The seventh annual Tribeca Film Festival begins on Wednesday, and few in the local film community would dispute that this year marks a formative test for the young institution — and not just because this year’s program is slimmer, cheaper, and more centralized than in years past.

While it’s true that this year’s Tribeca Film Festival represents a response of sorts to some of its own harshest critics, it must also grapple with wider-minded critics of film festivals in general. The film festival, which is owned by Tribeca Enterprises, a multi-platform media company established in 2003 by Robert De Niro, Jane Rosenthal, and Craig Hatkoff, will kick off in downtown New York next week only three months after the elite Sundance Film Festival faced its own flurry of controversy for a lack of high-profile purchases, one that exposed the cautious, wait-and-see attitude that has become the status quo within the industry.

Just as entertainment executives have struggled to come to grips with work stoppages, erratic ticket sales, and the steady decline of film critics who once championed art-house products, so is there now widespread debate as to the broader value of film festivals. Theatrical buyers are increasingly hedging their bets looking more skeptically – er titles that are getting lost in a glutted marketplace. Similarly, more and more directors are making deals to get their films seen not just in theaters, but primarily on DVD and cable.

“The pressures and challenges of running a festival, and the expectations of directors, are all definitely changing,” the co-director of the Tribeca festival, Paola Freccero, said. “The goal is always the same: How can we give people the best experience possible? And many filmmakers, who sometimes have a hard time letting go of the idea of their movie opening on 3,000 screens across the country with a Warner Bros. logo and their name on the marquees, they’re starting to understand that there are so many other ways to get your movie seen, and to recoup money for your investors.”

Indeed, many of the biggest successes from last year’s Tribeca Film Festival have accrued accolades and awards in unconventional ways, though they are primarily documentaries. Alex Gibney’s Oscar-winning documentary “Taxi to the Dark Side” had a limited theatrical run, but will no doubt be seen by far more people after taking to the airwaves on HBO in September. “King of Kong” became an art-house staple last autumn here in the city, but expanded even wider after it made its debut on DVD in the wake of rave reviews from various Web loggers. And “Autism: The Musical” premiered last month on HBO to warm reviews from TV critics.

Tribeca organizers are all too aware of the evolving pressures of the marketplace, and it seems that many of the changes to the festival this year are designed with the industry in mind. Cheaper tickets for general audiences ($15 on average, with $8 specials for late-night screenings and weekday matinees) will, ideally, lead to larger audiences, and more word of mouth. A smaller slate of titles (down this year, from 160 to 122), screened in a smaller geographical area, will make it easier for industry attendees — and general audiences — to see as many official selections as possible.

But Tribeca officials say it’s not just the pared-down structure that fans will notice, but also a discernible shift in tone among the curated films — a different style and perspective from what has been seen in recent years.

“There are a number of titles that, to me, hearken back to a form of independent film that we saw more of 10 or 15 years ago,” Nancy Schafer, who manages the festival alongside Ms. Freccero, said, adding that this year’s movies seem less interested in changing the world than in telling a personal story. “I always thought of stories in the early ’90s as being a little less splashy, being more moving and character-driven, and that’s what we see in many of this year’s titles — a turning of the camera inward.”

In particular, both Ms. Freccero and Ms. Schafer point to “Trucker,” a new film starring Michelle Monaghan as a trash-talking truck driver who must learn how to play the solo role of parent to her 11-year-old son when his father is hospitalized. In similar fashion, Declan Recks’s “Eden” (adapted for the screen by the playwright Eugene O’Brien) plunges the viewer into the middle of an imploding family, depicting a less-than-idealistic vision of a marriage disintegrating on the eve of the couple’s 10th anniversary.

Even the festival’s opening-night film, the more commercially minded “Baby Mama” — a buddy comedy of sorts about a go-go working woman (Tina Fey) who hires a surrogate (Amy Poehler) to carry and deliver her baby — marks a departure from last year’s opening-night gala, which featured an array of short films focusing on the issue of global warming, and made national headlines thanks to Al Gore’s presence.

“A good word to use is intimacy,” Ms. Schafer said. “We’re seeing that, unlike recent years, when filmmakers had a tendency to go for something much more epic-y, this year we’re seeing stories that, in large part, thanks to advancing technology, are going places they could never go before.”

Both Ms. Freccero and Ms. Schafer (as well as other TFF programmers interviewed) said they are eager to see just how these stories of human crisis and catharsis are received by the typical New York viewer.

So many people involved with Tribeca take pride in following a populist philosophy that is largely missing from some other major festivals. Many other events have become overrun with splashy non-film events, celebrity sightings, and backroom deals where business trumps all. And while a good deal of this sort of festival icing has been scraped from the Tribeca Film Festival in the last 12 months, one thing that seems unaltered is its determination to build a bridge between these two worlds — that is, between those who are looking to buy films, and those who are merely looking to see films and enjoy a great cinema city.

“There are some people who think of world-class, A-list film festivals as being events that, by their very nature, should be closed off in some way — reserved for the elite, or the intellectual, or the academic community,” Ms. Freccero said. “But festivals should also be fun, and we’re trying to [mix] that sort of industry event with a community festival. For some people, that almost seems blasphemous, but we think that Tribeca is the place, that this is the time, to prove that line of thinking wrong.”

ssnyder@nysun.com