15 Questions With Tribeca Festival Team of Programmers
Happy festival summer in the city!
ICYMI: Tribeca Festival will take place June 3-14 in New York City and I’ll be sharing moviegoing questionnaires from some of the participating filmmakers throughout!
Previously:
15 Questions With Tribeca Festival Team of Programmers
Name: Ben Thompson, Jarod Neece, Nancy Lefkowitz, Jonathan Penner, and Jose F. Rodriguez
Location: New York
Occupation: Tribeca Festival Team of Programmers
Links: Tribeca Film Festival 2026 Lineup, Individual Tickets, Passes
1. What’s your favorite day & time to go to the movies?
Ben Thompson: Saturday late afternoon/early evening. Something to look forward to all day and some time to grab food and talk about whatever the film was afterwards.
Jarod Neece: Friday night on opening day, without question. There’s an energy in that room that you just can’t manufacture. People who have been waiting for that movie, who showed up on opening night because they couldn’t wait one more day. The collective anticipation, the way a crowd laughs together or goes completely silent, that’s the whole reason cinema exists! Nothing else comes close.
Nancy Lefkowitz: My sister and I haven’t lived in the same city for a long time, so to stay connected we created our own movie ritual: On the last Friday of every month, we choose the same film and sync the exact start time—we go to the movies together but separately. For two hours, we’re sitting in different theaters in different places, sharing the same experience. So I guess the answer to the question is: My favorite day & time to go to the movies is the last Friday of every month at a time I know my sister will also be at the same movie!
2. What’s your favorite movie theater?
Jonathan Penner: The Palace in Downtown Danbury, Connecticut. A true old movie palace. I saw incredible movies there in the 70’s—Mahogany, The Omega Man, Cleopatra Jones, and a double feature of A Clockwork Orange and Deliverance to name a few.
Nancy Lefkowitz: My favorite movie theater(s) were the now-defunct Fine Arts 1, 2, 3, and 4 in Westport, Connecticut. They hold some of my most vivid movie memories: Where I saw the first film I remember experiencing in a theater (Star Wars in 1978), where I went on my first “real date” and watched Purple Rain in 1984; where I dreamed of being Frances “Baby” Houseman while watching Dirty Dancing in 1987; where I sobbed my way through Schindler’s List in 1993; and where I watched Sabrina in 1995, spotting all the places I was off camera as a PA.
3. What’s your go-to movie theater snack & drink combo?
Jose F. Rodriguez: I keep it simple. I rarely drink soda, so at the movie theater I treat myself to a Coke or Diet Coke, and a popcorn—light on butter and light on salt.
At a dine-in movie theater like NYC’s Nitehawk Cinema, I do love to get their i Impossible burger or their pretzel dogs.
Nancy Lefkowitz: The best snack combo must be eaten during the August ‘dog days’ of Summer and include a well air-conditioned stadium theater with reclining seats, a tub of buttered popcorn, and a mixed berry Slushie. The cold air and the reclining seats are essential to the recipe.
4. What’s your dream movie theater snack & drink combo (if noise and sound weren’t an issue)?
Jarod Neece: A couple of al pastor tacos fresh off the trompo, an ice-cold Modelo, and three hours of darkness. That’s the dream.
Nancy Lefkowitz: I’m with Jarod: Tacos and cold beer. Done and done.
5. First movie you remember seeing in a theater?
Jose F. Rodriguez: It might have been either the Burton Batman from ‘89 or Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. To this day my mom reminds me how much she loathed taking me to see Ninja Turtles with all of my friends, and what a miserable experience it was for her.
Jonathan Penner: The Jungle Book. It was hilarious.
Jarod Neece: The original Ghostbusters. I remember running into the lobby and trying to call the Ghostbusters hotline from the payphone, 555-2368.
Nancy Lefkowitz: Star Wars, 1978. That opening crawl! It remains today as transportive a movie moment as it was then. I admit to carrying an internal sense of superiority that I saw the original in a movie theater on opening day, even at 8 years old I knew in my bones I was experiencing something special.
6. Last movie you saw in a theater?
Ben Thompson: Good Luck, Have Fun, Don’t Die was the last film I saw in the theater and it was awesome! I love going into a film having really no idea of the plot but being sold on the title and genre.
Nancy Lefkowitz: Frank & Louis directed by Petra Volpe, which premiered at the 2026 Sundance Film Festival. This was the last movie I saw in a theater, but also my favorite out of Sundance. The film is anchored by beautiful performances from Kingsley Ben-Adir and Rob Morgan, and is a restrained story about dignity, care, and human connection in an unexpected place. I loved Volpe’s Late Shift and Frank & Louis only reinforced how powerfully she finds humanity inside systems often overlooked. (I haven’t been to a theater since late January?! That’s not okay.)
7. Is there a movie you wish you could have seen in a theater?
Jose F. Rodriguez: My favorite movie of all time is The Shining, and I wish I could’ve seen that in theaters. (Even more, I wish I could’ve been part of those select audiences that saw the alternate ending for the film!)
Now, any chance I get to see The Shining at a midnight screening here in NYC, I take it. Every single time I watch it on the big screen with a rowdy audience, I discover new aspects and nuances to Kubrick’s deeply unsettling storytelling.
Nancy Lefkowitz: The Red Shoes and Come and See. Oh and, The Wizard of Oz, obviously.
8. Have you ever seen a movie more than once in theaters?
Jonathan Penner: Many times. Saw Jaws three times on its opening weekend.
My mother and I watched The Sting twice, back to back on its opening weekend, so she could figure out all the twists. Got home and found we’d been robbed. Memorable night!
Ben Thompson: I believe my record for seeing the same film in the theater is six for Jurassic Park. I am someone who quite happily watches films over and over (which I am sure helps as a programmer). For Jurassic Park; I saw it first with my dad, then with my best friend, then with a bunch of friends, then with another different group of friends, then with my mother (who would rarely ever go and see a blockbuster film) then for a party, and finally with my best friend again because there wasn’t anything else we wanted to see and we were bored.
9. Do you stay through the credits or leave as soon as the film ends?
Jose F. Rodriguez: I’m usually getting up and leaving as soon as the credits roll, but that’s mostly because I have a small bladder and I rarely time my restroom stops well.
Nancy Lefkowitz: I stay through the credits. No question. I’m often the last one out of the theater. Having worked on set of several movies, I know it takes a village and I always want to honor the village. In the early days of being a PA, if I didn’t wait I wouldn’t see my name!
10. What’s one thing you would change to make movie theaters better?
Jose F. Rodriguez: I’ve given this a LOT of thought. I’d take a page out of the comedy and Broadway shows that implement the Yondr pouch approach for locking your phones. Whether it’s a regular or a dine-in movie theater a la Nitehawk or Alamo, you’d lock your phone in a Yondr bag and get it back at the end of the movie. Tou’d order food/drinks on a piece of paper, and the movie ticket would be a paper ticket stub (and not a digital copy on your phone).
Theaters should also provide discounted movie tickets for people who decide to stash their phones. For dine-in movie theaters, there should be a ‘noise fee’ implemented to your food bill if the theater receives complaints from other theatergoers that you’ve been talking/being unruly during the movie.
I think, as a society, we’ve lost our damn minds with movie theater etiquette as we all resurfaced from the pandemic and haven’t gone back to our previous routines. I think measures like the ones I outlined above would help us recover our theatrical movie experience sanity.
Nancy Lefkowitz: There are 3 things I’d change: Shorter pre-show trailers, less ads, and consistently functioning accessibility devices for moviegoers who rely on descriptive audio. My friend—who is blind—loves going to the movies, but too often the devices don’t work. Often, the problems aren’t discovered until the film has already started, and by the time a replacement is found, several minutes of the movie have already been missed.
11. Tell me about an especially memorable moviegoing experience that stands out in your mind.
Nancy Lefkowitz: One of the most memorable moviegoing experiences I’ve had was at the opening night premiere of United 93 at the 2006 Tribeca Festival. The film ended in silence with a blank black screen. The audience sat completely still for what felt like minutes, and then emotion slowly began moving through the room. People were crying, some openly sobbing, and almost no one got up. I think back on that experience often as a reminder of the power of a shared story and its ability to reveal our collective humanity. In that theater, we weren’t our political parties or religions; we were human beings connected by a shared sense of loss and emotion.
Jose F. Rodriguez: I still vividly remember seeing Se7en in theaters. My parents decided I was old enough to tag along with them, I was 10 years old. I distinctly remember looking at my parents during the ending of the movie, shaking my head in disbelief, thinking to myself “THAT’S what’s in the box? This movie can’t end this way!”. A haunting and very powerful moment that instilled in me the impact that compelling filmmaking can have on an audience.
12. What’s a movie you’re looking forward to seeing?
Jose F. Rodriguez: I’m a huge James Gray fan, and I absolutely adored his last film Armageddon Time. I sobbed throughout my first watch because Anthony Hopkins’ character in the movie reminded me a lot of my paternal grandfather. With his latest Paper Tiger premiering at Cannes—and buzz saying it’s Gray’s best film yet—I am beyond excited to catch that one as soon as humanly possible.
Nancy Lefkowitz: Of course, working for the Tribeca Festival means supporting and advocating for independent storytellers and the quiet discovery, but boy howdy do I love a summer blockbuster and epic movie event. I can’t wait for Christopher Nolan’s The Odyssey. I mean, come on!
13. What’s your dream combination of director and lead(s)?
Jose F. Rodriguez: I’d love to see someone like Denzel Washington get a character-driven dramedy vehicle with, say, Sofia Coppola directing, and have her craft a story for Denzel the way she’s done for Bill Murray and Kirsten Dunst. That would be super fascinating to see.
Also, after having highly enjoyed Send Help and realizing what a criminally underrated actor Rachel McAdams is, she deserves to be working immediately with PTA, Soderbergh, Fincher, Jane Campion, Karyn Kusama…the list goes on.
Jarod Neece: Stanley Kubrick directing Nicolas Cage. Kubrick’s obsessive control meets the most uncontrollable force in American cinema. The production would be a disaster. The movie would be a masterpiece. Cage would do 57 takes, and Kubrick would use the first one.
Nancy Lefkowitz: A coming of age ‘dramedy’ co-written by me and my daughter (a college student and aspiring writer/director) directed by my daughter and starring the modern day version of the Juno or Lady Bird cast.
14. If you could live in a movie, which one would it be?
Jarod Neece: Probably The Royal Tenenbaums. Yes the family is a complete disaster, and everyone is either in therapy or should be, but there’s something about that world that I find comforting. It’s a place where failure is just another form of art, and everyone is deeply broken but deeply loved. I’d grow up there in a heartbeat.
Nancy Lefkowitz: The Secret Life of Walter Mitty. Not because I’m looking to escape my life, but because I love it for its sense of adventure, travel, and possibility. Beautiful places, interesting people, the sense of optimism and opportunity. A cinematic reminder to stay curious and fully present in the world.
15. Why do you think people should continue seeing movies at the movie theater?
Jose F. Rodriguez: Movie theaters continue to be a shelter, a refuge, for us to fully immerse ourselves in other people’s stories and experiences. They provide an outlet out of our own lives—where we can experience being terrorized, seduced, enchanted, charmed via filmmakers’ stories. You simply cannot replicate that experience at home no matter how swanky and high-tech your surround system and screening room set-up is.
Nancy Lefkowitz: Watching a movie in a theater reminds us that stories are communal. Sitting in a dark room with strangers and reacting together creates a kind of connection and empathy that feels increasingly rare. A movie theater is one of the few places left where we all agree to put everything else aside and fully immerse ourselves in the moment.
Kubrick x Cage collab broke my brain, would’ve been amazing to see
This was such a joy to read and I loved the group format too, was really cool to read multiple perspectives in the same questionnaire