LATE BREAKING: SAG-AFTRA AUTHROIZES STRIKE / May December Not in September / MTFB's Ten Bets #4 / Ioncinema Predicts Venice

LATE BREAKING: SAG/AFTRA AUTHORIZES STRIKE

The National Board of SAG-AFTRA officially announced that the organization's members would be on strike at noon Pacific Time today.  The strike goes into effect at midnight (Pacific) tonight.

In addition to a shutdown of active film making those of us who pay attention to film festivals note that this action means that no SAG-AFTRA member will be allowed to promote projects in which they are involved.  How this affects fest like Telluride and others is not totally clear.  I have seen some speculation that some studios may be reluctant to send a film to a fest or feasts without the fire power of its stars being able to accompany a film.

Will news outlets shift the amount and intensity of their coverage with no talent to pursue?

Whatever happens it seems that the Fall Film Fests have a new wrinkle to deal with.

Roger Friedman of ShowBiz411.com provides some analysis about the potential effect of the strike on fall film fests including Telluride.

MAY DECEMBER NOT IN SEPTEMBER

The headline above is my faux-clever way of passing on that it appears that Todd Haynes' May December will NOT be playing at Telluride 2023. 

The New York Film Fest announced on Tuesday from the frequent TFF attendee, will North American Premiere as the Opening Night Film for NYFF.  The "North American Premiere" status tells us that the film will not have played anywhere in North America prior to its NYFF gig and that means no Telluride play.

Honestly, the last couple of weeks has really got me thinking that I don't have much of a grasp of what's going on this year.  

Haynes has been a frequent TFF presence but his films don't always play in the San Juans...just very, very often.

For example, his 2019 thriller, Dark Waters, also premiered at NYFF and did not play TFF but then you have to go all the way back to 1998's Velvet Underground to find a non-Telluride screening.  Haynes has bowed The Velvet Underground, Wonderstruck, Carol, I'm Not There and Far From Heaven all did play TFF.

Which leads to...

MTFB'S TEN BETS #4

As you might expect, with the above news about may December, the new "Ten Bets" has some changes.

Additionally, as a warning, next week (7/19) we get a big slew of announcements from Toronto that historically wrecks the "Bets".  Maybe I should re-think my hobbies...

Last week's Ten Bets were:

1) May December/Haynes

2) Poor Things/Lanthimos

3) Strangers/Haigh

4) The Holdovers/Payne

5) Monster/Kore-eda

6) Saltburn/Fennell

7) Nyad/ Chin and Vasarhelyi

8) Anatomy of a Fall/Triet

9) El Conde/Larrain

10) The Teachers' Lounge/Catak

Now...with some chagrin, here's this week's Ten Bets:

1) The Holdovers/Alexander Payne

2) Poor Things/Yorgos Lanthimos

3) Saltburn/Emerald Fennell

4) Strangers/Andrew Haigh

5) Nyad/Chin and Vasarhelyi

6) Monster/Kore-eda

7) Anatomy of a Fall/Justine Triet

8) Fallen Leaves/Aki Kaurismaki

9) The Teachers' Lounge/Ilker Catak

10) The Pot-au-Feu/Trinh Hung

Other possibilities: The Zone of Interest/Glazer, The End/Oppenheimer, El Conde/Pablo Larrain, Freud's Last Session/Brown, The Royal Hotel/Green, Rustin/Wolfe, The American Buffalo/Burns, Priscilla/Coppola and Shirley/Ridley.

IONCINEMA PREDICTS VENICE

Ioncinema put together a three part list of 75 possibilities for the Venice Fest.  Some Venice films are very likely to subsequently play at Telluride.  From the Ioncinema lists, here's a guess about some of the films that might make the trans-Atlantic jump:

From Part One:

The Burial/Maggie Betts

Daaaaaali!/Quentin Dupieux

Drive-Away Dolls/Ethan Coen***

El Conde/Pablo Larrain

Fingernails/Christos Nikou

From Part Two:

The Captain/Matteo Garrone

Lee/Ellen Kuras

Love Lies Bleeding/Rose Glass

Maestro/Bradley Cooper

From Part Three:

Poor Things/Yorgos Lanthimos

Priscilla/Sofia Coppola***

Strangers/Andrew Haigh

**I'm actually fairly convinced that this film is going to play Toronto and play T-ride BUT, it's only one of two films that Ioncinema lists and specifically suggests that Telluride is a possibility.

***The other film that specifies that Telluride is a possibility

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One of Those Detective Stories / Venice and TIFF Announcements Looming / Ioncinema Looks at Toronto / World of Reel's Latest Venice List / The Playlist's Oscar List

ONE OF THOSE DETECTIVE STORIES

Every now and then I run across pieces of information that either enlighten me about what will play at TFF or , conversely, won't play at TFF.  Sometimes I get tidbits that tell me something but doesn't quite get all the way to a definitive conclusion.  That last circumstance happened at the end of this past week.

On Wednesday. last week, I got a message from a follower of MTFB that he'd seen an announcement from Focus Features that they were hosting a contest for a chance to get tickets to a Gala Presentation for one of their films on Saturday, Sept. 9th at Roy Thomson Hall.  If you really follow all of this Premiere status closely over these past few years, you're aware that Toronto has made clear that ONLY WORLD PREMIERES will play Roy Thomson on TIFF's opening weekend.

Then, couple of days later, I was reading Eric Lavallee's (Ioncinema) June 28 post entitled 2023 Toronto International Film Festival (Strictly) World Premiere Predictions!  As many of you know, a World Premiere at Toronto (except in extremely weird or confused instances) means a film will not play at Telluride).  Early in the piece Lavallee writes:

"My golden calf prognostication is Alexander Payne‘s The Holdovers. We are predicting that it’ll bypass Telluride and Venice and what is somewhat fitting is that the Focus Features property was actually picked up at TIFF last year in a private market screening for buyers."

Well, those sentences set me back.  I have had The Holdovers as #1 on this year's first Ten Bets. 

So, does this mean no Holdovers at Telluride?  

Maybe.  BUT... not necessarily.  The other big Focus title that's on everyone's radar has been Ethan Coen's Drive-Away Dolls.  That film is set for U.S. release on Sept. 22nd.  It's the only other Focus property that I can see that would fill the bill for a Gala Opening at TIFF on Sept. 9th.

Jordan Ruimy writing at World of Reel in a piece about Venice's announcement date wrote this:

"Alexander Payne’s “The Holdovers” would be a great get for Venice, but Focus, which is handling the film, has a tight friendship with Toronto and might just skip the Lido. The same could potentially be said about Ethan Coen’s “Drive-Away Dolls,” which is also Focus."

That sounds to me like Ruimy might be looking at the same information I am.

The bottom line seems to be that, at a minimum, one of the two films will be playing at Roy Thomson/TIFF on Sept. 9th and consequently will not play TFF #50.  It could actually portend that neither film is In Telluride on Labor Day weekend.

My best guess is that The Holdovers still plays at TFF and that Drive-Away Dolls is what fills the bill in Toronto.  I just have a hard time believing that Alexander Payne, a member of the TFF Board of Directors (at least as of last year), a past TFF Guest Director and who has screened three of his films at the fest since 2011, won't be bringing his latest film to the 50th TFF celebration.

Saying the same thing this week in his "Halfway to Oscars 2024 Qualifying: 40 Films in the Mix" post for The Playlist, Gregory Ellwood wrote:

“The Holdovers“*

Alexander Payne and Paul Giamatti reunite for the sort of melancholy dramedy that put them both on the map. If it doesn’t have its world premiere at Telluride (Payne attends almost every year), we’ll be shocked."

So, I'll be anxiously watching Toronto announcements to see if this puzzle can be solved.  And speaking of announcements...

VENICE AND TOTONTO ANNOUNCEMENTS LOOMING

We have known for a bit that TIFF will announce a big chunk of their lineup on July 19th.  We found out over the last few days that, per Screen Daily , the Venice lineup announcement will be on July 25th.

Both announcement's can be instructive re: The SHOW.  Toronto's announcement's can, by virtue of their Premiere Status designation, can tell us whether a film will or won't play at Telluride.  It's not 100% accurate, but it's close.

Venice, on the other, doesn't actually eliminate any TFF possibility but doesn't confirm anything either.  It's lineup points to films that could still be in play for a Telluride berth.  The other piece of the Venice puzzle is to scour their screening schedule when it gets released.  As a general rule, if a film is scheduled for Venice during the first three days (four at the outside) it still has a decent chance of showing up in the San Juans.

So keep those factors in mind as we wait for the dominos to begin to fall over the next two-three weeks.

IONCINEMA LOOKS AT TORONTO

As mentioned above, Eric Lavallee at Ioncinema published a speculative list of films that he suggests could World Premiere at Toronto and thus not make the TFF #50th.  We've already dissected the claim that TIFF will World Premiere The Holdovers, but what other films are on Lavallee's list that I have been thinking might be prime contenders for  T-ride?  Here's a list culled from Lavallee's in the order presented in the post:

Nyad/Chin and Vasarhelyi

Nightbitch/Heller

Foe/Davis

Saltburn/Fennell

Tuesday/Pusic

Freud's Last Session/Brown

The Royal Hotel/Green

The entire post is linked here.

WORLD OF REEL'S LATEST VENICE LIST

World of Reel's Jordan Ruimy has updated his list of Venice possibilities with the fest's announcement date news this week.  Here are films from his list that could do the Venice/Telluride two-step categorized as "Good Chance", "Maybe" and "Outside Shot"...at least in my current estimation:

GOOD CHANCE:

El Conde/Larrain

Poor Things/Lanthimos

Strangers/Haigh

MAYBE:

Priscilla/Coppola

The Royal Hotel/Green

Saltburn/Fennell

OUTSIDE SHOT:

Maestro/Cooper

The Captain/Garrone

Fingernails/Nikou

Drive-Away Dolls/Coen...but, you know, see above.

AND FINALLY...THE PLAYLIST'S OSCAR LIST

I mentioned above the comment from Gregory Ellwood's piece this week for The Playlist concerning The Holdovers and it's possibility for Telluride.  So, naturally, I ran down his list of 40 possible Best Picture contenders to evaluate it for TFF #50 players.  Ellwood has the films categorized as: Likely, Close, In the Mix, Curious and Need Convincing.  From each, the TFF possibles are:

LIKELY:

The Zone of Interest/Glazer

CLOSE:

Maestro/Cooper

IN THE MIX:

Anatomy of a Fall

May December

Saltburn

CURIOUS:

The Bikeriders

The Book of Clarence

The Boys in the Boat

Freud's Last Session

Foe

The Holdovers

Nightbitch

Nyad

Perfect Days

The Pot au Fou

Poor Things

Priscilla

Rustin

Strangers

NEED CONVINCING:

Challengers

As an added note, Ellwood has Scorsese's Killer of the Flower Moon as "Likely" and Fincher's The Killer as "Need Convincing".

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Checking the Distributors: Focus Features / Guest Directing for the 50th / It Was Party Time Last Week / Toronto Tease

CHECKING THE DISTRIBUTORS: FOCUS FEATURES

I'm continuing the assessment of various distribution companies and their past TFF profiles as a method of  trying to predict the films that will be selected for inclusion to TFF #50.  Today's specimen is Focus Features.

Focus has had a robust presence at The SHOW for the last few years:

2022- TAR, Armageddon Time

2021- Belfast, The Card Counter, Red Rocket

2020- The Way I See It

2019- Waves

2018- Boy Erased
2017- Darkest Hour
2015- Suffragette
2012- Hyde Park on Hudson
2006- Catch a Fire

As you can see, Focus has been more present at Telluride the last couple of years and has had one TFF selection every year since 2017.  Focus has also had three of its films from TFF nominated for Best Picture: TAR, Belfast and Darkest Hour over the past six years.

So as we contemplate their 2023 we land on two films.  One seems to me to be a no-brainer for inclusion at Telluride and the other has a chance.

The no-brainer is Alexander Payne's The Holdovers starring Payne's old Sideways pal Paul Giamatti.  Payne has huge connections to Telluride after having served as Guest Director in 2009 as well as serving on the fest's Board of Governors.  In addition, he has screened The Descendants (2011), Nebraska (2013) and Downsizing (2017) at TFF. 

As a matter of fact, if you saw last Thursday's post of 2023's first "Ten Bets" you'll have seen that I have The Holdovers as the #1 "bet".

The other Focus film that's in the mix is Ethan Coen's first solo directing effort since he and brother Joel decided to split...at least for the time being.  The film is Drive Away Dolls which IMDb Pro says went into post-production in May.  I'm much less confident that Drive Away is at TFF.  Yes, Coen was part of a three-way Tribute at TFF #40 in 2013 with his brother and T. Bone Burnett and Inside Llewyn Davis was screened. But since then both Hail, Caesar! (2016) and The Ballad of Buster Scruggs (2018) have come and gone without making a stop at TFF.  It remains the only Coen Brothers film to have played at Telluride.

Hail, Caesar! played the Berlin, Glasgow and Belgrade Film Fests after its Feb. 5th premiere and was distributed by Universal.  Buster Scruggs played Venice, New York, BFI London and AFI among others prior to its release on Nov. 16th and was from Netflix.

Coen also directed the doc Jerry Lee Lewis; Trouble In Mind which screened at Cannes in 2022 and seems to be under A24's umbrella but has yet to be released in the United States.

All of which is to say that history points to the unlikelihood that Drive Away drives into the San Juans on August 31st.

That said, Ioncinema's Eric Lavallee writing about the film on April 17th said Telluride was in the mix for the film:

"It’s called Drive-Away Dolls. It’s dropping on September 22nd. Telluride, Venice Film Festival and TIFF programmers have their tasers pointed." 

Other outlets such as Gold Derby, SlashFilm and The Playlist  have at least mentioned the possibility so I can't dismiss it completely.

All of the other Focus films for 2023 have already screened at a domestic film fest-Every Body, A Thousand and One, or have been released-Asteroid City or seem unlikely-My Big Fat Greek Wedding 3 set for U.S. release on Sept. 8th.

So for now...chances for Telluride:

The Holdovers 80%

Drive Away Dolls 25%

Serendipitously, as I was writing this portion of the post for today Focus dropped a poster and a trailer for  Drive Away Dolls:

And here's the trailer via YouTube:

Interestingly, Roger Freidman at ShowBiz411.com wrote on Friday:

“Drive Away Dolls” premieres September 22nd, so look for it to be front and center at the Telluride and Toronto film fests."

I don't know what he knows but that sounds promising.

GUEST DIRECTING FOR THE 50TH

10 years ago, we had gotten down to August 5th and no guest director had yet been named for TFF #40.  In my post that day I had a segment on that mystery in which, among other things, I suggested:

"Have 6 of them...I'll bet you have at least 6 past Guest Directors in attendance.  Have each of them select one film from the list they originally programmed.   Or cross-pollinate them...have an Alexander Payne program one film from Errol Morris' original list."

I even had a list of possible choices for the "half dozen" concept:

"I have to believe that Morris, Tavernier, Sellars, Rushdie, Payne and maybe Bogdanovich, Henry and Boorman will be in town."

Then, when we did find out what TFF had done it WAS six guest directors who had been past Guest Directors: Don DeLillo, Buck Henry, Phillip Lopate, Michael Ondaatje, B. Ruby Rich and Salman Rushdie.

So I had gotten the notion right and two of the six directors.  

Honestly, I just sort of blindly stumbled onto what eventually happened. 

But, with that in mind, could the fest do something similar for the 50th?

Of that list of six from 2013, all but Buck Henry are still living.  Bring all five back?  Or a brand new set of six.  Or a mix of some from the 40th and other past guest directors.

OR---other thoughts...

*A Guest director from each of the decades since the position was established in 1988.

*Some really BIG NAMES...from entertainment or politics.  I suggested this also back in 2013.  Maybe names like Obama, Jagger, McCartney?

*Some really BIG NAMES from directing: Scorsese, Spielberg?

*Some TFF regulars who have never Guest Directed: Ken Burns and Werner Herzog unbelievably have never Guest Directed.

I'm very excited to find out what the fest's plans are in this regard.

IT WAS PARTY TIME LAST WEEK

Telluride annually has hosted a party during the summer months in Los Angeles.  That happened last Tuesday as was evidenced by a couple of attendees posting pics of their invites on social media.

Deadline's Pete Hammond was there and as he has done in the past, wrote a bit about the evening last Friday.  In the post, Hammond makes a claim that I have always thought was likely true:

"The annual June kickoff event in Los Angeles was packed, and as one awards pundit told me, “I always love this party because you can totally get clues as to what movies are going to Telluride just by seeing which studios show up here.”

Hammond then goes on to list at least some of the outfits that were there:

"...there were reps out in force from the likes of Searchlight, Focus Features, Roadside Attractions, Sony Pictures Classics, Netflix, Amazon Studios, and many more, so take your guesses."

If you've been reading this space the last few weeks you'll see a number of distributors on Pete's list that I have already profiled  with an analysis of what films that might be bringing to TFF #50: 

Focus Features today, Searchlight on June 19th, SPC on June 9th, Netflix on June 5th.  I have Amazon teed up for Thursday's post but the Roadside Attractions mention is a little puzzling.  For the life of me I can't find a title under the Roadside banner that feels like a TFF candidate.

The film they have that seems the most likely is Bill Pohlad's Dreamin' Wild but it is currently set for release a month before the festival.  Sooooo...I'm flummoxed.

TORONTO TEASE

Reportedly the Toronto International Film Festival will announce some information about their fest on Wednesday.  Likely it will be an announcement of their opening night film and/or some splashy World Premiere..  Last year at this time TIFF announced that Rian Johnson's Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery would World Premiere there.

What will we hear from them on Wednesday?  Maybe The Color Purple?  Maestro?  The Killer? Or, perhaps the North American Premiere of Killers of the Flower Moon?  That last, I think, is still much more likely to show up at the New York Film Fest which opens a week before Flower Moon's announced limited release date of Oct. 6th.

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Checking the Distributors: Searchlight / Anatomy of a Fall Trailer and News / A New Film to Consider

 CHECKING THE DISTRIBUTORS: SEARCHLIGHT

The fifth installment of Checking the Distributors looks at Searchlight (which used to be Fox Searchlight until Disney bought them).  Searchlight has had a long and distinguished presence at TFF over the years.  Here's a look back at the films that they have screened at TFF since 2004:

2022: Empire of Light 

2021: The French Dispatch 

2020: Nomadland (Best Picture Oscar) 

2019: A Hidden Life 
2018: The Favourite, Can You Ever Forgive Me?, The Old Man and the Gun 
2017: The Shape of Water (Best Picture Oscar), Battle of the Sexes 
2016: No Show
2015: He Named Me Malala 
2014: Birdman (Best Picture Oscar), Wild 
2013: 12 Years a Slave (Best Picture Oscar) 
2012: No Show
2011: Shame, The Descendants 
2010: Never Let Me Go, 127 Hours, Black Swan 
2009: No Show
2008: Slumdog Millionaire (Best Picture Oscar) 
2007: Juno, The Savages
2006: The Last King of Scotland, The Namesake 
2005: Bee Season 
2004: Kinsey 

That's 25 films over a span of 19 fests.  Five Best Picture Oscar winners:

Slumdog Millionaire 2009

12 Years a Slave 2014

Birdman 2015

The Shape of Water 2018

Nomadland 2021

 Plus a total of  81 other Oscar nominations in that time.

So you have to figure that Searchlight likely lands one or two films at TFF #50.  The question is which ones?

Four films seem to have the best chance:

Poor Things/Yorgos Lanthimos (release date is Sept. 8)

Strangers/Andrew Haigh (release date is TBA)

Nightbitch/Marielle Heller (release date is TBA)

Next Goal Wins/Taika Waititi (release date is Nov. 17)

Three of the four directors have been at Telluride previously.

Haigh twice with 45 Years in 2015 and Lean on Pete in 2017.

Lanthimos with The Favourite in 2018

Heller with Can You Ever Forgive Me? also in 2018.

Next Goal Wins has a really weird history between scrubbing Armie Hammer and replacing him with Will Arnett the film has been shuffled around to a number of different release dates and now Searchlight has landed it smack in awards season on the weekend before Thanksgiving.

Poor Things release date is a little odd as well coming right on the heels of both Venice and Telluride.  Venice closes on Sept. 9th.

Ultimately, here's where I start out rating their chances of playing T-ride:

Strangers 55%

Poor Things 45%

Next Goal Wins 25%

Nightbitch 10%***

***World of Reel's Jordan Ruimy reported this weekend that he has heard that Nightbitch will premiere at Toronto.

ANATOMY OF A FALL TRAILER AND NEWS

The Palme d'Or winning film, Justine Triet's Anatomy of a Fall has a new trailer out that coincides with its premiere in Paris on Wednesday.  The trailer isn't subtitled and has some English and some French spoken in it.  Still, it's a chance to get a sense of the prize winning film.  Here that is via YouTube:

In additional trailer news, apparently a trailer for Ethan Coen's Drive Away Dolls is screening ahead of Wes Anderson's Asteroid City.  I'm assuming its the same trailer screened at CinemaCon.  That should mean that we should see it fairly soon.

Meanwhile a Tweet from Ioncinema from earlier this month that I just ran across a couple of days ago suggests that NEON, which is distributing Anatomy of a Fall in the U.S. is aiming for a Telluride berth:

A NEW FILM TO CONSIDER

Photo via IMDb

Kate Winslet's new biopic about journalist Lee Miller is reportedly set to premiere at Venice.  It's a film that I have been keeping my eye on for some time but about which there has been little conversation as we get closer to lineup announcements for both Venice and Toronto.

A Venice premiere could also mean a play at TFF #50.  "Lee" is currently absent a distributor in the U.S.

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