Variety's Tapley Talks Telluride and Makes a Few Guesses / Farhadi Joins Cannes Competition Lineup

Good Monday Everyone.  Thanks for taking the time to take a look at Michael's Telluride Film Blog



VARIETY'S TAPLEY TALKS TELLURIDE AND MAKES A FEW GUESSES

Variety's awards co-editor Kristopher Tapley posted an intriguing piece late last week that talked about the rapidity with which The 43rd sedition of TFF sold out of passes.  Tapley analyzes some of what he sees as reasons for the quick sell out.

He also takes a some time to take a very, very preliminary look at some titles that he thinks might make the lineup over Labor Day weekend.  Some surprises included:

Ang Lee's Billy Lynn's Long Halftime Walk

Asghar Farhadi's The Salesman

Garth Davis' Lion

Gavin O'Connor's The Accountant

Andrea Arnold's American Honey

The Dardennes' The Unknown Girl 

Nate Parker's Birth of a Nation

That last, of course was a Sundance hit but has already fairly warmly rumored to be a Telluride possibility.  Both Tapley and The Hollywood Reporter's Scott Feinberg have now mentioned the possibility.

Check Tapley's entire article here:

http://variety.com/2016/film/in-contention/telluride-film-festival-2016-sells-out-passes-1201758017/



FARHADI JOINS CANNES COMPETITION LINEUP

As we expected, the Cannes Fest added seven new films to various programs for next months 69th iteration.  Among the was Asghar Farhadi's The Salesman which was added to the Palme d'Or competition lineup.  The addition bodes well, I think, for Farhadi to make a third appearance at Telluride after successful runs there with A Separation and The Past.

I have linked three stories about the additions which also include the new film from David Mackenzie, He'll or High Water which has been added to the Un Certain Regard section.  Mackenzie's Starred Up played Telluride to wide acclaim in 2013 and this UCR selection could foreshadow a return for him this year.

The stories:

http://www.ioncinema.com/news/film-festivals/farhadis-the-salesman-completes-cannes-main-comp-mackenzies-hell-or-high-water-in-ucr

http://variety.com/2016/film/global/asghar-farhadi-the-salesman-cannes-festival-competition-1201758950/

http://www.thewrap.com/cannes-film-festival-adds-7-new-films/


That's it for this Monday...more to come on Thursday.

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