The 25th anniversary Tribeca Festival unveiled its full feature lineup on Thursday, and tucked inside a star-studded slate of 103 world premieres is one film we have been waiting on for months. “Rain Reign,” the independent family drama starring rising young actress Felice Kakaletris alongside “Clueless” alums Paul Rudd and Jeremy Sisto, will have its world premiere in New York when the festival runs from June 3 through June 14.
For Kakaletris, this is the moment. Longtime readers of this site know we have been following her career since she stole scenes as Molly, the youngest orphan, in NBC’s live musical “Annie Live!” back in 2021, when she shared a stage with Taraji P. Henson, Harry Connick Jr., Nicole Scherzinger, and newcomer Celina Smith. We flagged her again in July when her casting as Rose Howard in “Rain Reign” was first announced, and we said then that all eyes would be on her. A Tribeca world premiere slot, in the festival’s landmark anniversary edition, is exactly the kind of launchpad a young lead dreams about.
“Rain Reign” is adapted from the bestselling novel by Ann M. Martin, the author behind “The Baby-Sitters Club,” and it marks the feature directorial debut of Erika Burke Rossa, who also wrote the screenplay. The story follows Rose, a 12-year-old neurodivergent girl who lives with her volatile single father, played by Sisto, and who leans on her gentler uncle, played by Rudd. When a superstorm tears through her small town and her beloved dog Rain goes missing, Rose sets out on a search that will test her family, her routines, and her own resilience. The supporting cast is stacked with Gretchen Mol, Mary Stuart Masterson, Kirsten Fitzgerald, C.J. Wilson, and Jeremy Davidson. Julie Rudd and Nikki Silver produced.
Kakaletris, a New Jersey native who has been acting since the age of six, brings a personal understanding to the role that is rare at any level of the industry, let alone for a young performer carrying her first feature lead. She is neurodiverse herself, with diagnoses of ADHD and generalized anxiety, and she has spoken about how closely she connected with Rose’s inner world. “Rose’s character is very complex and requires a lot of emotional range. I loved the challenge,” she told The National Herald last summer. That kind of self-awareness, paired with the craft she has already built, is why her casting felt right from the jump.
Her résumé leading into “Rain Reign” is deeper than most actors her age have any business having. Since “Annie Live!” she has appeared in Apple TV+’s “Schmigadoon!” and the Tom Holland-led Apple limited series “The Crowded Room,” and she has guested on “Sesame Street” and “The Not Too Late Show with Elmo.” She got her professional start on the theatre stage at bergenPAC in Englewood, New Jersey, playing Grace Smythe in “A Christmas Carol,” and has since worked with the likes of Jessica Vosk, Ariana DeBose, and Cecily Strong through her New York agency representation.
On the production, Kakaletris has spoken warmly about her two big-name co-stars. She described Paul Rudd as immediately disarming and down to earth, the kind of set presence who does not feel like a Hollywood celebrity at all. Jeremy Sisto, who plays the film’s harder role as Rose’s father, became a close on-set ally, with the two of them developing a fist-bump ritual between emotionally difficult takes. Those are the details that tend to separate films that feel lived-in from films that feel manufactured, and by all accounts the “Rain Reign” set was very much the former.
Director Erika Burke Rossa has spoken about what drew her to Martin’s novel in the first place. She told Deadline that the book’s heart, for her, was the Howard family’s slow climb out of inherited trauma and the idea that quiet kindness can be the most radical act a person performs. That is not an easy tone to land, and the fact that Rossa trusted a first-time feature lead to carry the emotional center of it is a vote of confidence that Kakaletris now gets to repay in front of a Tribeca audience.
“Rain Reign” is a quieter, more intimate film than many of the big-name premieres around it, and that is precisely what should work in its favor. Tribeca has always been the kind of festival where a small, emotionally honest indie can punch above its weight and walk out with a distribution deal and a star-making notice. Felice Kakaletris has done the work, her director has built the right frame for her, and the film is landing in the right room. The festival runs June 3 through 14 in New York, with individual tickets going on sale April 28.
Whatever happens in New York in June, this is the breakout moment we have been telling you to watch for. Mark the date.
