Late Breaking: Venice Is On (Says a Government Official) / Still Up in the Air / The Best of the 2000's / Telluride and the World of Reel Lists

LATE BREAKING: VENICE IS ON (SAYS A GOVERNMENT OFFICIAL)

Multiple outlets reported that Venice is still planning to run Sept. 2-12.  The news came late yesterday from the Governor of the the Venetian region who is also on the board of the Biennale. Deadline.com's Nancy Tartiglione reported:

"The governor of Italy’s Veneto region, Luca Zaia, said today that the Venice Film Festival will go ahead as scheduled in September. Dates are September 2-12 for the Lido event which would mark the first major film industry gathering not recently postponed or canceled amid the coronavirus pandemic."

Reporting on the news is linked here from:

Deadline

Variety

The Hollywood Reporter



STILL UP IN THE AIR

In 2009 the 36th Telluride Film Festival screened Jason Reitman's Up in the Air for the first time anywhere.  It's the story of a man, played by George Clooney, unsure about the choices he has made along the way to constructing his life hence at least one reason for the title.

Now in 2020...with a global pandemic changing the world on a daily basis we're all with George...up in the air.  That might also be a fair description about were the film community is in terms of film fests that act as the starting place for the fall film frenzy...Venice, Toronto, New York and, of course Telluride.  

I have had a number of TFF patrons reach out to ask me what I know...which is zip...or what I think.  I have some ideas but am hesitant to speculate in print as those ideas are wholly uninformed.  I have no insider info.

This much is true...we still don't really know how any of these fests are going to construct themselves as yet nor do we know when we will know.  Our first indication of some sign of what is to come may happen when Cannes reveals its list of films that it would have programmed had Cannes occurred this past two weeks (in a normal world this space would have been assessing the 2020 Palme d'Or winner in today's post).  That is supposed to be revealed in "early June".  Perhaps there will be some more details at that time regarding how the cooperation with other fests that Cannes' head Thierry Fremaux has referenced might be structured...

Until then...or more likely even later...we're all still Up in the Air.

Indiewire's Anne Thompson and Eric Kohn discussed some of these issues with Toronto Artistic Director Cameron Bailey in this week's edition of their podcast: Screen Talk linked here.

THE BEST OF THE 2000'S

(photo from CNN)

You might have noticed a week ago in my post, that I had included a rundown of a poll conducted by Jordan Ruimy's World of Rell website about the best films of the 1990's.  Jordan was kind enough to include me as one of the approximately 180 folks that were a part of that poll.  You may have also noticed that that I mentioned that Jordan polled us about the 2000's as well.

Well, those results are in!

The top ten films from the collective:

1) Mulholland Drive (David Lynch) 

2) There Will Be Blood (Paul Thomas Anderson) 

3) Zodiac (David Fincher) 

4) In the Mood For Love (Wong Kar-Wai) 

5) No Country For Old Men (Joel and Ethan Coen) 

6) Children of Men (Alfonso Cuaron)

7) Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (Michel Gondry)  

8) Spirited Away (Hayao Miyazaki) 

9) Yi Yi: A One and A Two (Edward Yang) 

10) Lost in Translation (Sofia Coppola) 

From the list of ten are four of the five films that I put on my list (in alphabetical order):

Children of Men (6)

The Diving Bell and the Butterfly (-)

Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (7)

No Country for Old Men (5)

There Will Be Blood (2)

Last week I matched four of five with one of the other participants but this week the best I could do was matching three of five with several of the other participants including Mr. Ruimy himself!

Matt Fagerholm/RogerEbert.com

Ann Hornaday/The Washington Post

Don Kaye/Den of Geek

Richard Lawson/Vanity Fair

Marcos Levy/Freelance

Jordan Ruimy/World of Reel

Peter Travers/Rolling Stone

Glenn Whipp/The Los Angeles Times

The complete article with the 50 best films of the 2000's is linked here.

The rundown of each person polled and their individual choices is here.

TELLURIDE AND THE WORLD OF REEL LISTS

You won't be stunned to see this entry.  Now that Jordan has completed the compilation of data for 

both the 1990's and the 2000's, here's my rundown of TFF films that made each of the lists.

From the 1990's:

14) Beau Travail  (which actually screened at Telluride in 2012)

22) The Piano

31) Blue

32) Breaking the Waves

33) The Long Day Closes

Here's the link once again for World of Reel's Best of the 1990's

From the 2000's:

2) There Will Be Blood (scenes screened in 2007)

3) Zodiac 

8) Spirited Away

9) Yi Yi

10) Lost in Translation

14) 4 Months, Three Weeks. Two Days

16) Brokeback Mountain

22) City of God

25) Talk to Her

26) Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon

29) Dogville

31) Cache

39) Amelie

45) The White Ribbon

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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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