The Guardian Predicts / The Euro Producers; The French-Cinecinema/Cine+ / Fences Swings for the Fences

Good Thursday World!


THE GUARDIAN PREDICTS

Britain's The Guardian posted a "40 Films We Predict Will Premiere at Venice, Toronto or Telluride" story yesterday.  The predix offer some surprises.  Breaking it down: the article bresks the 40 films into three categories-Dead Certs, Quite Likely and If It's Ready.

The piece names Telluride as a specific possibility for two films that we already know will play somewhere before the BFI/London Fest owing to their status their as European premieres: A United Kingdom and The Queen of Katwe.  United Kingdom seems to me to be the more likely T-ride player of the two.  Venice is listed as a specific designated fest probability for Planetarium while Toronto is listed for A United Kingdom, The Queen of Katwe, The Girl on the Train, Free Fire and The Seagull.

Among their "Dead Certs" the best Telluride potentials look like: Denial (from Bleeker Street which partnered with Netflix last year on Beats of No Nation), One or the other of TWC's The Founder or Lion and Arrival.  Outside T-ride shots in this category: The Secret Scripture, The Mercy and the Malick double play of Weightless and The Voyage of Time.

Interestingly, The Guardian lists Warren Beatty's Rules Don;t Apply in the Dead Cert category which is very intriguing,

In the Quite Likely category you'll fins Telluride possibilities such as HHhH and Gold (the other two Weinstein fall films...at least for the moment), 20th Century Women, War Machine (from Netflix), Wilson and How to Talk to Girls at Parties.

Among the "If It's Ready" films I don't find anything that's A) likely to be ready and B) if it is, likely to be a Telluride bound...though I'd really like to put in a word for Miss Sloane.

It's worth noting that The Guardian sponsored TFF #42.

Check the complete article here:

https://www.theguardian.com/film/filmblog/2016/jul/20/40-films-predict-premiere-venice-toronto-telluride-festivals




THE EURO PRODUCERS: THE FRENCH-CINECINEMA/CINE+

CineCinema changed over to Cine+ within the last few years but it's all the same.  This production company has often been represented at Telluride over the last few years:

2005: Lemming, Live and Become
2006: The Page Turner, Indigenes
2007: The Diving Bell and The Butterfly
2008: With a Little Help from Myself
2009: Farewell, Coco Before Chanel, A Prophet, Inferno
2010: The Illusionist, The Princess of Montpensier, Of Gods and Men
2011: Goodbye First Love, The Kid with a Bike, Le Havre, The Artist
2012: Rust and Bone, Superstar, The Attack, Amour
2013: The Past, Blue is the Warmest Color, Le Maison de la Radio
2014: The Gate. The Price of Fame, Two Days One Night, Diplomacy
2015: Marguerite

The best opportunities for Cine+ to play Telluride this year is Slack Bay.  After that their slate doesn't look, at this point, to offer a lot of other possibilities.


FENCES SWINGS FOR THE FENCES

Fences still from Deadline.com

We missed mentioning this acouple of days ago but Denzel Washington's adaptation of August Wilson's Fences has been dated for an awards season qualifying time frame.  Mutiple reports put the film which Washington both directs and stars in as being released in a limited fashion on Dec. 16 and then going wider on Dec. 25.  Fences is from Paramount which is loaded with titles for this awards season.  In addition to Fences they have Allied, Arrival and Silence.

Admittedly, Fences is an unlikely Telluride film...but you never know...

Coverage of the Fences date announcement:

http://variety.com/2016/film/news/denzel-washington-fences-december-release-1201816381/

http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/denzel-washingtons-fences-snags-awards-912004

http://www.ew.com/article/2016/07/18/denzel-washington-fences-release-date

That's it for Thursday.  Come back tomorrow for the latest Telluride Ten Bets.  It's the last one before announcements from Toronto and Venice.

Contact MTFB at:

mpgort@gmail.com

OR on Twitter @Gort2

OR check out Michael's Telluride Film Blog on Facebook:

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OR leave a comment...

TFF #43 Has a Guest Director / Tupac / Denial Undenied

Good Friday.  Hope everyone had a good week.  I know I did. I've spent this week in Salt Lake City at the National Speech and Debate tournament both as a coach with kids competing and as a part of the tournament staff.  It was a great time but ends today.

TFF #43 HAS A GUEST DIRECTOR

Many of you may have seen this yesterday.  I certainly re-tweeted the news a couple of times.  German film director Volker Sclondorff has been named as this year's guest director for TFF.  Here's the press release that was sent out yesterday:

BERKELEY, CA – Telluride Film Festival, presented by National Film Preserve LTD., is proud to announce its 2016 Guest Director, Volker Schlöndorff. The globally acclaimed German filmmaker, producer, writer and actor is set to select a series of films to present at the 43rd Telluride Film Festival running over Labor Day Weekend, September 2-5, 2016.

Festival organizers annually select one of the world’s great film enthusiasts to join them in the creation of the Festival’s program lineup. The Guest Director serves as a key collaborator in the Festival’s programming decisions, bringing new ideas and overlooked films to Telluride. In keeping with Telluride Film Festival tradition, Schlöndorff’s film selections, along with the rest of the Telluride lineup, will be kept secret until Opening Day.

“Volker is the type of person Tom Luddy and I dream about when we begin the Guest Director selection process,” said Telluride Film Festival executive director Julie Huntsinger. “His love and knowledge of the cinema allows for limitless possibilities; films we could never imagine being shown on the big screen again. What a truly unique experience we will have at the 43^rd Telluride Film Festival with Volker in charge!”

One of the most significant and internationally celebrated German directors of our time, Volker Schlöndorff has a passion for bringing German and international literary classics to the screen and making them accessible to larger audiences. Volker began his filmmaking journey at the legendary film school IDHEC followed by his first debut feature, YOUNG TÖRLESS (1966). Decades later, having worked in Europe and America, his extensive body of work has garnered him an Academy Award, the Palme d’Or, and international accolades from Berlin to Venice to Telluride, where he received the Silver Medallion in 2014.

"Since 1981 Telluride has been part of my life, my favorite festival for the uniqueness of the location and the number of friends I met and made there,” said Schlöndorff. “It's not just about our love of movies, but of life and conviviality and good will for a lot of lost causes. Julie Huntsinger and Tom Luddy are in touch with me all around the year, exchanging funny links and gossip. Of all honours, it's one of the greatest to curate a program in the mountains."

Past Guest Directors include Rachel Kushner, Guy Maddin, Caetano Veloso, Michael Ondaatje, Alexander Payne, Salman Rushdie, Peter Bogdanovich, B. Ruby Rich, Phillip Lopate, Errol Morris, Bertrand Tavernier, John Boorman, John Simon, Buck Henry, Laurie Anderson, Stephen Sondheim, G. Cabrera Infante, Peter Sellars, Don DeLillo, J.P. Gorin, Edith Kramer and Slavoj Žižek.

http://variety.com/2016/film/news/volker-schlondorff-telluride-festival-guest-director-1201796933/

TUPAC

Open Road Films which had such great success last year at Telluride with Spotlight has three films that could possibly sneak into the Telluride lineup; Oliver Stone's Snowden, Ben Younger's boxing pic Bleed for This and Benny Boom's Tupac Shakur biopic All Eyez on Me.  The latter dropped a teaser trailer yesterday.  The trailer is here with coverage linked below:

All Eyez on Me Teaser from YouTube

http://variety.com/2016/film/news/tupac-shakur-biopic-first-look-all-eyez-on-me-trailer-birthday-1201796891/

http://www.slashfilm.com/all-eyez-on-me-teaser-trailer/

https://thefilmstage.com/trailer/tupac-shakur-gets-a-biopic-in-first-trailer-for-all-eyez-on-me/

http://www.businessinsider.com/tupac-biopic-all-eyez-on-me-gets-a-striking-new-teaser-trailer-2016-6

http://www.awardscircuit.com/2016/06/16/107847/


All Eyez on Me is set for release on Nov. 11.


DENIAL UNDENIED

Yesterday, I wrote about the appearance and disappearance of a trailer for Mick Jackson's Denial. Now The Playlist has the trailer up and running in a post from yesterday that went up after I posted. Check the trailer (via YouTube) and the story here:

http://theplaylist.net/rachel-weisz-fights-truth-first-trailer-holocaust-drama-denial-20160615/

Denial opens on Sept. 30.


Thanks for reading...Have a good weekend.

Contact MTFB at:

mpgort@gmail.com

OR on Twitter @Gort2

OR check out Michael's Telluride Film Blog on Facebook:

https://www.facebook.com/Michaels-Telluride-Film-Blog-and-The-Film-Awards-Clearinghouse-107846269309712/

OR leave a comment...

Could Villenueve Return to Telluride? / Denial Trailer Denied

Good Thursday campers!  Welcome to MTFB!

COULD VILLENUEVE RETURN TO TELLURIDE?

Still from Arrival via Twitter (@MichaelNotCera)

Canadian film maker Denis Villenueve has made a strong impression at Telluride in the recent past with both Incendies appearing there in 2010 and Prisoners in 2013.  Then, last year, his Sicario was not on the Telluride bill but was at Toronto and one has to wonder if his Canadian-ness was a reason for that.  We don't know why Sicario wasn't on the program for TFF #42.

We have seen speculation that Villenueve's newest project, Arrival (formerly The Story of Your Life) will open in November in Great Britain.  Further, The Playlist, which provides the context for this story, flat out suggests a possible return for Villenueve to Telluride with the picture.

The synopsis sounds intriguing...aliens and humans trying to communicate with them... and it stars Amy Adams and Jeremy Renner.  One fly in the ointment in terms of projecting it for Telluride is that it's in the Paramount stable for distribution and they don't often play at TFF, though they did play Telluride last year with Anomalisa.

The Playlist article is here:

http://theplaylist.net/denis-villeneuves-story-of-your-life-retitled-arrival-opens-uk-this-fall-20160615/

 And Arrival's IMDb page is here:

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2543164/?ref_=ttco_co_tt



DENIAL TRAILER DENIED

Denial image via Indiewire

Mick Jackson's Denial hasn't appeared on my Telluride radar until the past few days.  An Indiewire post yesterday had, or appeared to have had trailer up for the film that stars Rachel Weisz, Timothy Spall and Tom Wilkinson.

It seems that it could land a spot at T-ride based on its release date- Spet. 30th and that its distributor is Bleeker Street which got its foot in the Telluride door last year as a partner with Netflix distributing Cary Fukunaga's Beasts of No Nation.

Denial is based on the true story of the libel suit between author Deborah E. Lipstadt (Weisz) and Holocaust denier David Irving (Spall).

At any rate, the trailer is not labeled as "private" both in the Indiewire story and at YouTube.  My guess is that we'll see the teaser relatively soon.

The Indiewire story is here:

http://www.indiewire.com/2016/06/denial-trailer-rachel-weisz-tom-wilkinson-holocaust-1201689080/

Denial's IMDb page:

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt4645330/



That's wrap for Thursday.

Contact MTFB at:

mpgort@gmail.com

OR on Twitter @Gort2

OR check out Michael's Telluride Film Blog on Facebook:

https://www.facebook.com/Michaels-Telluride-Film-Blog-and-The-Film-Awards-Clearinghouse-107846269309712/

OR leave a comment...