CHALLENGERS TO OPEN VENICE
The Venice Film Festival announced last Thursday that Luca Guadagnino's Challengers would be their opening film. Guadagninio's tennis set love triangle starring Zendaya, Mike Faist and Josh O'Connor has been sitting on my "maybe" list for TFF #50 for awhile mostly because of Luca's Bones and All and Salvatore: Shoemaker of Dreams having had appeared as apart of the TFF #49 program.
Now, its selection as the Opening Night film doesn't necessarily preclude it from also playing Telluride. Heck, I write on here every year about paying attention to when Venice schedules their screenings as films that screen in the first 3-4 days can and often do move on to Telluride.
However...
There is a winkle here. Venice Openers are not a consistent Telluride play. It hasn't happened since 2018 when Damien Chazelle's First Man opened Venice and then came to TFF. As a matter of fact, since I started attending Telluride in 2006, the Venice Opener has only then played Telluride six times:
2018: First Man
2017: Downsizing
2016: La La Land
2014: Birdman
2013: Gravity
2010: Black Swan
Again, all of this doesn't mean that Challengers won't make it to Telluride but it seems like a bit of an uphill struggle at this point.
[This story has been corrected from an earlier version which cited incorrect dates.]
SPEAKING OF VENICE...
Alberto Barbera, the director of the Venice Fest, is set to announce the bulk of their lineup on July 25th. I checked in with World of reel which has been keeping a running list of possible Venetian titles for possible films that will do a stop in Telluride after making their World Premiere on the Lido.
WOR's latest came down on Friday. You can see the complete list here.
From this latest speculation, here are my best guesses re: what could make the trip to Colorado:
Lee/Ellen Kuras
Priscilla/Sofia Coppola
Maestro/Bradley Cooper
Poor Things/Yorgos Lanthimos
El Conde/Pablo Larrain
Saltburn/Emerald Fenell
Strangers/Andrew Haigh
Fingernails/Christos Nikou
TFF #50 POSTER???
I wrote on June 26th about the lack of information regarding TFF 2023"S Guest Director(s). Normally the Guest Director(s) is/are announced in June and, of late, usually the third week of June.
However, I suspect that the Fest's leadership is following (at least to some extent) the playbook from TFF #40. Back in 2013, I don't believe the Festival released any Guest Directing info until the lineup was announced the day before the fest began.
So I won't be surprised if that's how TFF plays it this time around.
But the poster...
For most of the years I've been blogging about Telluride the poster announcement was likely to happen in May or early-to-mid June. That's true for 2009-2016. We even knew the poster for TFF #40 on May 30th of that year.
Beginning with 2017, the announcement has come in July three of five times. The exceptions are a way early announcement in 2021 (it came in February). The other is from 2018 when Woody Pirtle was the artist but I haven't been able to pin down the date that The SHOW made that announcement.
The latest poster announcement I can find was Edwina White's for 2018 that came on July 22nd.
So, ultimately...you have to believe that we're right on the cusp of an announcement. Maybe?
EMAIL: mpgort@gmail.com
