Monday, August 18, 2025

It Was Just an Accident: Poster and Trailer / Guest Director Anyone? / New York and Toronto Re-visit / The 13th People's Telluride

 IT WAS JUST AN ACCIDENT: POPSTER AND TRAILER

11 days and counting to TFF #52.  As the fest approaches Neon released both a poster and a trailer for Jafar Panahi's Plame d'Or winner , It Was Just an Accident.  I've had  it on my Ten Bets list throughout the summer.  Last week's "Bets" had the film listed as the #2 Best Bet.  The film is described at IMDb  as this:

A small mishap triggers a chain reaction of ever-growing problems.

Fairly cryptic, eh?

The film opens in the U.S. on Oct 15th.

Here's the poster:


And the trailer from YouTube:




GUEST DIRECTOR ANYONE?




So it seems that TFF has established something of a new protocol about Guest Directors going forward.  for the third consecutive year the fest is down to the wire without having named a Guest Director.  as I wrote last year about this topic, for the past few years the fest announced the Guest Director usually in the third week of June.  But for TFF #50 and #51, they did not announce them until the big reveal of official film titles on the Thursday before the festival began.

Last year, that was the timing for the reveal of Kenneth Lonergan as Guest Director and for TFF #50 the announcement of multiple Guest Directors was also revealed the day before the fest.

So...I'm beginning to think that becomes the new normal.

Maybe we find out earlier, but I have my doubts.



NEW YORK AND TORONTO RE-VISIT


Poster for Sirat (which might still be in play for Telluride-see below)



I wrote last week about the premiere designations confusion that exists for three films announced for both the New York Fest and Toronto.  So, I thought I'd wander back to both festival's official online lineups to see if either fest had altered the premiere designations for any of the three films;

Landmarks: No change.
Blue Moon: No change.
A Private Life: No change.
 
Again all three films are listed as North American premieres by TIFF and as New York premieres for NYFF.  NYFF designating them as New York premieres is the real oddity.  It seems to me that if they're doing the North American premiere at Toronto then New York should have deemed them as U.S. premieres.

But there's more.  I went through all 18 non-revival films that New York labels as U.S. premieres and the 22 that they label as New York premieres and found that Sirat and Barrio Triste also are listed in the same weird and contradictory way as Blue Moon, Landmarks and A Private Life.  So, perhaps those two films are also actually still possible for Telluride.

Finally, a couple of other films are listed by NYFF as New York premieres and I can't detect why.  They are With Hasan in Gaza and Evidence.


THE PEOPLE'S TELLURIDE-13TH EDITION



For the 13th year MTFB is soliciting your input for The People's Telluride.  All you have to do is watch films during the fest and then, when it's all over, report to me your assessment of each film on a 1-5 scale with 1 being "UGH!" and 5 being "GREAT".

Report your ratings to: mpgort@gmail.com 

The deadline for this year to turn in your ratings will be Sept. 15th.

I'll compile all of your responses and post those a few days after the festival.




EMAIL:  mpgort@gmail.com

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