Ten (Plus) Bets #7 / No GDT at TFF / No White Noise Either / But Probably a Pale Blue Eye / Could Living Play Telluride? / Teaser for Argentina, 1985 n Bets #8

TEN (PLUS) BETS #7 

Here's your latest edition of MTFB's Ten Bets for the TFF #49 lineup.  There is a good deal of movement after last week's announcement of Galas and Special Presentations from the Toronto International Film Festival.  Also making a difference was reporting from Jordan Ruimy/World of Reel and others.

As a recap, here are the Ten Bets and Other Possibilities from last week:

1) Bardo/Inarritu

2) TAR/Fields

3) Bones and All/Guadagnino

4) Armageddon Time/Gray

5) Close/Dhont

6) Aftersun/Wells

7) One Fine Morning/Hansen-Love

8) The Son/Zeller

9) She Said/M. Schrader

10) The Pale Blue Eye/Cooper

Others Possibilities: Master Gardener/P. Schrader, Women Talking/Polley, Broker/Kore-eda, Showing Up/Reichardt, Tori and Lokita/Dardennes, Holy Spider/Abbasi,  White Noise/Baumbach, The Forger/Peren,Tuesday/Oniunas-Pusic, The Fire Within/Herzog, The U.S. and the Holocaust/Burns, The Wonder/Lelio, Blonde/Dominik, The Whale/Aronofsky, Dreamin' Wild/Pohlad, March on Rome/Cousins, Living/Hermanus

And here are the new and significantly altered Ten (Plus) Bets:

1) One Fine Morning/Hansen-Love

2) Women Talking/Polley

3) Broker/Kore-eda

4) Holy Spider/Abbasi

5) The Wonder/Lelio

6) Empire of Light/Mendes

7) Good Night Oppy/White

8) Bardo/Inarritu

9) TAR/Fields

10) Bones and All/Guadagnino

11) Armageddon Time/Gray

12) The Pale Blue Eye/Cooper

13) A Compassionate Spy/James

14) Close/Dhont

15) Aftersun/Wells

Others Possibilities: Master Gardener/P. Schrader, Showing Up/Reichardt, Tori and Lokita/Dardennes, The Forger/Peren,Tuesday/Oniunas-Pusic, The Fire Within/Herzog, The U.S. and the Holocaust/Burns, Blonde/Dominik, Dreamin' Wild/Pohlad, March on Rome/Cousins, Argentina 1985/Mitre

The biggest blows to last week's Ten Bets came with the likelihood that She Said will World Premiere at the New York Film Festival and that The Son will will World Premiere at Toronto.

We expect TIFF to announce its Midnight Madness program tomorrow which will probably not have any effect regarding what we can deduce about TFF #49.

NO GDT AT TFF

Admittedly I've thought all summer that the chances pf Guillermo Del Toro's Pinocchio [laying TFF #49 were slim but that chances seem to have been laid to rest.  Jordan Ruimy at World of reel reports that the film will not be finished until sometime in October at the earliest.

Here's the link to Ruimy's reporting.

NO WHITE NOISE EITHER

The New York Film Festival announced on Tuesday that Noah Baumbach's White Noise will open their fest on Sept. 30th and NYFF has labeled the film a North American premiere.  Assuming that characterization is accurate and Telluride maintains its unspoken policy of features being a first time North American screening, that means White Noise is off the speculation list for TFF #49.

I had been hearing some buzz that this could be true but the scheduling of White Noise as the opener for Venice kept me thinking that there was a great chance that the film would play in Italy and then slide across the Atlantic to land in the San Juans.  Looks like that's not happening.

BUT PROBABLY A PALE BLUE EYE

I've had Scott Cooper's The Pale Blue Eye on the TFF #49 watch list for a long time and now there's scuttlebutt that the Christian Bale led film, is in fact, likely screening for the first time in Telluride.  World of Reel's Jordan Ruimy snuck the increased chance that this will be true into a post called "What's Left-Part Deux".  

This is what Ruimy writes: 

"I’m getting more Telluride intel, this one concerning Scott Cooper’s “Pale Blue Eye” which will be having its world premiere over there." 

Here's the IMDb description of the film:

"At West Point Academy in 1830, the calm of an October evening is shattered by the discovery of a young cadet's body swinging from a rope just off the parade grounds. An apparent suicide is not unheard of in a harsh regimen like West Point's, but the next morning, an even greater horror comes to light. Someone has stolen into the room where the body lay and removed the heart."

The film "Follows a veteran detective who investigates the murders, helped by a detail-oriented young cadet who will later become a world famous author, Edgar Allan Poe."

Previous Cooper collaborator Christian Bale (Hostiles, Out of the Furnace) as the detective and Henry Melling (The Ballad of Buster Scruggs) as Poe join to tell this tale.

For me, it's a "most anticipated".  Feeling really good that it's a TFF #49 selection.

The entire Ruimy post is linked here.

COULD LIVING PLAY TELLURIDE?

Living starring Bill Nighy made a splash at Sundance earlier this year with a number of mentions of Nighy as a possible Oscar contender for Best Actor.  Clayton Davis at Variety currently has Nighy at the #3 spot for a nomination.

The case against a Telluride play is, of course, the Sundance premiere back in January.  Also, Venice head Alberto Barbera is on record saying that there will less of an overlap between his fest and Telluride and Living IS a Venice selection.  But...

The case for a TFF #49 play includes the fact that it is under the wing of Sony Pictures Classics (a very tight Telluride connection).  It's inclusion in the Venice out-of-competition lineup, despite having already bowed at Sundance-very unusual for Venice to schedule a non-World Premiere.  

And, of late, Telluride has scheduled a couple of Sundance films that were tied to tributes.  In 2016 T-ride invited Manchester-by-the-Sea, a film distributed by Amazon/Roadside Attractions -decent Telluride presence for each- and featured Casey Affleck as a tribute recipient.  In 2018 TFF did the same with Adam Driver featuring both Marriage Story (from Netflix-a very good T-ride relationship) and The Report(from Amazon), which had premiered at Sundance.

So, could Bill Nighy be up for a Tribute and a screening of Living?  Nighy also has a film called A Beautiful Game from Netflix that has yet to be screened anywhere and is listed by IMDb as having been in post-production since January.

So it's not outside the realm of possibility.

TEASER FOR ARGENTINA, 1985

Argentina 1985 is a Venice Golden Lion competition choice and seems like a sleeper for a spot at Telluride.  That it was partially produced by Amazon Studios suggests the possibility that it could make the lineup when it is unveiled on Sept. 1st.

IMDb's description intrigues:

"A team of lawyers take on the heads of Argentina's bloody military dictatorship during the 1980s in a battle against odds and a race against time."

The first teaser for the film was released last week and here it is via YouTube:

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And the Golden Bear Goes to... / The Critics Berlin / More Additions to TFF History

AND THE GOLDEN BEAR GOES TO...

Mohammad Rasoulof's There Is No Evil took the top prize. the Golden Bear, from the just concluded Berlin International Films Festival.  The award came from the Jury led this year by Jeremy Irons.

Rasoulof was a recipient of a tribute from the Telluride Film Festival in 2013 during TFF #40.  That included a screening of Manuscripts Don't Burn.  Rasoulof was back in Telluride in 2017 with A Man of Integrity.

Rasoulof was not allowed to attend the Berlin Fest by the Iranian government.

The Golden Bear win doesn't guarantee that There Is No Evil ends up at Telluride but it also likely doesn't harm its potential.  The last Golden Bear winner to play TFF was Fire at Sea in 2016.  Other recent Golden Bear winners that went on to play TFF include Asghar Farhadi's A Separation and Jafar Panahi's Taxi.


THE CRITICS BERLIN

Returning to the massive database of critical response to the films screened at Berlin that is compiled by Reini Urban; here is the final look at films that I have highlighted as possible considerations for TFF #47  (on a 10 point scale)

Pinocchio 7.39
The Woman Who Ran 7.17
Undine 6.89
There Is No Evil 6.76
Charlatan 6.20
The Salt of Tears 5.49
Irradiated 5.43
Siberia 4.95

The complete rundown is here.

Metacritic also had a critical compilation post over the weekend for Berlin films and among the films they mentioned from the above list were (on a 100 point scale):

There Is No Evil 79
The Woman Who Ran 81
Charlatan 65
Undine 69
The Salt of Tears 57

Metacritic's article is linked here.


And finally, Indiewire's Eric Kohn and Anne Thompson talk about the Berlinale in this week's episode of their podcast Screen Talk.  Both Pinocchio and Undine are specifically mentioned.

The link to Screen Talk is here.

Thompson, Kohn and David Ehrlich collaborated to also publish an article detailing the films that they thought were the 10 best of Berlin.  That list included: Charlatan, Last and First Men, Pinocchio, There Is No Evil and The Woman Who Ran.

I have linked that article here.

Last word on Berlin, for now...look out for Johann Johannsson's Last and First Men.  The late Icelandic composer's first attempt at directing a feature film.  Johannsson was Oscar nominated for the scores for Sicario and The Theory of Everything.  Just got a feeling.


MORE ADDITIONS TO TFF HISTORY

I added the 2011, 2012 and 2013 Telluride Film Festivals to the Extended Telluride History Part Two: 1996-Present page. 

2011 notable films included: Albert Nobbs, The Artist, A Dangerous Method, Into the Abyss, A Separation, Shame and We Need to Talk About Kevin.

2012: Notable films included:The Act of Killing, Amour, Argo, The Central Park Five, Frances Ha, No, Rust and Bone and Stories We Tell.

2013 notable films included: 12 Years a Slave, All Is Lost, Blue Is the Warmest Color, Gloris. Gravity, Ida, Inside Llewyn Davis, Manuscripts Don't Burn, The Missing Picture, Nebraska, The Past, Prisoners and Under the Skin.


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The Critics Weigh In on Berlin / The History Continues

THE CRITICS WEIGH IN ON BERLIN

The Berlin International Film Festival continues apace toward its Sunday conclusion and the announcement of award winners in various categories including the announcement of this year's winner of the Golden Bear award to the Best Film in the competition section. 

As BIFF has passed its half way point, here's a look at the critical consensus for some of the titles playing there that, at least initially, have some TFF #47 potential:

Matteo Garrone's Pinocchio 7.32 (on a 10 point scale)
Hong Sang-soo's The Woman Who Ran 7.24
Agnieszka Holland's Charlatan 7.00
Christian Petzold's Undine 6.79
Philippe Garrel's The Salt of Tears 5.45
Abel Ferrara's Siberia 5.09


Still not charting with Reni Urban's critics collective:

Rithy Panh's Irradiated
Mohammad Rasoulof's There Is No Evil


The complete list is linked here.


THE HISTORY CONTINUES

Since Monday's post I have added the text for the 37th Telluride Film Festival Extended History entry on.  2010's festival boasted such titles as:

127 Hours
Another Year
Black Swan
The King's Speech
Tabloid

Guests at YFF #37 included:

Danny Boyle
Colin Firth
James Franco
Andrew Garfield
Ed Harris
Laura Linney
Carey Mulligan
Alexander Payne
Geoffrey Rush

Check out 2010 as well as the other recently added years (2006-2009) on the Expanded History Page 1996-Present.


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Notes from Berlin / Now There Is More History / The Critical Reaction to Berlin Films

NOTES FROM BERLIN

The 70th Berlin International Film Festival is in full swing and runs until Sunday.  I have linked some posts from reporters covering the festival about specific films I have my eye on as possible players in as far as TFF #47 might be concerned.

From The Hollywood Reporter here are looks at:

Rithy Pahn's Irradiated

Mohammad Rasoulof's There Is No Evil

Both films are set to bow in Germany on Friday.

Additionally, prior to its Berlin play, producers released a trailer for Philippe Garrel's The Salt of Tears.  Here that is via YouTube:

ALso releasing a trailer for its Berlin appearance is Able Ferrara's Siberia.  That is linked here also from YouTube:

NOW THERE IS MORE HISTORY

After a good deal of procrastination, I have started the expansion of the Expanded History of the Telluride Film Festival.  For quite some time I have had the years from 2006 to the present represented in the Expanded History through links to the programs for those years that are housed at the Official TFF website.

I've been saying for some time that I would get the information from those years on the Expanded History page formatted as I have all of the years of the festival and just have been sluggish in getting that accomplished.

However, this past week, I actually cranked that up and added the text for 2006-2009.  If you go to the Expanded History 1996-Present page you'll see that info displayed.  Over the next few weeks I plan to get the rest of the last 13 years worth of text on that page as well.

Take look!

AND FINALLY...THE CRITICAL REACTION TO BERLIN FILMS

As has been the case for a few years, I'm looking at the critical tracking of films that play at the Berlin fest to get a sense of which films might be catching the eye of any Telluride programmer that might be in Germany at the this moment. 

To that end I'm checking the critical consensus site:

http://cannes-ratings.herokuapp.com/Berlinale2020

Thus far, and it is incredibly early in as far as the critics' responses are concerned, the top film that I've had my eye on in terms of the critical combo is Matteo Garrone's Pinocchio.  Christian Ptezold's Undine is also doing well in early critical response. 

I'll check back in with the consensus on Thursday.


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Agnes Varda 1928-2019 / Garrone's Big Weekend

I hope it is a good day for you today...


AGNES VARDA 1928-2019

Hard news over the weekend as cinephiles the world over learned of and mourned the passing of  revered filmmaker Agnes Varda.

Varda was a giant of European cinema as one of the prominent voices that emerged with the French New Wave.

Varda was an Oscar nominee for Best Documentary for her 2017 collaboration with artist JR: Faces Places which played at TFF #43.  Varda also was a recipient of an Honorary Oscar.  She was among TFF's first tribute recipients being recognized at the 4th Telluride Film Festival.  Here's a snap of the entry for her tribute from the official TFF #4 program:

Tributes and reminiscences poured in from the film community from around the world over the weekend and I have linked several of those below:

Peter DeBruge/Variety

Mekado Murphy/The New York Times

Melanie Goodfellow/Screen Daily

Zack Sharf/Indiewire

Rhett Bartlett/The Hollywood Reporter

Jordan Raup/The Film Stage

Peter White/Deadline

MOMA Curator Laurence Kardish writing for Indiewire

Multiple sources from The Guardian

And here is Varda's IMDb page with video tribute

It wouldn't surprise me that Varda could have the TFF #46 program dedicated to her in five months much like Pierre Rissient last year.  I had already thought that some version of her latest and last film, Varda by Agnes (listed by IMDb as a television series),  which screened at the Berlin Fest in February, might show up as a part of the TFF #46 program and with her death, I suspect that becomes even more likely.  That is unless the producers/distributors choose to release it in the U.S. before Labor Day weekend.

One other note...among my favorite things to stumble across as I was preparing this story was the IMDb entry for Varda's 1967 documentary short Uncle Yanco which featured none other than Tom Luddy.  Yes.  There's a picture and a credit and the description mentions that the two were friends.  Here's the pictorial evidence:

               

GARRONE'S BIG WEEKEND

Word this weekend that Matteo Garrone's Dogman, which played TFF #45 fared very well at the David di Doantello Awards picking up nine trophies out of a total of 15 nominations including Best Picture, Direction and Screenplay.  The David di Donatello Awards are described by Varitey as Italy's equivalent of the Oscars.

Variety's coverage of those awards is linked here.

Meanwhile, almost simultaneously, we got our first glimpse of Garrone's next project...a live action version of Pinocchio starring Oscar winner Roberto Begnini.

Here's a pic of Begnini as Pinocchio's creator Geppeto:

Still via Greta De Lazzaris via The Hollywood Reporter

THR reports that Garrone plans to wrap principal photography by May... which could mean that with a quick turnaround...maybe people might see it as early as Labor Day...just saying...

Coverage is linked here from:

The Hollywood Reporter

The Playlist

That's a wrap for this sad Monday.  I'll have more on Thursday...


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