Chanel and Tribeca Celebrated the Power of Storytelling and Another Year of the Through Her Lens Program

Reported by Vogue.

Every June, Chanel and Tribeca turn a sun-drenched Greenwich Hotel courtyard into something far more purposeful than a luncheon. The annual gathering celebrating the Through Her Lens program — now in its 12th year and built specifically for self-identifying women and non-binary filmmakers — opened this time with a genuine news flash. Tribeca co-founder Jane Rosenthal interrupted the afternoon to announce that Jean-Michel, a documentary co-directed by Quinn Wilson that had just premiered at the festival, had been picked up by Netflix. Wilson leapt from their chair. The room erupted. That's the energy.

The guest list read like a cross-section of creative industry power: Meg Ryan, Katie Holmes, Maggie Rogers, Debi Mazar, Myha'la, Jodie Foster, and directors including Patty Jenkins were among those circulating. According to Vogue, the two-hour window was efficient and intentional — passed bites, cold wine, Polaroids by photographer Emma Beiles Howie, and the kind of conversations that actually move things forward. Matthieu's new Chanel was everywhere, worn with the ease of women who had more pressing things on their minds than getting dressed.

Permission Not Required

The program's numbers are worth saying out loud: over 50 short films supported, more than 100 emerging filmmakers backed, and 12 years of quietly redistributing access — funding, mentorship, community — to people the industry has historically underfunded and overlooked. Tribeca's newly appointed CEO Rebecca Glashow put it plainly: diverse voices don't just fill quotas, they make the work itself stronger and more connected to actual human experience.

Rosenthal's remarks, delivered with her daughter beside her, were the kind that don't get forgotten. "This has never just been about representation — it's about power. Who gets funding? Who gets the microphone? Who gets remembered?" She pushed further: when contributions go uncredited and stories go unproduced, history doesn't just get incomplete — it gets smaller, and future generations inherit that smallness as fact. She closed by reminding the room that submissions for the 2026 cycle are now open, and offered the only thesis that matters: the films that shift culture are almost always the ones somebody told you not to make.

Through Her Lens isn't a feel-good initiative stapled onto a fashion event — it's a structural intervention, and the Chanel partnership gives it staying power that good intentions alone never could.

Read the original at Vogue.