gone.
Work with Latina children, especially young girls, was a consistent theme of Halftime, a Netflix film that uses Lopez’ spectacular show at Super Bowl LIV in Miami in Feb. of 2020 (with Shakira) as a turning point for a midcareer comeback that’s infused with a new commitment to social justice. She successfully argued with the NFL to keep in place a performance element that had youngsters emerging from Trump-immigration-era cages.
Tribeca co-founders Robert De Niro and Jane Rosenthal introduced Halftime, launching the 12-day festival. Last year’s edition, the 20th, was the first in-person fest in North America since Covid, premiering In The Heights at the same venue. De Niro thanked United Palace for keeping
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