Gilda Radner documentary “Love, Gilda” will open 2018 Tribeca Film Festival

Love, Gilda, a documentary about Emmy-winning and Grammy-winning comedian Gilda Radner, will open the 2018 Tribeca Film Festival on April 18, 2018.

As The Comic’s Comic reported back in 2014, director Lisa D’Apolito helped make this documentary with an Indiegogo campaign.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BcHYRrUI7w8

The finished film, completed with the support of the Gilda Radner estate, including audiotapes, rare home movies, and interviews with original SNL cast members Chevy Chase, Laraine Newman, Paul Shaffer, writer Alan Zweibel, Second City CEO Andrew Alexander, SNL creator Lorne Michaels, and Radner’s longtime friend, Martin Short.

Radner and Short performed together in a Toronto production of Godspell back in 1972. She went on to perform with the National Lampoon Radio Hour, then as the original cast of Saturday Night Live, where she starred as Roseanne Roseannadanna, Emily Litella, and Lisa Loopner. She found love with Gene Wilder, only to be diagnosed with ovarian cancer, and die in 1989 at the age of 42.

Her legacy lives on in Gilda’s Clubs across North America, and a comedy festival, Gilda’s Laughfest each March in Grand Rapids, Mich.

“I fell in love with Gilda Radner while doing pro bono work at Gilda’s Club, the cancer support organization Gene Wilder founded in honor of Gilda, in Greenwich Village where I grew up,” D’Apolito said. “This started my journey to discover who Gilda was as a person and as a performer. Gilda inspired me and many other women with her remarkable spirit and unique talent that changed the world of comedy. I’m grateful and honored to share the extraordinary legacy of Gilda Radner at the Tribeca Film Festival.”

“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 Jane Rosenthal, Co-Founder and CEO of the Tribeca Film Festival. “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 is the right film at the right time and the perfect way to open our Festival,” said Paula Weinstein, EVP of Tribeca Enterprises. “Gilda is a woman for the ages, an extraordinary talent in film, television, and theater who overcame her personal struggles to make us laugh, to make us cry. She understood the healing power of laughter not simply for her audience but in her own life as she struggled with cancer and lead the way for all of us to make the world a better place.”

The 2018 Tribeca Film Festival will announce its feature film slate on March 7.

Sean L. McCarthy

Editor and publisher since 2007, when he was named New York's Funniest Reporter. Former newspaper reporter at the New York Daily News, Boston Herald and smaller dailies and community papers across America. Loves comedy so much he founded this site.

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