Audiences to Select Winner, As The First-Ever Cadillac Award Is Announced at The Closing Night Film of The Tribeca Film Festival

New York, NY - Whether it’s an independent narrative with established talent, a challenging foreign feature or a breakthrough documentary, the ultimate achievement for any film is audience recognition. Today, the Tribeca Film Festival and Cadillac announced that this year’s sixth annual celebration of film will conclude with the first-ever Cadillac Award, in which Festival audiences will choose their favorite from the Festival’s vast array of feature films.

The new Cadillac Award, formerly the Audience Award, will be officially introduced at the 2007 Tribeca Film Festival’s Awards Ceremony on Thursday, May 3. Festival attendees will continue voting as they have all during the Festival up until just before the screening of The Gates as the Festival’s closing night attraction on Saturday, May 5.

The voting process for the Cadillac Award has been taking place since the start of the Festival, with audiences voting via ballot at the end of each screening. Nominations are being tallied on a daily basis and the list of top ten nominees is updated every day on the Festival’s website (www.tribecafilmfestival.org).

Final results will be tabulated on the evening of May 5 and the winner of the first-ever Cadillac Award will be announced before the Closing Night premiere of the HBO documentary film The Gates. Festival co-founder Jane Rosenthal and Liz Vanzura, global marketing director for Cadillac, will announce the award and the winner will receive $25,000 cash prize and a one-of-a-kind trophy to commemorate their achievement.

“Cadillac has a rich heritage of dramatic spirit and style and deep historical ties to the film industry,” said Jim Taylor, Cadillac General Manager. “We’re proud to play a supporting role in this great celebration of film.”

The winner of the 2006 Audience Award was the documentary feature The Cats of Mirikatani directed by Linda Hattendorf.