Telluride News Coming This Week? / Venice Festival Dipsy-Do / 21st Century Films and Telluride

TELLURIDE NEWS COMING THIS WEEK?

Deadline's Andreas Wiseman wrote an article posted Tuesday that discusses the potential of five different fall film fests occurring in a Covid-19 world.  Telluride is one of the five fests that gets assessed.  The article drops this tantalizing bit of info:

"Telluride (September 4 – 7/8): A spokesperson for the picturesque and famously press-shy Telluride Film Festival has told us that they are “hoping to have some information this week” regarding the event’s status and planning in light of the Coronavirus. The Oscar-bellwether was expected to expand to five days this year after the Town Council approved an additional day earlier this month. Colorado has recorded close to 10,000 positive cases of COVID-19 and 422 deaths. The state garnered international headlines this week when healthcare workers blocked anti-lockdown protests."

The most intriguing part of that assessment is the "spokesperson's..."hoping to have some information this week".

Additionally, Deadline mentions the extra fifth day reportedly approved by the Telluride Town Council last week.

What's confusing?  The Deadline author lists the dates for the fest as Sept.4-7/8 meaning that their assumption is that Telluride is tacking the fifth day onto the end of the fest rather than, as I had assumed, the Thursday before the fest as TFF did in 2013 for its 40th iteration.

Further confusing the date situation is that the original reporting from the Telluride Watch/Daily Planet cites the added date as Sept. 1 which would be the Tuesday before the traditional and originally schedule Friday start.  From The Daily Planet last week:

Sooo....

The complete Deadline article is linked here.

VENICE FESTIVAL DIPSY-DO

Just a day after an interview with Venice Biennale President Roberto Cicutto (the film fest's parent organization) said that no collaboration with Cannes was planned, came another interview with festival's artistic director, Alberto Barbera that suggests just the opposite.  

The Hollywood Reporter's Scott Roxborough in a post that went up on Tuesday afternoon that Barbera had some strong thoughts about a Cannes partnership with Venice.  From the post:

"The Venice International Film Festival has "a concrete will" to collaborate with Cannes this year, in what Venice artistic director Alberto Barbera says would be a "sign of solidarity towards the cinema world" during the coronavirus crisis."

"ANSA quoted Barbera as saying he had not excluded the possibility of "a real collaboration with the Cannes Film Festival, which would be a sign of solidarity towards the cinema world, which is now more than ever in difficulty."  Barbera said he was in talks with Frémaux and that there was a "concrete will" on both sides to find a solution."


The story suggests that Venice, at least at this point, continues to stay the course on its planned dates of Sept. 2-12.

The full THR story is here.



21ST CENTURY FILMS AND TELLURIDE

I missed this back a few weeks ago when Empire Online published their list of the 100 Greatest Films of the 21st Century (so far).  Empire says in the introductory paragraphs that the list (originally published on Jan. 8th) that they combined the thoughts of their team with thousands of responses from their readers in compiling the list.

So, as you might expect...I had to see how many and at what spots within the 100 that Telluride films popped up.  Here's what I discovered...19 TFF films made the list.  Here they are presented with their position and the year that they screened at TFF:

95- A Prophet (09)
90- Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon (00)
83- Frances Ha (12)
72- Birdman (14)
63- Under the Skin (13)
60- Carol (15)
54- Brokeback Mountain (05)
46- Inside Llewyn Davis (13)
44- Roma (18)
36- Lady Bird (17)
35- Arrival (16)
34- Zodiac (08)
31- Amelie (01)
24- La La Land (16)
23- City of God (02)
15- Spirited Away (02)
11- There Will Be Blood (scenes screened as part of Daniel Day Lewis tribute 07)
10- Lost in Translation (03)
5- Moonlight (16)

Notes: 
*The #1 film on the list: George Miller's Mad Max: Fury Road.

*You could make a case for 2016 being TFF's strongest year with three films making this list: #5 Moonlight, #24 La La Land and #35 Arrival.

* TFF 2002 landed two films on the list: #15 Spirited Away and #23 City of God.  TFF 2013 also has two films making the grade: #46 Inside Llewyn Davis and #63 Under the Skin.

*Ang Lee is the only director to land two TFF films on the list: #54 Brokeback Mountain and #90 Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon.

*The Noah Baumbach/Greta Gerwig team scores with #83 Frances Ha (Baumbach directed and co-wrote with Gerwig who stars in it) and #36 Lady Bird (written and directed by Gerwig.  Baumbach gets a "Special Thanks" mention in the credits).


Check out the complete list of 100 films from Empire Online linked here.



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The Guardian Takes a Stab/Bergdahl Story and Duelling Films/10 Great TFF Films I Didn't See at TFF Part 3

Good Wednesday to All...


THE GUARDIAN TAKES A STAB

On the scene of "Unbroken"

Britain's The Guardian published/posted a fall festival speculation piece yesterday focused on the triumvirate of Telluride, Venice and Toronto.  Naturally, when a real big time journalistic outfit attempts to read those tea leaves attention must be paid.  So, before I start to parse their predictions, here's the link to the post:

http://www.theguardian.com/film/filmblog/2014/jun/17/venice-toronto-telluride-film-festival-2014-predictions

The Guardian predicts for Telluride:

Angelina Jolie's "Unbroken"...yes please...but I'm still very wary of the chances we'll have this play in T-ride.  Still, at least someone besides me thinks it's not an absolutely crazy notion that it could.

Noah Baumbach's "While We're Young".  I agree that if this film is ready, that there's a great chance that it plays on the TFF #41 program.

Todd Haynes "Carol".  My feeling is that this film could play Telluride but it's far from a certainty.

David Lipsky's "The End of the Tour".  Much like "Carol", I think this is possible, but it certainly isn't going to be on the first "Ten Bets" list next week.

Those are the only films that the piece marks as Telluride-likely.

Looking at their guesses for Venice, which usually shares three but last year shared six titles with Telluride...their picks all seem more likely to play Venice and skip Telluride...but you never know.  Among the films that The Guardian think will play Venice are Paul Thomas Anderson's "Inherent Vice", Tim Burton's "Big Eyes" and Woody Allen's "Magic in the Moonlight".

Their Toronto picks have some real resonance in terms of Toronto's ultimatum to premiere there rather than T-ride or be programmed in the middle of the week or on the second weekend.  The Toronto picks include:
real Telluride possibles like Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu's "Birdman", J.C. Chandor's "A Most Violent Year" and Morten Tyldem's "The Imitation Game".  Also included are less likely T-ride titles such as David Fincher's "Gone Girl" and Rob Marshall's "Into the Woods".

Not mentioned anywhere: Bennett Miller's "Foxcatcher".

The whole post is really interesting.  Click the link above.

BERGDAHL STORY AND DUELLING FILMS

The return of Bowe Bergdahl from the Taliban has apparently sparked the interest of a a couple of major film makers hot to adapt the story.  Thompson on Hollywood reported yesterday that Kathryn Bigelow/Mark Boal of "Zero Dark Thirty" and "The Hurt Locker" are interested as well as Todd Field and Fox Searchlight.  The field/Searchlight team would be a much more likely combo on a film that might ultimately make its way to T-ride.  Read the entire post here:

http://blogs.indiewire.com/thompsononhollywood/bigelow-and-boal-chase-ripped-from-headlines-bergdahl-movie-as-does-fox-searchlight-and-todd-field#


10 GREAT TFF FILMS I DIDN'T SEE AT TFF

I'm continuing my list of ten great films that have played as a part of Telluride's festival that I didn't see there but saw later.  So far I've listed: "Blue Velvet", "Ed Wood", "Sling Blade" and "The Straight Story".  Today's two additions are...

From 2001, Jean-Pierre Jeunet's "Amelie".  I'm not usually a sucker for the kind of whimsy that this film embraces, but, man, if you're going to utilize whimsy in the service of story and that seems grounded in character...this is the film that pulls it off.  Audrey Tautou...wonderful.  (Also, shout out to Eric Bialas who would, it seems, also put "Amelie" on his version of this list).

And, of course, from 2005, Ang Lee's "Brokeback Mountain".  Heath Ledger is just brilliant. Gyllenhaal and Hathaway...look and sound like they're acting...but Ledger's performance, by itself, lifts the film up and up. Michelle Williams' performance is nothing to sneeze at either.

Tomorrow another film from 2005 and the first film that screened while I was at a Telluride Film Fest...that I saw later...


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