With the Tribeca Film Festival less than two weeks away, its new Chief Creative Officer Geoff Gilmore posts on Tribeca’s website an essay on his orientation as well as the festival’s — and independent film’s — future. Here’s how he opens:

I’ve been at Tribeca for almost a month now, so I guess I can’t claim that I’m still completely frazzled or barely able to follow the complexities of morning staff meetings. Every institution is different, of course, and the familiarity I have with the arenas of independent and global film after nineteen years of operating inside these realms is more than offset by the abbreviations and shortcuts that the inner circle uses to communicate about various matters about which I’m on a complete learning curve.

But it’s exciting and invigorating to realize the expansiveness and ambition of the institution I’m now calling my own. Indeed, the Tribeca I’m getting acquainted with is at once young (the Festival is in its eighth year) and accomplished (dozens of films and filmmakers have been launched and showcased as a result of its programs). In addition, it has a complex and multifaceted agenda, including its commitment to its community (launched as it was in the destructive throes of 9-11), its service to filmmakers, and its attention to a global focus that resonates in every aspect of what it undertakes. And perhaps most significantly, Tribeca is an organization whose vision and structure make it especially well suited to addressing the future of the newly emerging world of film and storytelling.