Another View of Cannes / A New Date Spurs Speculation

 ANOTHER VIEW OF CANNES

Here's another look at films that could play Cannes in May and then Telluride in June.  This rumination comes from Jordan Ruimy of World of Reel.  He's been steadily tracking Cannes title possibilities for months.  

Die, My Love/No Distribution/Lynne Ramsay

The Disappearance of Joseph Mengele/No Distribution/Kirill Serebrennikov

In the Hand(s) of Dante/No Distribution/Julian Schnabel

The Love That Remains/No Distribution/Hylnur Palmason

The Magnificent Life of Marcel Pagnol/Sony Pictures Classics/Sylvain Chomet

The Mastermind/Mubi/Kelly Reichardt

Orphan/No Distribution/Laszlo Nemes 

The Way of the Wind/No Distribution/Terrence Malick

The Young Mother's Home/No Distribution/The Dardennes Brothers

Here's Ruimy's extensive list.

A NEW DATE SPURS SPECULATION

Warner Brothers dropped a stunner of a piece pf news yesterday that Paul Thomas Anderson's latest, One Battle After Another has been re-dated from August 8th to September 26th.  The announcement opened a door to speculation about the reasons for the move including the possibility of a fall film festival premiere.

Anderson attended TFF in 2007 for the tribute to Daniel Day-Lewis which included a screening of a few minutes of There Will Be Blood.  His track record with fests shows no favoritism regarding any particular fest.  Here's the track record:

Hard Eight-Sundance

Boogie Nights-Toronto

Magnolia-No fest

Punch Drunk Love-Cannes

There Will Be Blood-Telluride (sort of) then Fantastic Fest

The Master-Venice

Inherent Vice-New York Film Fest

Phantom Thread-Premiered in New York then the Palm Springs Film Fest

Licorice Pizza-Premiered in Los Angeles then the Santa Barbara International Film festival

Gold Derby name checked T-ride specifically as a possible film fest destination for the new film saying:

"It (the new date) also positions Anderson’s highly anticipated movie in the heart of awards season and opens up the possibility of a fall festival launch at either the Venice Film Festival, Telluride Film Festival, or Toronto International Film Festival."

Both World of Reel and The Film Stage suggest the possibility of an appearance at a "fall film festival".

As you might expect, I'll be keeping up with developments in this matter.  Frankly, I think it's a long shot at best, but...

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750,000 / 50 for Cannes / Meanwhile...Venice

750,000

I kind of teased this a little bit in my last post.  MTFB passed its 750,000 view over the weekend.  Three quarters of a million views!  That makes my head explode just a little bit. 

MTFB's first appeared on August 8th 2008 (8/8/08).  Today marks the 2115th post since I started this thing meaning that each post has averaged 355ish views.  The single most viewed post was Jan. 18, 2018.  That post focused on precursors that were upcoming for the 90th Oscar ceremony and a Variety piece featuring Greta Gerwig and Saorise Ronan talking about Lady Bird.

Here's the very post.

Here's the most viewed post.

50 FOR CANNES

Eric Kohn and the gang at Indiewire has put together a list of 50 films that the billas films they'd "like to see" at Cannes in May.  The heading on the email link for the story from Twitter calls them predictions though.  

As I have said many times, the Cannes/Telluride connection is very real.  Last year the Cannes/Telluride crossover was nine films by my count:

Armageddon Time

Broker

Close

Godland 

Holy Spider

One Fine Morning

Tori and Lokita

Le Pupille

Aftersun

Last year from Indiewire's 50 film wish list I culled 15 "possible" crossover films and from that list, seven actually made the trip: Armageddon Time, Broker, Close, Holy Spider, One Fine Morning, Tori and Lokita and Women Talking.

Bones and All was the only film on last year's Indiewire list that made the Telluride lineup (and from Venice not Cannes) that I didn't have in the 2022 version of this post.

The Indiewire post starts with the caveat that everyone is assuming that Killers of the Flower Moon will screen out of competition at Cannes as well as Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny.  I'm already frequently on record that I'm making blood sacrifices in my backyard to get Killers to TFF but that I think the chances are slim.  Not impossible...but slim.  Of course Indy 5 releases on June 30th.

They also mention Pedro Almodovar's short film Strange Way of Life which is tipped to be the opening night film.  I actually think there is a reasonable possibility that it does make the TFF #50 lineup.

That said...here are what I think are the best shots at Cannes-then-Telluride films for the 50th edition of The SHOW from the Indieiwire list:

The Book of Solutions/Michel Gondry

Dead Leaves/Aki Kaurismaki

La Chimera/Alice Rohrwacher

Io Capitano/Matteo Garrone

Monster/Hirokazu Kore-eda

The New Boy/Warwick Thornton

May/December/Todd Haynes

Poor Things/Yorgos Lanthimos

The Royal Hotel/Kitty Green

Tokyo Toilet/Wim Wenders

The Zone of Interest/Jonathan Glazer

Here's the complete Indiewire story.

MEANWHILE...VENICE

Jordan Ruimy at World of Reel posted a Venice spec piece on Saturday and it has some interesting ideas.  Venice and Cannes have nearly the same level of crossover to Telluride with Venice averaging (over the last decade) 7.3 films making the Venice/Telluride double dip.

Last year there were 10 films that accomplished the double play:

Bardo

Bobi Wine

Bones and All

A Compassionate Spy

Desperate Souls: Midnight Cowboy...

Fragments of Paradise

Living

TAR

March on Rome

All the Beauty and the Bloodshed

So what does Jordan have that could (or that I want to) make the Venice/Telluride connection?

Poor Things/Yorgos Lanthimos

AND/Yorgos Lanthimos

The Killer/David Fincher

Blitz/Steve McQueen

How Do You Live?/Hayao Myazaki

The Holdovers/Alexander Payne

Maestro/Bradley Cooper

Challengers/Luca Guadagnino

Strangers/Andrew Haigh

Ruimy also mentions a couple of other films that could be in the mix for Venice first and then T-ride: Sofia Coppola's Priscilla and Jonathan Glazer's The Zone of Interest.

Here's Jordan's full post.

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Now That Oscar 2021 Is Over... / Cannes Countdown-Possible Titles / There Is No Evil Trailer and Date / Never Gonna Snow Again Trailer Released

NOW THAT OSCAR 2021 IS OVER...

GoldDerby.com wasted zero time getting  a prospective list of films that could be in the Oscar hunt 10 months from now assuming The Academy doesn't move the probable dates again for Oscar #94.

Looking at their list, a few jump out as possible TFF #48 choices (or are, at least on my wish list and/or radar):

Andrew Dominik's Blonde

Mike Mills' C'mon C'mon

Denis Villenueve's Dune

Will Sharpe's The Electrical Life of Louis Wain

Michael Showalter's The Eyes of Tammy Faye

Wes Anderson's The French Dispatch

Taika Waititi's Next Goal Wins

Guillermo Del Toro's Nightmare Alley

Jane Campion's The Power of the Dog

The complete Gold Derby list is linked here.

CANNES COUNTDOWN-POSSIBLE TITLES

Variety ran down a number of films that it suggests have a reasonable shot at making the lineup for the Cannes Film Festival now scheduled to take place from July 6-17.  If the fest happens on those dates then the Cannes/Telluride connection that we have seen over the last several years could well be in place to recur.

So here are some of the speculated (and not so speculated) titles that Variety mentions that might make the Cannes/Telluride double play (some of which are mentioned in the Oscar  segment above):

Wes Anderson's The French Dispatch

Sean Penn's Flag Day

Jane Campion's The Power of the Dog

Paul Schrader's The Card Counter

Jacques Audiard's Paris 13th District

Asghar Farhadi's A Hero

Mia Hansen-Love's Bergman Island

Ari Folman's Where Is Anne Frank

Cannes will announce its lineup on May 27th.

THERE IS NO EVIL TRAILER AND DATE

Mohammad Rasoulof would have had another film play at Telluride in 2020 had the festival taken place.  His Berlin Golden Bear winning There Is No Evil was an official selection of TFF #47.  Rasoulof previously screened Manuscripts Don't Burn and A Man of Integrity at TFF.

Now word comes from distributor Kino Lorber that the film will be released on May 14th.  To underscore that announcement, Kino Lorber released a trailer for the film this week.  Here it is thanks to YouTube:

Here's the story from Indiewire.

 

NEVER GONNA SNOW AGAIN  TRAILER RELEASED

Ahead of its New York premiere this weekend, Kino Lorber has released a trailer for Poland's official nominee for the just past Oscar for Best International Feature, Malgorzata Szumowska and Michal Englert's Never Gonna Snow Again.  The film was an official selection of TFF #47.

The description of the film from IMDb says:

"Zhenia, a Russian-speaking immigrant from the East works as a masseur in Poland and becomes a guru-like figure in a wealthy gated community of his clients."

Indiewire reports that the film will be released in July.

Here's the trailer from YouTube:

And the story from Indiewire is linked here.

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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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