{"id":310101,"date":"2026-07-30T20:22:50","date_gmt":"2026-07-30T20:22:50","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/310101\/"},"modified":"2026-07-30T20:22:50","modified_gmt":"2026-07-30T20:22:50","slug":"playback-spike-lee-clara-wu-tsai-launch-new-brooklyn-film-festival-at-bam-this-fall-brooklyn-paper","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/310101\/","title":{"rendered":"Playback: Spike Lee, Clara Wu Tsai launch new Brooklyn film festival at BAM this fall \u2022 Brooklyn Paper"},"content":{"rendered":"

Brooklyn\u2019s rich artistic legacy will take center stage this fall as filmmaker Spike Lee<\/a> and Clara Wu Tsai launch a new festival celebrating the borough\u2019s influence on film, art and culture. <\/p>\n

Playback: The Brooklyn Watch Party<\/a> will debut Nov. 6-7 at the Brooklyn Academy of Music, bringing together filmmakers, artists, performers and community members for two days of screenings, conversations, live performances and free public events. <\/p>\n

The inaugural festival is co-hosted by Lee and Wu Tsai \u2014 owner of the Brooklyn Nets, New York Liberty and Barclays Center \u2014 and is produced by filmmaker Nicholas Ma and in association with BAM. Celebrity guest curators, who will help shape the programming, will be announced in the coming months.<\/p>\n

In a statement, Wu Tsai said that Playback will introduce a \u201cnew kind of film festival.\u201d
\n\"spikeThe festival is co-hosted by Spike Lee, one of Brooklyn\u2019s most iconic filmmakers.File photo courtesy of REUTERS\/Patrick T. Fallon\n<\/p>\n

\u201c[It\u2019s a festival] that brings together people who share a love of storytelling through film,\u201d she said. \u201cSpike has put Brooklyn on screen for decades, and BAM has served as the borough\u2019s cultural hub for over a century. There is nowhere else like Brooklyn, nothing like the energy of this borough, and this festival will highlight all that makes our community unique.\u201d<\/p>\n

Festival organizers added that the two-day event is designed to showcase the storytellers and communities that have helped make Brooklyn a global cultural destination. <\/p>\n

Friday\u2019s opening night will feature music, poetry, film and conversations at BAM\u2019s Howard Gilman Opera House celebrating the festival\u2019s inaugural guest curators. <\/p>\n

On Saturday, the celebration will expand beyond the theater, with guest curators presenting a lineup of special guest appearances. A free afternoon block party outside BAM will include live music, local food vendors and community activations before the festival concludes with a screening of Lee\u2019s 1994 film, \u201cCrooklyn.\u201d <\/p>\n

BAM President Tamara McCaw said the festival aligns with the institution\u2019s longstanding mission of bringing communities together through the arts.\n<\/p>\n

\u201cAt BAM, we believe the arts are essential to a thriving civic life\u2014bringing people together, sparking dialogue, deepening understanding, and strengthening the bonds that connect us to one another and to our communities,\u201d McCaw said. \u201cThe inaugural Playback: The Brooklyn Watch Party embodies that belief, celebrating the creatives and communities that make Brooklyn such a dynamic cultural force.\u201d<\/p>\n

Producer Nicholas Ma said the event is intended to celebrate both cinema and the borough that has inspired generations of artists.\n<\/p>\n

\u201cBrooklyn has always been a place where culture gets made. It\u2019s where music, film, art, sports, food, and activism all collide and create something the rest of the world eventually catches up to,\u201d Ma said. \u201cPlayback is a chance for neighbors to come together, celebrate film, and the borough that continues to shape culture around the globe. When we watch together, we remember what movies can do: bring us closer, challenge us, inspire us, and remind us of our shared humanity. See you in Brooklyn.\u201d<\/p>\n

Additional programming, celebrity guest curators and participating talent will be announced ahead of the festival<\/a>. Tickets go on sale in September.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Brooklyn\u2019s rich artistic legacy will take center stage this fall as filmmaker Spike Lee and Clara Wu Tsai…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":310102,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[36],"tags":[4982,2091,2571,2903,98,10454,100,99,89767,117314,71796,749,21276,3012,9,24,12,370,117259,63,35384,117315,117316,3464,96053,19549,69963,904],"class_list":["post-310101","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-brooklyn","tag-arts","tag-arts-and-culture","tag-arts-and-entertainment","tag-bam","tag-brooklyn","tag-brooklyn-events","tag-brooklyn-headlines","tag-brooklyn-news","tag-clara-wu-tsai","tag-crooklyn","tag-curators","tag-film","tag-film-festival","tag-fort-greene","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-city","tag-news","tag-newsletter","tag-nicholas-ma","tag-nyc","tag-performers","tag-playback","tag-playback-the-brooklyn-watch-party","tag-poetry","tag-screenings","tag-spike-lee","tag-tamara-mccaw","tag-things-to-do"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/310101","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=310101"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/310101\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/310102"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=310101"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=310101"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=310101"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}