It is April 18th, the first day in which you can make reservations via Tribeca’s new online distribution system in order to “virtually attend” the screenings of 9 new short films, 9 “classic” shorts and 6 new features.

The process is really simple. You sign up for an account (no credit or payment info needed), click on the film you are interested in, and click on “reserve a seat” for the open screening you want. When successful it will change to say “seat reserved”. You return the day of your screening, and auto-magically an embed of your film shows up on the page. You have a 24 hour window to watch.

The new short films have 5 screenings a piece, the earliest starting 4/22. I’ll be watching each film on its first screening and reporting back to you with my thoughts. However because of the unique nature of this experiment, it is possible for these screening to “sell out”. Therefore it may behoove you to sign up for a seat as soon as possible. Indeed, I do not know if it is an early glitch, but all 9 of the “retrospective” short films—great shorts from the festival’s past, have already sold out! (edit: it was a glitch)

Sadly the festival IS GEO-BLOCKED. Meaning, fans outside the US cannot watch. If any of you figure out a way to get around this, please share in the comments! Americans, view the lineup, register, and reserve seats at

Tribeca Festival Screening Room.