LAST LOOK AT DISTRIBUTORS: SPECIALTY HOUSES
Our run through the most common film distribution firms repped at Telluride over the last nine years comes to a conclusion today with a glance at three specialty firms that have often landed a film or films at Telluride: Janus Films, Kino Lorber and a new-ish outfit called 1-2 Special.
But first a re-cap of what we've seen over the past several weeks in regards to the distributors covered so far and the status of the films we included in the assessment for each:
Netflix:
The Ballad of a Small Player -We think headed to Telluride
Jay Kelly- We think headed to Telluride after Venice.
Frankenstein - No Telluride
Left-Handed Girl -Unknown
Nouvelle Vague -We think headed to Telluride
Sony Pictures Classics:
Blue Moon -Unknown (but I like its chances)
The President's Cake-Unknown
Eleanor the Great -No Telluride
A Private Life-No Telluride
A Magnificent Life-Unknown
Unidentified-Unknown
Neon:
It Was Just an Accident-We think headed to Telluride
Sentimental Value-We think headed to Telluride
The Secret Agent-We think headed to Telluride
Sirat-No Telluride
Orwell 2+2=5-Unknown
Alpha-Unknown
A24:
Pillion-Unknown
Marty Supreme-No Telluride...no fests at all as far as we can tell
The Smashing Machine-No Telluride
Eternity-No Telluride
Searchlight:
Rental Family-No Telluride
Is This Thing On?-No Telluride
In the Blink of an Eye-Unknown
Amazon-MGM:
After the Hunt-No Telluride
Preparation for the Next Life-No Telluride-it opens on Sept. 5-so...unlikely.
The Map that Leads to You-No Telluride
Focus Features:
Hamnet-We think headed to Telluride
Bugonia-We feel it's likely headed to Telluride after Venice
The History of Sound-We think headed to Telluride
Anemone-Unlikely for Telluride
Pressure-Unknown
Song Sung Blue-Noop
Mubi:
My Father's Shadow-Unknown
Die, My Love-Unknown
The Mastermind-Unknown
La Grazia- Unknown but opening Venice means it would have time to make it to Telluride.
The other films that I'm fairly confident about are Springsteen: Deliver Me from Nowhere which is being distributed by 20th Century and Tuner which, as far as I can tell doesn't have a U.S. distributor at present.
Now to the specialty distributors (individuals that have attended TFF in the past are designated with *):
JANUS FILMS
The Love That Remains. Dir: Hylnur Palmason* Stars: Ingvar Sigurdsson, Sverrir Gudnason. Played Cannes out of competition. Had a 7.68 cumulative rating (out of 10) on Cannes-ratings.org. Release date: TBD. IMDb description:
Captures a year in the life of a family as the parents navigate their separation. Through intimate vignettes and strange occurrences, the film explores the complexities of family, love, and the impact of shared memories.
Two Prosecutors. Dir. Sergey Loznitsa. Stars: Alexander Kuznetsov, Anatoliy Beliy. Played at Cannes in the Plame competition category and won the French Calais Prize. Had a 6.21 cumulative critical rating. Release date: TBD. IMDb description:
1937: When a prisoner's letter escapes destruction, idealistic prosecutor Kornev uncovers NKVD corruption. His pursuit of justice in Stalin's USSR becomes a dangerous journey into the heart of a system devouring its own.
Resurrection. Dir. Bi Gan. Stars: Jackson Yee, Shu Qi. Played Cannes in the Plame competition category. Bi Gan was awarded a "Special Prize". The film had a stellar 7.44 average critic rating. Release date: TBD. IMDb description:
A woman's consciousness falls into an eternal time zone during a surgical procedure. Trapped in many dreams, she finds the corpse of an android and tries to wake him up by telling endless stories.
Magellan. Dir. Lav Diaz. Stars: Gael García Bernal*, Ângela Azevedo. Played out of competition at Cannes. Had a solid 7.05 average critical rating. Release date: TBD. IMDb description:
A portrayal of Ferdinand Magellan and Beatriz Barbosa's 1517 marriage in Seville, focusing on their brief time together before his departure on the Spanish crown's expedition.
Any or all of these films might make the TFF #52 lineup. Last year Janus had two films make the TFF #51 lineup: All We Imagine as Light and Misericordia. I'm expecting them to back and it seems, at least at the moment, the most likely suspects are The Love That Remains and Magellan. For Magellan it's the presence of Gael Garcia Bernal, A T-ride regular.
KINO LORBER
Amrum. Dir. Fatih Akin. Stars: Diane Kruger, Matthias Schweighöfer. Played out of competition at Cannes and received a middling 6.37 critics average rating. Release date: TBD. IMDb description:
Amrum Island, Spring 1945. In the final days of the war, 12-year-old Nanning braves the treacherous sea to hunt seals, goes fishing at night, and works the nearby farm to help his mother feed the family. Despite the hardship, life on the beautiful, windswept island almost feels like paradise. But when peace finally comes, it reveals a deeper threat: the enemy is far closer than he imagined.
Put Your Soul on Your Hand and Walk. Dir. Sepideh Farsi. Documentary. Played as part of the ACID program at Cannes. Critical average: 8.31. This average was a consensus of 89 critics and was the highest average of any film playing any section at Cannes this year. Release date: TBD. IMDb description:
A filmmaker connects with a Palestinian woman in Gaza who documents life under bombardment. Their 200+ days of digital exchanges, the meaning shifts after Fatem's death in an Israeli attack on 16/ April 2025.
This two films seem the only real Kino Lorber possibilities for TFF #52. I can actually see both making the lineup. KL had Riefenstahl at Telluride last year.
1-2 SPECIAL
Urchin. Dir. Harris Dickinson. Stars: Frank Dillane, Diane Axford. Played Cannes in Un Certain Regard. Frank Dillane was named Best Actor for that section. Critical average 7.16. Release date: TBD. IMDb description:
Mike, a homeless person in London is struggling to break free from a cycle of self-destruction while trying to turn his life around.
Mirrors #3. Dir. Christian Petzold. Stars: Paula Beer, Phillip Froissant. Played in the Filmmakers Fortnight section at Cannes. Critical average: 7.00. Release date: TBD. IMDb description:
After a car crash kills her boyfriend, piano student Laura is taken in by Betty, who witnessed the accident. Living with Betty's family brings comfort, but Laura starts questioning their intentions as time passes.
Dracula. Dir. Radu Jude. Stars: Serban Pavlu, Ilinca Manolache. Played the Lorcano Film Fest. release date: TBD. IMDb description:
A Dracula film made in Transylvania. What does it contain? A vampire hunt. Zombies and Dracula crashing a strike. A science-fiction story about Vlad the Impaler coming back. An adaptation of the first Romanian vampires novella. A love story. A montage film reusing a classic vampire film. A vulgar folktale. A.I. generated kitsch stories. And many delights in a film dealing with this cinema myth.
Kontinental '25. Dir. Radu Jude. Stars: Eszter Tompa, Ilinca Manolache. Played the Berlin Fest where it won Best Screenplay and had a 7.00 critical average. Release date: TBD. IMDb description:
In the capital of Transylvania, Cluj-Napoca, Orsolya serves as a bailiff. She has to evict a homeless guy from a cellar one day, which has disastrous results and sets off a moral problem that Orsolya must try to resolve.
1-2 Special is new, new new so whether it gains any traction vis-a-vis a slot at Telluride is up in the air. Urchin and Mirrors #3 made enough of a splash at Cannes to make me believe that one of those and maybe both could sneak into the TFF #52 lineup.
Chances for the Janus, Kino Lorber, 1-2 Special films for a TFF screening:
The Love That Remains 65%
Magellan 50%
Amrum 50%
Urchin 50%
Mirrors #3 45%
Resurrection 40%
Two Prosecutors 40%
Put Your Soul on Your Hand and Walk 40%
Kontinental '25 25%
Dracula 25%
BUGONIA BOOGIES TO TELLURIDE?
Well, we don't know that but...
World of Reel posted a purported leak of some of the Venice schedule. That derived from an outfit called Objective Festival (French it would appear). From that source a couple of things are interesting.
First, that website flat out claims that it's getting the info from Venice head Alberto Barbera. Here's the "schedule" that they dropped:
August 27 : La Grazia
August 28 : Bugonia, Jay Kelly, Orphan
August 29 : After the Hunt, No Other Choice
August 30 : Frankenstein
August 31 : Father, Mother, Sister, Brother, The Wizard of the Kremlin
September 1 : The Smashing Machine, The Testament of Ann Lee
September 2 : A House of Dynamite, Dead Man's Wire
September 3 : In the Hand of Dante, Duse, The Voice of Hind Rajab
September 4 : Scarlet
September 6 : Dog 51
What this means, if true, is that Bugonia, Jay Kelly and Orphan would screen early enough to make the trip from Italy to Colorado possible. Is that a confirmation for TFF #52 for all three films? No. But it means we can't write them off either. As to Bugonia, see the "Odds and Ends" below from Variety's Clayton Davis.
We were already fairly sure about Jay Kelly but this does move Bugonia and Orphan up on the possibilities list.
It further seems to confirm that we will not be seeing a number of films we already thought were not going to be at Telluride. Of particular note were some films like The Wizard of the Kremlin and In the Hand of Dante won't be Telluride bound.
ODDS AND ENDS
***ANEMONE...PROBABLY NOT...
Clayton Davis at Variety writing about the nature and value of film festivals last Friday says:
"Focus Features, overflowing with awards prospects, will juggle Yorgos Lanthimos’ “Bugonia” and Chloé Zhao’s “Hamnet” at Venice and Telluride, while debuting Daniel Day-Lewis’ acting comeback drama “Anemone” later in the year. Craig Brewer’s “Song Sung Blue,” also from Focus, is being released on Christmas, but will likely bypass the festival circuit."
Takeaways: Hamnet...yes. Bugonia...yes. Anemone and Song Sung Blue...nope.
***NOUVELLE VAGUE HAS A RELEASE DATE
Per The Hollywood Reporter's Scott Feinberg:
"Nouvelle Vague, Richard Linklater’s loving homage to Jean Luc-Godard’s 1960 film Breathless and the French New Wave, which received a 10-minute standing ovation and rave reviews following its world premiere at May’s Cannes Film Festival, will be released in American theaters on Oct. 31 and play on big screens for two weeks before dropping on Netflix on Nov. 14"
***LEFT-HANDED GIRL HAS A DATE
From Kate Erbland at Indiewire:
"Netflix picked up the film, which debuted in Cannes’ Critics’ Week section, at the festival, and IndieWire can today announce that the streamer will bolster the film with both a theatrical release (on Friday, November 14) and a streaming release on its platform (on Friday, November 28)."
***U.K. TRAILER FOR THE DARDENNES' YOUNG MOTHERS' HOME
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