TEN BETS FOR TFF #53-VOL.5
The countdown to TFF #53 grows shorter and shorter. H
Here's the fifth installment of MTFB's Ten Bets, the weekly guess at what films make the Telluride lineup. We start with a reminder of last week's bets:
Artificial
Bucking Fastard
Club Kid
Coward
The Debut
Elsinore
Fatherland
La Bola Negra (The Black Ball)
Minotaur
Paper Tiger
Other possibilities: A Long Winter, Fjord, Yellow Letters and The Story of Documentary Film.
If you read last Monday's post you'll recall that Neon has reversed course on Luca Guadagnino's Artificial and, at least for now, are avowing that the film "isn't likely to go down the standard festival route" which Deadline points out does not preclude some festival appearance. Heck, Deadline even says they think it will likely will be at some festival. As a matter of fact, Deadline's language doesn't shut the door on Artificial at TFF but rather, sounds like Telluride might be the most likely landing spot:
"That doesn’t mean it won’t pop up at a festival in some form (we bet it will), but it won’t have the traditional launch with the bells and whistles of a red carpet, press conference, junkets, etc."
So, I'm moving Artificial to the list of possibles and Andrew Haigh's A Long Winter back into the Ten Bets:
Bucking Fastard
Club Kid
Coward
The Debut
Elsinore
A Long Winter
Fatherland
La Bola Negra (The Black Ball)
Minotaur
Paper Tiger
Other possibilities: Artificial, Fjord, Yellow Letters and The Story of Documentary Film.
A couple of other notes...
For Ten Bets #6 next week I'll begin to actually list the films in order of likelihood to play...
And we should get some news from Toronto which should be informative.
WHO'S GOT WHAT? DISTRIBUTORS: MUBI
MTFB continues its look at the film distribution companies that have had the largest profiles at the Telluride Film Festival over the past five years in an effort to, perhaps, set the table for films that could be headed to TFF #53. Up to this point for 2026 we have examined: Netflix, Neon, Sony Pictures Classics, Focus Features and A24. Each of those outfits have averaged two or more films at TFF in that time span.
Today we look at Mubi, which has had nine films at Telluride since 2021 but whose footprint has increased over the last couple of years. Additionally Mubi could potentially provide more films to TFF #53 than any other distributor.
Here's Mubi's history over the last five years:
2021: Unclenching the Fists.
2022: No films.
2023: Fallen Leaves, High & Low: John Galliano, Tehachapi.
2024: Bird.
2025: The History of Sound, King Hamlet, La Grazia, Mastermind.
And these are the films in the Mubi warehouse we think might be TFF possibilities (with their chance of making the lineup):
Coward 70%
Fatherland 65%
A Long Winter 55%
Minotaur 50%
Rose 40%
Hope 25%
NEXT BEST PICTURE GUESSES TELLIRIDE (AND OTHER FALL FESTS)
Matt Neglia and his crew at Next Best Picture have posted a massive list of films for each of the four major "fall" film fests: Telluride, Venice, Toronto and New York. Looking at his T-ride list is intriguing, Here it is with films on the MTFB Ten Bets (and possibilities) list indicated with ***.
All Of A Sudden (Ryusuki Hamaguchi)
American Doctor (Poh Si Teng)
Artificial (Luca Guadagnino)***
Behemoth! (Tony Gilroy)
Bitter Christmas (Pedro Almodóvar)
Bucking Fastard (Werner Herzog)***
Club Kid (Jordan Firstman)***
Coward (Lukas Dhont)***
The Debut (Jesse Eisenberg)***
Elsinore (Simon Stone)***
Fatherland (Paweł Pawlikowski)***
Fjord (Cristian Mungiu)***
Iron Boy (Louis Clichy)
Josephine (Beth de Araújo)
La Bola Negra (Javier Calvo and Javier Ambrossi)***
La Gradiva (Marine Atlan)
A Long Winter (Andrew Haigh)***
Minotaur (Andrey Zvyagintsev)***
Mouse (Kelly O’Sullivan and Alex Thompson)
The Only Living Pick Pocket In New York (Noah Segan)
Primetime (Lance Oppenheim)
Rehearsals for a Revolution (Pegah Ahangarani)
Rose (Markus Schleinzer)
Saturn Return (Greg Kwedar)
The Unknown (Arthur Harari)
Yellow Letters (İlker Çatak)***
Couple of notes:
Films on the NBP list that are not currently a "Bet" by MTFB but are on the radar are: Behemoth!, Bitter Christmas, La Gradiva, Primetime, Rose and Saturn Return.
Josephine and The Only Living Pickpocket in New York were Sundance selections which doesn't rule them out for Telluride, but it's uncommon for a film to screen both places.
https://nextbestpicture.com/predicting-the-2026-fall-film-festival-lineups-for-venice-telluride-tiff-nyff/
IS BEHEMOTH! COMING?
Lot's of buzz early this week with first look photos and a trailer for Tony Gilroy's Behemoth! The film stars Pedro Pascal and is described at IMDb like this:
"Follows a musician from a family of musicians who returns to Los Angeles. A love letter to the music of the movies and the people who make it."
Behemoth! is being distributed by Searchlight and there is a good deal of speculation that it will be making a fall film fest run though whether that would include Telluride is very uncertain at this point.
Here's an image from the Vanity Fair article:
In addition, Searchlight dropped a trailer on Tuesday. Here that is from YouTube:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7T64gVlcc1I&t=99s
Searchlight hasn't yet announced a release date from the film.
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4 comments:
I went to Instagram, just as I finished reading this, to see that Paper Tiger was announced for New York Film Festival and labeled as a "North American Premiere." So, I guess that takes it out of the running for TFF, right?
Danny Boyle's INK announced for Venice...any thoughts on a stop at TFF after?
Very likely that's correct. Sometimes theses fests do get the premiere designation wrong...but NYFF isn't going to bill its opener as a World Premiere if it's not.
I think it becomes a real possibility.
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