De Niro to the Rescue of New York

— -- Robert De Niro is launching a film festival to help New York, governors are seeking $4 billion; 40,000 photo negatives from the Kennedy era are burned; the White House will mark three months since the terror attacks, and children raised $500,000 for fire trucks.

De Niro to the Rescue of New York

N E W Y O R K, Dec. 6 — Actor Robert De Niro today announced a plan to hold a new film festival in Tribeca, an upscale neighborhood in lower Manhattan struggling after the Sept. 11 attack on the World Trade Center.

The Tribeca Film Festival, open to the general public, is to be held May 1-5, showcasing about 40 feature-length films and 20 shorts by emerging and established film makers from around the world.

Film screenings will be held in venues throughout the neighborhood in an effort to boost foot traffic and help small businesses, which have suffered since Sept. 11 as people were deterred from the neighborhood by safety concerns and limited street access.

Over the past 20 years, De Niro has become a fixture of the neighborhood, opening the chic Tribeca Grill and co-founding the Tribeca Film Center and Tribeca Productions with producer Jane Rosenthal in 1988.

De Niro and Rosenthal said the groundwork for a film festival began a few years ago, but the Sept. 11 attacks lent urgency to the effort.

They were joined by actors Meryl Streep and Ed Burns, director Martin Scorsese, Gov. George Pataki and Empire State Development Corp. Chairman Charles Gargano to announce the plans. Gargano lauded the $5 billion film industry, which employs 100,000 people in the state.

Scorsese, when asked if he might premier his upcoming "Gangs of New York" at the festival, responded by stressing the importance of festivals as a platform for emerging or foreign film makers.

"I think what's needed here is four days and nights of a bunch of young people coming down, and people whose films were unable to be accepted in other venues," he said.

The festival will include a free outdoor screening of a film retrospective, a special presentation of films celebrating New York, and one full day of discussions and seminars about cinema, media and the arts.

Streep said she hoped to be on the jury, which will present an Emerging Filmmaker Award and an award for Best Short Film.

—The Associated Press

Lawmakers Brainstorm on Terror, Seek Cash

W A S H I N G T O N, Dec. 6 — Security and public health demands could cost states up to $4 billion, governors estimated Wednesday as hundreds of state lawmakers gathered to develop new approaches for terrorism and its fallout.