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
Today I'm continuing my occasional look at some of the Oscar experts and their predictions as concerns films that played at TFF. Today I have a rundown from the newly released first attempt from Awards Daily's Oscar Squad. The "Squad" consists of AD Head Sasha Stone and 10 of the folks affiliated with the site.
The Squad predicts for13 categories including: Picture, Director, Actress, Actor, Supporting Acting, Screenplays, Editing, Cinematography, Production Design, Costumes and Animated Feature.
Here's the breakdown of their predictions for TFF #50 films:
Poor Things (9): Best Picture, Direction, Actress, Supporting Actor (Ruffalo), Adapted Screenplay, Editing, Cinematography, Costumes and Production Design.
The Holdovers (5):Best Picture, Actor, Supporting Actress, Supporting Actor, Original Screenplay.
Anatomy of a Fall (4): Best Picture, Actress, Original Screenplay, Editing.
The Zone of Interest (3): Best Picture, Direction, Adapted Screenplay.
We have a first look at a couple of photos of Angelina Jolie as opera superstar Maria Callas, Per Indiewire the film has a SAG/Aftra interim agreement and is set to begin production this week. An eight week shoot is planned.
I would not be surprised to see this pop up at Venice next fall and then make an appearance at TFF #51.
INTERVIEWS:
From Indiewire: Sandra Huller on both anatomy of a Fall and The Zone of Interest.
It's the first Thursday in April and welcome my friends...
A TEASE FOR REDOUBTABLE
There seems to be a lot of buzz prior to a possible Cannes announcement for Michel Hazanavicius' Redoubtable. The film tells the true story of the love affair of a young Jean-Luc Godard. The film stars Louis Garrel as Godard and Berenice Bejo (as you might expect in a Hazanavicius film) as well.
Here' the teaser with English subtitles from YouTube:
Additionally, here is The Playlist post that covered the release of the trailer as well as additional coverage from The Film Stage. StudioCanal is distributing the film in France and as yet it has no U.S. distribution.
LARRAIN'S NEXT PROJECT
Pablo Larrain (via Variety)
Pablo Larrain has had a good Telluride run over the past few years with the selections of No for the lineup in 2012 and Neruda last year. Larrain also produced the Sebastian Lelio film Gloria which screened in Telluride's 2013 edition. He also produced Lelio's A Fantastic Woman which played to acclaim at Berlin earlier this year winning the prize for Best Screenplay and is a hot prospect, in my estimation, to make the TFF #44 lineup.
As a consequence, if you're a Telluride watcher, you should probably pay attention to any news about him. So when I saw this week that he has signed onto his next directing gig, I took notice.
Larrain is set to direct The True American. It's a true story based on events that transpired immediately after 9/11. The film has had Tom Hardy attached and was, at one time, a project that Kathryn Bigelow was to direct.
The film is being produced by Megan Ellison's Annapurna Pictures.
The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences have announced that Oscar will show up a week later in 2018 than it did this year. The Oscars will be presented on Mar. 4, 2018. Nominations will be announced Tuesday, Jan. 23rd.
The Academy also announced Oscar dates for 2019, 2020 and 2021 with the ceremony reverting back to the last weekend in February for each of those years.
The date change for 2018 is being done so as not to conflict with the conclusion of the Winter Olympics in South Korea.
Good Monday to All and welcome back from the weekend.
FRIDAY BUSINESS PART ONE-DREAMS OF JACKIE
Last Friday's post included some speculation concerning Pablo Larrain's Jackie. The film was announced for Venice on Thursday and the thinking was that, as we are already relatively certain that his Neruda is going to play Telluride that, perhaps, Jackie might play T-ride as well. The thought was echoed at Hollywood Elsewhere by Jeffrey Wells.
Wells, however, appears to have re-thought the proposition. He posted on Friday that he head re-evaluated and that he doubts that scenario will occur.
Here's the relevant section of the HE post:
Yesterday I wrote that “with Larrain already slated to attend the Telluride Film Festival with Neruda, it would be strange — a head-scratcher — if Jackie doesn’t wind up screening at Telluride also.” Convinced as I am that Telluride is the end-all and be-all of the domestic, ultra-refined, beginning-of-awards-season film festival experience, I asked “what possible strategy on the part of Jackie‘s producers could result in their film not playing Telluride?”
Answer: Jackie is looking to land a U.S. distributor, and Toronto, where it’ll screen after Venice, is much more of an acquisitions environment than Telluride. Plus a choice promotional berth at Toronto can be mighty tempting to a film in Jackie‘s position. So the decision to bypass Telluride has been made for the most practical of reasons. Fine.
I suspect that Wells has some serious inside industry dope when he concludes with that final sentence.
I suggested Friday the admittedly way, way outside possibility that Ron Howard might chose to bring his new Beatles documentary to Telluride. The thin evidence that I cited included The Playlist's guess that the film might play a couple of fall film fests, that Hulu might try to follow in the footsteps of Netflix and Amazon, that the release date of 9/15 really means that if it does play a fest it can only be among the Telluride/Venice/Toronto triumvirate.
Over the weekend I added a couple of other pieces of circumstantial evidence. Variety's story about the release of the second trailer for the film revealed that the theatrical distribution is being handled by Abramorama which had Laurie Anderson;s Heart of Dog at T-ride last year and Particle Fever in 2013. So, you have a distib that's not unfamiliar with Telluride and vice versa.
The other piece of circumstantial evidence...Sir Paul's concert schedule is open for any or all of the three fall fests as he has no shows scheduled between Aug. 18th and Oct. 4th according to Pollstar:
MTFB disclaimer: DO I think this is going to happen? Not really but it's fun to make the suggestion.
MTFB SHOWS UP ON AWARDS CIRCUIT
When MTFB turns into The Film Awards Clearinghouse after TFF #43 concludes and focuses on the business of tracking the Telluride films that end up having an effect on this year's Awards season, one of the sources that I have included is Clayton Davis' Awards Circuit.
Now, AC has returned the favor as Davis posted a Toronto lineup piece on Saturday that referenced yours truly:
We haven’t commented on the recent Toronto Film Festival lineup this past week, with Oscar Predictions being updated. The great thing about sussing out the lineup is that we are able to almost identify the films that will not be going to the Telluride Film Festival vs. what may or may not be.
You can bet on films like “Toni Erdmann” from Sony Pictures Classics, “Arrival” from Paramount Pictures, and “Manchester by the Sea” from Roadside Attractions popping up. Michael Patterson of Michael’sTelluride Film Blogsuggests films like “Bleed for This” from Open Road, “Moonlight” from A24, and the still undistributed “Una” could be lining up for a strong premiere.
My thanks to Mr. Davis for the shout out and linkage.
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