
Stand Clear ‘ the Closing Doors

Stacey Sargeant‘s Tribeca 2026 short film Stand Clear ‘ the Closing Doors is an absolutely genius illustration of intrusive thoughts. This is a quintessential New York story in every single way.

It takes guts to thrive, hell even exist, in the city. We’ve all pushed past people to get off a train, moved cars because of a smell, and cried on the train at any given hour of the day. While Stand Clear ‘ the Closing Doors is a universal snapshot of public transportation, it is also one of humanity and connection found every minute in the melting pot of culture and stories in the greatest city in the world.

Thoughtfully shot by Timothy Naylor, if you are a local, you feel like you’re placed right next to Sargeant. She has managed to produce a living, breathing sense memory on film. Simultaneously funny, infuriating, and deeply moving, I cannot wait to see more from her.
Starring STACEY SARGEANT, GRACE REX, and CLAUDIA LOGAN
Directed by STACEY SARGEANT
Produced by STACEY SARGEANT and BECKY MORRISON
Executive Producers JEREMY KATZ, STACEY SARGEANT, and VERONA SARGEANT
Creative Producers ESTHER DE ROTHSCHILD and ADEPERO ODUYE
Cinematography TIMOTHY NAYLOR
Edited by JONATHAN ROGERS
SYNOPSIS
When a woman makes a simple request of a fellow NYC subway passenger, an everyday moment turns into a bizarre battle for space, peace, and dignity.
Comedy, Drama, New York, Women | 7 minutes | Not Rated | 2026 | English | USA

For more Tribeca 2026, click here!

Rob Burnett brings a wicked take on mortality and legacy in Tribeca 2026’s dark comedy In Memoriam. When a known TV actor, Langston Stanfield, gets a terminal cancer diagnosis out of the blue, his entire goal for his remaining six months to live is to make it into the Oscars Death Montage.

Daniel Blake Schwartz‘s very personal Tribeca 2026 drama Cotton Fever explores the trappings of addiction. The film follows the lives of interconnected drug users in Massachusetts.
Director Andrew Neel uses Witold Szablowski‘s book as the basis of his Tribeca 2026 doc How To Feed A Dictator. Call it food porn meets a global authoritarian playbook. This is a brilliant film, if you can stomach it.
Director Allison Sloan Berg‘s Tribeca 2026 doc Time Warp, and I see you shiver with Antici… pation. September 2022 in Rock Springs, Wyoming, a small theatre dares to put on a Shadow Cast production of The Rocky Horror Picture Show. Theatre director, producer, choreographer, house manager, and star of the show, Kenny Starling, brings us into the industrious, loving, and hardworking theatre company that delivers excitement and love to an otherwise quiet, conservative, and seemingly forgotten town.
Theatre has always been a safe space, long before that became a political buzzword. Time Warp appears relatively straightforward in its initial presentation. Berg features cast members’ backgrounds, rehearsals, and most surprisingly, a city council meeting that does not go the way we think it will.
Huge ups to music supervisor Doug Bernheim for the soundtrack, which features the OG Frank-N-Furter, Tim Curry, Siouxsie, Betty Davis, and Jobriath. Frank Keraudren’s editing, particularly the five-day-out rehearsal montage, opening night, and the credits, is delicious. Loved seeing huge Broadway stars line up as Executive Producers! Berg boasts Josh Gad, Billy Porter, and John Cameron Mitchell.
Remaining Tribeca screenings of General Admissions:
Filmmaker Rob Rice‘s incredibly uncomfortable Tribeca 2026 film Ponderosa follows Zeke, a young man targeted by a wealthy patron as his mother’s restaurant chain falters. George thinks he’s mentoring Zeke, but the reality is a collection of bizarre, forced encounters.

The film sucks you in by introducing the horrid history, but then allows the present attraction to act as a reclamation of power for the atrocities once committed there. Archival newspaper clips, alongside a perfectly ominous score, highlight the sickening language and mindset of Pennhurst’s 1907 origin. The film begins with a warning. Fifteen minutes in, the viewer will recognize its necessity. 


Confessional lyrics that make you cry (that’s a warning for around the 20-minute mark, but not the last), paired with gorgeously cut close-ups in the church studio, sweep you away. It feels like a live concert just for you. Alexandra delivers the organic revelations of creation. 


SXSW 2026 true-crime doc I Got Bombed at Harvey’s tells the off-the-wall tale of a casino, a ransom note, a homemade bomb with 1000 pounds of dynamite, and 24 hrs. Your jaw will drop as one absolute narcissistic lunatic’s spiral brings his kids down with him.

The Peril at Pincer Point


The dialogue is outrageously offensive and damn funny. My guess is that they’re closer to reality than comedy since people are assholes, but I digress. The music is delicious. Fantasy sequences are action-packed shenanigans, akin to Everything Everywhere All At Once. Leading man, screenwriter, and showrunner Ash T absolutely kills it playing Raag. Not a single millisecond of hesitation in this absurdist performance; this is star-making stuff of the gods. The plot twist is out of left field, but that’s a complete compliment. I have to know what happens to Raag once the credits roll. I’m going to need HBO to pay attention because Son of a Bikram deserves all the money and every minute of an audience’s attention.
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