TEN (Plus) BETS #10
Toronto has completed announcing its lineup and we're just a week-ish away from the 49th edition of the Telluride Film Festival. Some adds and slight changes to this next-to-last set of Bets. I'll have a FINAL TEN (PLUS) BETS in Monday's MTFB post.
By way of re-capping, here's last week's Ten (Plus) Bets:
1) One Fine Morning/Hansen-Love
2) Women Talking/Polley
3) Broker/Kore-eda
4) Holy Spider/Abbasi
5) The Wonder/Lelio
6) Empire of Light/Mendes
7) Armageddon Time/Gray
8) Bardo/Inarritu
9) TAR/Fields
10) Bones and All/Guadagnino
11) Good Night Oppy/White
12) A Compassionate Spy/James
13) Godland/Palmason
14) Theatre of Thought/Herzog
15) Living/Hermanus
Others Possibilities: Close/Dhont, Tori and Lokita/Dardennes, The Forger/Peren, Tuesday/Oniunas-Pusic, The Fire Within/Herzog, Dreamin' Wild/Pohlad, March on Rome/Cousins, Argentina 1985/Mitre, The Story of Film: A New Generation/Cousins, Athena/Gavras, Aftersun/Wells, Anastasia/McCarthy, Sr./Smith.
And here's this weeks updated Bets:
1) Empire of Light/Mendes
2) Women Talking/Polley
3) The Wonder/Lelio
4) Bardo/Iarritu
5) TAR/Field
6) Broker/Kore-eda
7) Holy Spider/Abbasi
8) Armageddon Time/Gray
9) Bones and All/Guadignino
10) One Fine Morning/Hansen-Love
11) Godland/Palmason
12) A Compassionate Spy/James
13) Good Night Oppy/White
14) Theatre of Thought/Herzog
15) Sr./Smith
16 The U.S, and the Holocaust/Burns
17) All the Beauty and the Bloodshed/Poitras
18) Close/Dhont
19) Something from Mark Cousins*
20) Aftersun/Wells
Others Possibilities: Living/Hermanus, Tori and Lokita/Dardennes, The Forger/Peren, Tuesday/Oniunas-Pusic, The Fire Within/Herzog, Dreamin' Wild/Pohlad, Argentina 1985/Mitre, The Story of Film: A New Generation/Cousins*, My Name Is Alfred Hitchcock/Cousins*, March on Rome/Cousins*, Athena/Gavras, Anastasia/McCarthy, The Pupils/Rohrwacher
EMPIRE OF LIGHT POSTER AND TEASER
One of the films that I'm most sure will ply next week at Telluride is Sam Mendes' Empire of Light. At the moment it's among my top 2-3 films to make sure to catch next week. Frankly, I wouldn't be surprised to see an Olivia Colman Tribute that includes the film...though maybe Toby Jones gets a tribute as he appears to be included in two films that will be screen next. In addition to Empire of Light Jones also appears in The Wonder.
At any rate, Searchlight has dropped a cool teaser for the film:
ATHENA GETS A TRAILER
Romain Gavras' Athena is a film that I have been including most of the season as an "Other Possibility" mostly due to its distributor: Netflix and as of late, its scheduled first screening at the Venice Film Fest-9:00 am Sept 2. That's also the same day that TAR and Bones and All are also screening initially. So...it's possible.
Netflix dropped a full trailer on Wednesday ahead of its Venice premiere (and possible Telluride SHOW).
Here's that trailer from YouTube:
IMDb's description of the film:
"Hours after the tragic death of their youngest brother in unexplained circumstances, three siblings have their lives thrown into chaos."
Irrespective if it does play Telluride is its release date for Netflix on Sept. 23rd.
RETURN OF AFTERSUN
You may have noticed that I have returned Charlotte Wells' Aftersun to the actual list of 20 films I'm expecting at TFF #49. That's because multiple sources reached out to me yesterday to let me know that the firm handling the PR for the film had sent an email to various press members that the film is screening at Toronto as a Canadian Premiere. That is at odds with what the film's premiere designation is at the TIFF website as of this morning. It's till listed as a North American Premiere there.
Aftersun is posted for the New York fest with no premiere designation which would normally signal a Telluride appearance...so with that apparent contradiction, I had moved it from the actual "Bets" to the list of "Other Possibilities"
I've thought Aftersun was a likely TFF #49 candidate since it debuted at Cannes last May. Its critical reception and its distribution by A24 made me think it was a very likely choice. Now, it seems, the record is probably set straight and so back to the "Bets" for today.
CAMDEN FILM FEST ANNOUNCEMENT SEEMS TO CONFIRM "SR." FOR TFF #49
Variety reporting selections made for the 18th annual Camden International Film Festival on Monday appear to have confirmed the Telluride world premiere of Chris smith's documentary about Indie film director Robert Downey, Sr. The film is entitled "Sr."
Here's the last paragraph of the Aug. 22nd post:
"This year’s CIFF highlights include the U.S. premiere of Tamana Ayazi and Marcel Mettelsiefen’s Netflix release “In Her Hands,” which follows one of Afghanistan’s first female mayors during the months leading up to the Taliban takeover the country in 2021; Chris Smith’s “Sr.,” centered on the life and career of Robert Downey Sr. and his relationship to his son, Robert Downey Jr.; and Steve James’ “A Compassionate Spy,” about Manhattan Project physicist, Soviet spy and University of Chicago alum Theodore Hall. Each of the three featured documentaries will have made its world premiere before CIFF, at festivals in Toronto, Telluride and Venice, respectively."
BTW, we also think T-ride is going to screen Steve James' A Compassionate Spy at TFF #49.
MARCH ON ROME POSTER
Director Mark Cousins tweeted a photo of the poster for one of his new films: March on Rome which Cousins suggested is: "The new poster for my film about fascism." Not to put too fine a point on it.
Cousins has at least 2-3 projects that could make an appearance at TFF including this one as well as The Story of Film: A New Generation and an Alfred Hitchcock film he has been working on.
Cousins has also recently tweeted about making sure he could get his passport updated for travel to America as well as this tweet from yesterday:
"From Monday for 2 weeks I will be on a film journey in several countries, doing lots of things.
I'll tweet as I go, but mute me if it's a bit much."
This lends continued creedence to my belief that the T-ride regular and TFF member of its Esteemed Council of Advisors will be there next week with something. Maybe two somethings.
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