Tag: Tribeca Film Festival

World Premiere Spotlight: Lemonade Blessing at Tribeca 2025

Jake Ryan in Chris Merola’s Lemonade Blessing. Photo: Submarine Entertainment, used with permission.

Spotlight on Tribeca Film Festival 2025

The Tribeca Film Festival, founded in 2002 by Robert De Niro, Jane Rosenthal, and Craig Hatkoff, celebrates storytelling in all its forms. Held annually in New York City, the festival showcases a diverse range of films—from independent features and documentaries to immersive experiences and short films.

Originally created to help revitalize Lower Manhattan after 9/11, Tribeca has since grown into a major cultural event. In addition to film screenings, the festival features industry panels, interactive media, and cutting-edge virtual reality. It offers a platform for both emerging voices and established filmmakers, fostering creativity, conversation, and community across the global film landscape.

📅 This year’s festival runs from June 4 through June 15, 2025.

World Premiere: Lemonade Blessing

One of the standout selections in the US Narrative Competition is the world premiere of Lemonade Blessing, a feature film directed by Chris Merola, a native New Yorker and recent graduate of USC’s School of Cinematic Arts. This marks Merola’s feature directorial debut. (EG-PR, 2025)

🎬 About the Film

Title: Lemonade Blessing
Running Time: 100 minutes
Language: English
Country: USA
Genre: Drama

🎭 Cast

Jake Ryan, Jeanine Serralles, Skye Alyssa Friedman, Miles J. Harvey, Michael Oloyede, Todd Gearhart, Keith William Richards

🎥 Producers

Chris Merola, Raza Rizvi, Aruba Sülzana, Samuel Ashurov

📖 Synopsis

Freshly tossed into a private Catholic high school by his devout mother, John (Jake Ryan) falls head over heels for a devious classmate who’s ready to push his faith—and morals—to the brink. What unfolds is a series of increasingly uncomfortable acts, all in the name of love.

🎟 Public Screening Schedule

DateTimeVenueLocation
Thursday, June 57:15 p.m.SVA2 – BeatriceSVA Theater, 333 West 23rd Street
Friday, June 69:00 p.m.VEC-04Village East Cinemas, 181-189 2nd Avenue
Saturday, June 146:00 p.m.VEC-04Village East Cinemas, 181-189 2nd Avenue
Sunday, June 1511:15 a.m.VEC-02Village East Cinemas, 181-189 2nd Avenue

🔗 Buy Tickets Here

Chris Merola is a writer and filmmaker from Long Island, New York. Lemonade Blessing is his first feature film.

An Act of Worship to premiere at Tribeca Film Festival 2022

Khadega in Nausheen Dadabhoy’s An Act of Worship. Photo: Capital K Pictures, used with permission.

In other film festival news, ‘An Act of Worship’ will have its WORLD PREMIERE in Documentary Competition at the forthcoming Tribeca Film Festival 2022. The festival will take place in New York City from June 8 through June 19, 2022. (An Act of Worship, 2022)

‘An Act of Worship’ is a polyphonic portrait of the last 30 years of Muslim life in America. Told through the lens of Muslims living in the United States, the film offers a counter-narrative of pivotal moments in U.S. history and explores the impact of anti-Muslim rhetoric and policy on young Muslims who came of age after 9/11. Due to their first-hand knowledge and intimate access to the Muslim community, the filmmaking team is able to take charge of the account, which has previously been shaped by outsiders. ABER’s father was deported when she was 16. Now, she is a community organizer leading a sanctuary city initiative in New York. KHADEGA is an 18-year-old Sudanese immigrant living in Michigan. While she feels compelled to advocate for her community, she struggles to overcome society’s expectations of her and find her own way. AMEENA is a civil rights lawyer in California, but as a mother, she is conflicted between caring for her three young children or sacrificing her time with them to fight for change. Weaving together observational footage of these three women with community home videos, and evocative recollections from individuals impacted by incidents of Islamophobia,’ An Act of Worship’ opens a window into the world of Muslim Americans through collective memory.

NAUSHEEN DADABHOY is a director and cinematographer whose work spans fiction and documentary. She lensed an Oscar nominated film, an Emmy winning documentary, and films that have played at Sundance, TIFF, Locarno and on Al Jazeera, HBO and PBS. Her directorial debut THE GROUND BENEATH THEIR FEET premiered at IDFA.

Running Time: 83 Minutes
Language: English, Arabic Country: USA

TRIBECA FILM FESTIVAL 2022
An Act of Worship (Section: Documentary Competition)
WORLD PREMIERE
Directors: Nausheen Dadabhoy
Producer: Sofian Khan, Kristi Jacobson, Heba Elorbany

Public screening schedule:
Thursday, June 9 at 5p.m. at Village East – WORLD PREMIERE
Friday, June 10 at 6p.m. at Cinepolis – 2nd Public Screening
Sunday, June 12 at 8:15p.m. at Tribeca Film Center – 3rd Public Screening