Obsessing about the Telluride Film Festival and the film awards season since 2008!
"The best blog out there for predicting what will be going to Telluride."-Matt Neglia, Next Best Picture
"The Nostradamus of Telluride"
-Tim Appelo, Movies for Grownups
"But it's our job." - Anne Thompson, Indiewire
The Toronto International Film Festival announced another set of films this morning for their Sept.10-20 soiree. That announcement contains clues about what could play a week earlier at Telluride. To wit:
Canadian Premiere status for Jafhar Panahi's "Taxi" which premiered at Berlin, makes it seem likely to show up at Telluride. (UPDATE; "TAXI HAD ITS N. AMER. PREEM IN APRIL IN MEXICO...so probably NOT playing Telluride)
International Premiere status for documentaries "He Named Me Malala" and "Amazing Grace" also seem to point to a Telluride play before landing at Telluride.
Other docs listed as Canadian Premieres that didn't play at Sundance and so could well be headed to Telluride include:
"A Young Patriot"
"Heart of a Dog"
"Hitchcock/Truffaut"
"Sherpa"
"Winter on Fire"
I'm hedging my best here as documentaries are notoriously fickle to nail down in terms of their actual dates of presentation.
That said, the "Hitchcock/Truffaut" presentation could be phenomenal.
Films listed in the TIFF Masters section that appear to be off the table for Telluride owing to their status as World or North American Premieres include, in part:
"Our Little Sister"
"Every Thing Will Be Fine"
"Cemetery of Splendor"
"The Assassin"
Films still unannounced for any fall film fest we're aware of:
"Suffragette"
"I Saw the Light"
"Our Brand is Crisis"
"In the Heart of the Sea"
"By the Sea"
"Truth"
"Steve Jobs"
"Manchester-by-the-Sea"
"Secret in Their Eyes"
"Bridge of Spies"
"Queen of the Desert"
"Salt and Fire"
"45 Years"
"13 Minutes"
"Carol"
"Macbeth"
"Adam Jones/Burnt"
"Snowden"
"Joy"
"The Light Between Oceans"
"Crimson Peak"
"The 33"
"The Last Face"
More to come in tomorrow's regularly scheduled MTFB post...
Welcome Back from the weekend. My apologies for the late post today but I got in late last night from Steamboat Springs, CO. after being there for an art show. Now onto the business at hand.
A FINAL LOOK AT DISTRIBUTORS
STRAND RELEASING
Strand has been a consistent presence at Telluride over the past five years:
2010: Cameraman: The Life and Work of Jack Cardiff
2011: Bonsai
2012: Paradise: Love
2013: The Missing Picture
2014: A Borrowed Identity (Dancing Arabs)
This year their most likely player, and really the only film they list at IMDb that seems like a possible T-ride choice, is from 2010 Cannes Palme d'Or ("Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives") winner Apichatpong Weerasethakul's "Cemetery of Splendor". The film played this year at Cannes in the Un Certain Regard program and has been very well reviewed since. I put the chances of this film playing at Telluride at 40%.
OPEN ROAD
Open Road Films showed up with a splash at Telluride last year with Jon Stewart's directorial debut "Rosewater". To the best of my ability to research, it was the first time Open Roads has made a play at Telluride. 2015 could be the second straight year to make the fest with, I think, four films that might make the grade again this year with four possible films that seem to be intriguing as Telluride potentials:
Tom McCarthy's "Spotlight" starring Michael Keaton among others.
John Hillcoat's "Triple Nine"
Oliver Stone's "Snowden" and
Barry Levinson's "Rock the Kasbah"
However...
Hillcoat was in Telluride in 2009 with "The Road" but "Triple 9" isn't set for release until March, 2016.
Stone was in Telluride in 1997 with "U-Turn". I wonder if he might be talked into returning to Telluride for this film.
McCarthy's "Spotlight", about corruption with the Boston Catholic Church hierarchy, is among a half dozen films that are being rumored to open the Toronto Fest.
Levinson played Venice with Al Pacino in "The Humbling" in 2014. Perhaps he does that again this year and then makes the flight to Telluride.
Alchemy was present at Telluride last year with Madam Bovary from director Sophie Barthes in only the second year of their existence. This season they have a couple of Cannes films in their larder that could show at The SHOW.
Both Nanni Moretti's "Mia Madre" and Yorgos Lanthimos' "The Lobster" made respectable splashes in competition at Cannes. "Mia Madre" won the Ecumenical Jury Prize and "The Lobster" won a Jury Prize. So either film could easily be on the T-ride programmers radar.
Chances for both films is at 35%
KINO LORBER
KL was at Telluride last year with "The Decent One".
Other Telluride plays include:
2013: "Manuscripts Don't Burn", La Maison de la Radio", Burning Bush"
Kino has the U.S. distribution for Cannes competit1on film, and again, a very well reviewed film, Zhangke Jia's "Mountains May Depart". I currently have "Mountains" off of the "Ten Bets' list, but it appeared a week earlier at #9. I think its chances are very good to make the T-ride lineup. Put those chances at 60%.
That will conclude this year's review of possible Telluride distributors. It's not a complete list of potential distributors (for example, "Trumbo" is at Bleecker Street, but they have no previous Telluride footprint and such a small catalogue of past films, evaluating it is impossible) but it's fairly exhaustive based on recent festivals and the films that are currently announced for probable release this year.
Tomorrow I'll begin a series of posts about European production firms that have a significant history with films that have played Telluride and what that might tell us for T-ride 2015.
"MISS YOU ALREADY" TRAILER
"Miss You Already" trailer from YouTube
We have our first look at Catherine Hardwicke's "Miss You Already". The film is in the hands of Roadside Attractions/Lionsgate and that is the biggest reason to take it seriously as a Telluride possible after Roadside's three film presence at the Fest.
Cameron Bailey, the Artistic Director for Toronto's Film Fest tweeted cryptically yesterday:
Who decides? News tomorrow morning. #TIFF15. Seems to me that we're going to hear some news from TIFF about who their programmers are.
TIFF should announce their first wave of films a week from today.
More tomorrow...
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