Asian Diasporic Stories at the 2025 Tribeca Film Festival

Set in the heart of the San Gabriel Valley and based on a harrowing true story, Rosemead is a gripping, emotionally charged portrait of a mother’s love pushed to its limits. Lucy Liu delivers a transformative performance as a terminally ill Chinese immigrant who uncovers her teenage son’s disturbing fixation with mass shootings. As her health deteriorates, she takes increasingly desperate—and morally complex—measures to protect him and confront the darkness he’s drawn to.

Urgent and unflinching, Rosemead wrestles with themes of identity, mental health and the immigrant experience in America, capturing the dissonance between cultural expectation and personal crisis. At a time when questions around gun violence, parenting and belonging feel more pressing than ever, this powerful film resonates deeply, offering a rare and necessary lens into the quiet tragedies unfolding in communities too often overlooked. —Nancy Lefkowitz

Fri June 06 - 5:00 PM at SVA Theatre
Sat June 07 - 5:15 PM at Village East by Angelika
Thu June 12 - 2:00 PM at Village East by Angelika
Sat June 14 - 5:30 PM at SVA Theatre

Maitri, a young aspiring travel blogger who shares a home with her mother in their Indian apartment block, is stuck. She is struggling to find an audience for her travel-centric YouTube channel, her mother disapproves of her career path, and she’s still working through unresolved grief after the loss of her father. Thinking it will make good content, Maitri tags along with her mother and their neighbors, trusted landlord Rajesh and his wife, to a temple during the Navratri festival. When Maitri is groped by Rajesh on the way to the festival, she feels shocked, furious and lonely and impulsively decides to take retributive steps, setting off a chain of events that rocks her tight-knight community.

Impressively helmed by multi hyphenate writer-producer-director-star Uttera Singh, PINCH is at once a deeply engrossing morality play, enraging social critique and darkly comic, tension-filled drama. With a rhythmic editing style and wonderful performances from the ensemble cast, Pinch is a vibrantly shot, beautifully plotted exploration of guilt, trauma and the strength it takes to stand up to power.—Jason Gutierrez

Fri June 06 - 8:30 PM at AMC 19th St. East 6
Sat June 07 - 11:00 AM at Village East by Angelika
Mon June 09 - 3:15 PM at Village East by Angelika
Sat June 14 - 11:00 AM at AMC 19th St. East 6

An Eye for an Eye unfolds like a real-life courtroom thriller, with stakes as high as life and death. Years after killing her abusive husband in an act of self-defense, Tahereh now faces execution unless she can pay the diya—blood money demanded by her abuser’s family. With the clock ticking and public sympathy running low, her son Mohsen is thrust into a desperate race against time to save his mother’s life, turning to outside donors in a society where victims of domestic abuse are often met with silence—or scorn. With unprecedented access to private negotiations, legal proceedings, and intimate family moments, the filmmakers bring us deep inside a harrowing moral and legal labyrinth. We witness not only the emotional toll on Tahereh and her children, but also the chilling mechanics of a justice system shaped by patriarchal values and religious law. Gripping and deeply human, An Eye for an Eye lays bare the personal costs of systemic injustice—and the fierce resilience of a family fighting for their right to move forward.—Cara Cusumano

Fri June 06 - 5:30 PM at SVA Theatre
Sat June 07 - 5:15 PM at AMC 19th St. East 6
Sun June 08 - 12:00 PM at Village East by Angelika
Mon June 09 - 5:00 PM at Village East by Angelika

Red Egg & Ginger follows Hannah, a half-white and half-Chinese teenager, whose father has remarried and recently had a baby who is 100% Chinese. When Hannah meets her baby half-sister for the first time at her Red Egg & Ginger Party–a traditional Chinese event that celebrates the birth of a newborn baby–Hannah feels an intense jealousy and competitiveness towards this innocent child.

This film is included in Shorts: Floating Roots, Tribeca Film Festival’s first shorts program focusing on Asian, Asian American and Pacific Islander heritage in its storytelling. It is co-curated by Seigo Tono, the executive director of Short Shorts in Japan.

Sun June 08 - 5:30 PM at Shorts Theater at Spring Studios
Fri June 13 - 3:00 PM at Shorts Theater at Spring Studios
Sat June 14 - 5:30 PM at AMC 19th St. East 6

A serial grifter faces the music when seemingly everyone he’s ever wronged shows up on the opening day of his dubious Italian ice business.

This film is included in Shorts: Floating Roots, Tribeca Film Festival’s first shorts program focusing on Asian, Asian American and Pacific Islander heritage in its storytelling. It is co-curated by Seigo Tono, the executive director of Short Shorts in Japan.

Sun June 08 - 5:30 PM at Shorts Theater at Spring Studios
Fri June 13 - 3:00 PM at Shorts Theater at Spring Studios
Sat June 14 - 5:30 PM at AMC 19th St. East 6

Two immigrant teenagers, Lin and Walid, sneak into Lin’s mother’s Chinese restaurant to pirate DVDs they can sell at school. But when Lin’s high school crush, Amber, unexpectedly walks in, the afternoon veers from a harmless hustle into a moral dilemma. Caught between his mother’s quiet sacrifices, his best friend’s loyalty, and Amber’s rebellious world, Lin is pulled into a car ride that becomes an emotional rollercoaster.

This film is included in Shorts: Floating Roots, Tribeca Film Festival’s first shorts program focusing on Asian, Asian American and Pacific Islander heritage in its storytelling. It is co-curated by Seigo Tono, the executive director of Short Shorts in Japan.

Sun June 08 - 5:30 PM at Shorts Theater at Spring Studios
Fri June 13 - 3:00 PM at Shorts Theater at Spring Studios
Sat June 14 - 5:30 PM at AMC 19th St. East 6

A young Māori girl in the care of a conservative English couple savours her mother’s weekly visitations, as a custody battle driven by racial bias will ultimately decide their fate.

This film is included in Shorts: Floating Roots, Tribeca Film Festival’s first shorts program focusing on Asian, Asian American and Pacific Islander heritage in its storytelling. It is co-curated by Seigo Tono, the executive director of Short Shorts in Japan.

Sun June 08 - 5:30 PM at Shorts Theater at Spring Studios
Fri June 13 - 3:00 PM at Shorts Theater at Spring Studios
Sat June 14 - 5:30 PM at AMC 19th St. East 6

In a crowded dormitory in Flushing, NYC, an undocumented housekeeper, āyí, endures exploitation but Baduanjin offers her peace. As hardships mount, she must choose between silence and resistance.

This film is included in Shorts: Floating Roots, Tribeca Film Festival’s first shorts program focusing on Asian, Asian American and Pacific Islander heritage in its storytelling. It is co-curated by Seigo Tono, the executive director of Short Shorts in Japan.

Sun June 08 - 5:30 PM at Shorts Theater at Spring Studios
Fri June 13 - 3:00 PM at Shorts Theater at Spring Studios
Sat June 14 - 5:30 PM at AMC 19th St. East 6