Tribeca Film Festival To Celebrate Gilda Radner With Opening Night Film ‘Love, Gilda’

The Tribeca Film Festival will celebrate Gilda Radner by showing Love, Gilda as the festival opener.

LOVE, GILDA TO OPEN TRIBECA FILM FESTIVAL

Love, Gilda is a biopic based on the late Radner’s life and impact on the industry as a whole. First-time feature director Lisa D’Apolito is behind the film, and it goes with the festival’s continuing efforts to support female filmmakers. “Gilda inspired me and many other women with her remarkable spirit and unique talent that changed the world of comedy,” the director said in a statement.

Love, Gilda was created with the help of the Gilda Radner estate, which provided the production with the actress’ audiotapes and diary entries. Interviews with Amy Poehler, Maya Rudolph, Bill Hader, Chevy Chase and Lorne Michaels.

Radner was one of seven original cast members on Saturday Night Live and helped launch the show’s popularity in the 1970s and ’80s before passing away of ovarian cancer in 1989. She was 42. She won an Emmy for Outstanding Continuing or Single Performance by a Supporting Actress in Variety or Music in 1977 and was awarded a posthumous Grammy in 1990.

“As a festival that has always supported women’s voices and is largely run by women, we are incredibly proud to celebrate the inimitable voice of Gilda during the opening night of our Festival,” said Tribeca co-founder and CEO Jane Rosenthal in a statement about the film. “Gilda Radner was a powerful comedic force of nature who opened doors and thrilled audiences while becoming one of the most prolific comedians of a generation. Her cutting edge humor was only second to her dedicated leadership in cancer care with her eponymous Gilda’s Club.”

Love, Gilda will premiere at the 17th annual festival’s opening night on April 18 at the Beacon Theatre in New York City. The festival will run from April 18-29. The full slate of films will be announced on March 7.