TFF Announces New Milos Stehlik Scholar Award / Oscar Predictions 2019: Screenplays / Oscar History and TFF Part Nine / New Trailer for Parasite / Trailer for The Kingmaker

TFF ANNOUNCES NEW MILOS STEHLIK SCHOLAR AWARD

Milos Stehlik

BERKELEY, CA, October 2, 2019 – Telluride Film Festival (TFF), presented by National Film Preserve LTD., is pleased to announce the presentation of the inaugural Milos Stehlik Scholar award. The award was established by TFF before its 46th edition to honor the legacy of Facets Multimedia co-founder and former TFF Board President, Milos Stehlik, who passed away in July 2019. Milos’ longtime commitment to film exhibition and education, as well as to the Telluride Film Festival, made him a lifelong friend to students, cinephiles and filmmakers as a champion of cinema. Each year, one student who embodies Milos’ passion and humanist heart will be chosen from the incoming Student Symposium class to receive the award. This student will receive travel, lodging, a stipend and a student film pass. The Student Symposium, now in its 32nd year, is open to 50 currently enrolled college and university students from around the globe, no matter their major. The primary requirement is a love of film.

This year’s recipient, Damani Brissett, is a student from State University of New York at Purchase. He will receive an internship with the Telluride Film Festival Education Programs in 2020 along with the experience of attending the 47th Festival.

Damani, born and raised in Brooklyn, was selected by faculty from the Student Symposium Class of 2019. He says, “As a child, I was taught many integrities of living, some of them being: understand self-respect, respect for community, empathy, and aim to empower those around you to do good, not only for themselves, but for others. These seeds of holistic approach to humanity were sown within me and my sister at an early age, quietly, in a little corner of Flatbush Brooklyn.”

He was raised by a single mother with a devotion to her family and community, stemming from her proud Jamaican lineage. Damani continues, “Currently, as we face global dissensions on politics, ethics & consciousness altogether, I tend to revisit my origins to ascertain bearing on how to move forward. How can I, one studying filmmaker at SUNY Purchase college, work in the service of the people, with the people, in hopes to redefine systemic confines? I say, where there’s a will there’s a way, for that ‘I’ once took the form of Dr. King’s ‘Dream’, and that ‘I’ is sometimes all there needs to be, simply... a start somewhere.”

The Telluride Film Festival is honored that Damani will return next year to work with the TFF Education Programs and is proud to honor Milos’ legacy annually through the Milos Stehlik Scholar award. Milos co-founded Facets Multimedia in 1975. It is a hub for cinephiles to access hard-to-find independent and international films from around the globe. He was also a pioneer of the Chicago International Children’s Film Festival, the oldest, biggest kid’s film festival in North America. As an educator, a journalist on WBEZ, and a vocal champion of film, Milos has helped introduce generations to the awesome power of film. 

For more information on Telluride Film Festival and its Student programs, please visit www.telluridefilmfestival.org.

For more information on Milos and Facets Multimedia, please visit https://www.facets.org.



OSCAR PREDICTIONS 2019: SCREENPLAYS

Here's my Early(ish) Bird take on Oscar's Screenplay categories after the big fall fests-well almost, New York is wrapping up.  All TFF films predicted are indicated with Bold.


ADAPTED SCREENPLAY

1) The Two Popes
2) JoJo Rabbit
3) The Irishman
4) A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood
5) Joker

Other Possibles: Little Women, Judy, Ford v. Ferrari, Just Mercy

ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY

1) Marriage Story
2) Once Upon a Time in...Hollywood
3) Parasite
4) The Farewell
5) Knives Out

Other Possibles: 1917, Pain and Glory, Booksmart, Bombshell


As of today's post, here's the breakdown of my predictions for Telluride 2019 films in the eight topline categories:

Marriage Story: Six nominations and one possible: Picture, Director/Baumbach, Actress/Johannson, Actor/Driver, Supporting Actress/Dern, Original Screenplay/Baumbach.  Possible: Supporting Actor/Alda...and a parenthetical note here...MTFB is campaigning for a Julie Hagerty nomination for Supporting Actress...someone with some actual juice needs to get on this STAT.

The Two Popes: Four nominations and one possible: Picture, Actor/Pryce, Supporting Actor/Hopkins, Adapted Screenplay/McCarten.  Possible: Director/Meirelles.

Parasite: Three nominations: Picture, Director/Bong, Original Screenplay/Bong, Han.

Ford v. Ferrari: One nomination and three possibles: Picture.  Other possibles: Supporting Actor/Bale, Director/Mangold, Adapted Screenplay/Butterworth, Butterworth, Keller.

Judy: One nomination and two possibles: Actress/Zellweger, Other Possibles: Picture, Adapted Screenplay/Edge, Quilter.

Pain and Glory: One nomination and one possible: Actor/Banderas, Possible: Original Screenplay/Almodovar.

The Report: One nomination: Supporting Actress/Bening.

Waves: Three possibles: Picture, Supporting Actress/Russell, Supporting Actor/Brown.



OSCAR HISTORY AND TFF PART NINE

After spending the past few weeks doling out the history between Telluride and The Academy Awards by each year, I'm turning now to a breakdown of the history as related to each of the feature categories as far as TFF is concerned beginning with the list of films that played at Telluride and then subsequently earned Best Picture nominations:

1974-The Conversation
1989- My Left Foot
1992- The Crying Game
1993- The Piano
1996- Secrets and Lies
2000- Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon
2003- Lost in Translation
2005- Brokeback Mountain, Capote
2006- Babel
2007- Juno, There Will Be Blood (scenes screened at TFF)
2008- Slumdog Millionaire-WINNER, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button (scenes screened)
2009- Up in the Air, An Education
2010- The King's Speech-WINNER, 127 Hours, Black Swan
2011- The Artist-WINNER, The Descendants
2012- Argo-WINNER, Amour
2013- 12 Years a Slave-WINNER, Gravity, Nebraska
2014- Birdman-WINNER, The Imitation Game
2015- Spotlight-WINNER, Room
2016- Moonlight-WINNER, La La Land, Arrival, Manchester by the Sea
2017- The Shape of Water-WINNER, Darkest Hour, Lady Bird
2018- Roma, The Favourite

In all, 39 films that have come through Telluride have been nominated for Best Film of the Year come Oscar time, 29 of those since 2007.  Of the 39, 9 have won the honor with all of those wins coming since 2008.

I'll have the Best Director nominees from TFF films up in Monday's post.


NEW TRAILER FOR PARASITE

Neon has a hot item on its plate with Cannes' Palme d'Or winner Parasite.  The film has been critically lauded for months now on the film festival circuit-it has a 92 on Metacritic- and audiences seem to have embraced it as well- our Telluride People's ratings gave it a 4.36 average rating (out of 5) which was good enough for it to land the second place spot in this year's People's Telluride.

Now Neon has dropped a new trailer for the film and here it is from YouTube:

Parasite opens domestically on Oct. 11th.


TRAILER FOR THE KINGMAKER


One of the best received documentaries at the 2019 edition of The SHOW was Laura Greenfield's look at the powerful former Philippine first lady Imelda Marcos.

That doc now has a trailer and here it is from YouTube:

The Kingmaker seems to be in the conversation for the Best Doc Oscar.

Interestingly, at least to me, is the connection to this film of one of our local physicians here in my small Oklahoma Panhandle town.  The doctor and his brother are both involved in Philippino politics.

I have included a link here to Indiewire's coverage of the trailer's roll out.



That's the Thursday MTFB.  More on Monday...


EMAIL:  mpgort@gmail.com OR michael_speech@hotmail.com

TWITTER @Gort2 (and follow me there as well)

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Peter Fonda 1940-2019 / Docs This Weekend / Parasite as a Player? / Garcia Bernal and The Chicuarotes

Monday...One Week and Four Days...

PETER FONDA 1940-2019

I'm pausing a moment here in the middle of the last big rush before TFF #46 happens to acknowledge the passing of Peter Fonda.  To the best of my ability to track it down, I can't find any instance where Fonda was a participant at any TFF but I'd be remiss not to mention the man who, along with Dennis Hopper, created Easy Rider in 1969.

You can't underestimate the lightning flash and thunder crash that that film made.  The film was Oscar nominated for its script which was Fonda's first nomination.  His other would came for his acting 1997's Ulee's Gold.

Fonda's most recent film is The Last Full Measure which is scheduled for release on Oct. 25th.

Fonda was 79.  I have linked Indiewire's reporting on his death here.

DOCS THIS WEEKEND

Possible TFF #46 documentaries are what became my focus over the weekend mostly by complete accident.

First, I was already very comfortable saying that Laura Greenfield's The Kingmaker, a doc which focuses on former Philippine first lady Imelda Marcos, would be playing at Telluride at the end of next week based on its premiere status from Toronto and its scheduled world premiere date early in the run of films at Venice.

If I might have any doubt, that disappeared as I was contacted by an acquaintance that confirmed the film will be at TFF #46.  How did my acquaintance know?  He's been invited to the fest as a guest of the film's director.

That brush up against a doc playing TFF reminded me that my wife and I had been invited to Netflix's Brunch for its docs that were screening (Reversing Roe, They'll Love Me When I'm Dead) .  That got me to thinking about what docs Netflix might be bringing in 2019.  After some checking, the most likely seems to be James Lebrecht and Nicole Newnham's Crip Camp.  A documentary that focuses on a New York summer camp for disabled teens in the 1960s-70s.

Of note is that Crip Camp has not yet been announced for any fall fest; and is listed as having been in post-production since Aug. 18th of last year and was produced by Higher Ground Productions.

No guarantees by any means...but maybe... and I will add it this week to the "Other Possibilities" list Friday.

PARASITE AS A PLAYER?

Since its debut at Cannes last spring and its Palme d'Or win, I felt it had a good chance to make the Telluride lineup.  As a matter of fact, it was the top listed film on the very first Ten Bets list back at the end of June and was also on my "If I Had To" guess list on June 14th.

Now there are rumbles that the film's distributors/producers are aiming for more than a run at the Best International Film Oscar.

Anne Thompson and Eric Kohn spend some serious time talking about that on their Screen Talk podcast this week which you can hear right here.

They might well be onto something.  Clayton Davis' has Parasite listed as the #8 film among his Best Picture predictions.

Erik Anderson's Awards Watch it as #10 (and the big banner photo at the top of his current Best Pic predictions is from Parasite!)


GARCIA BERNAL AND THE CHICUAROTES

I stumbled into a bit of news about Gael Garcia Bernal's The Chicuarotes this weekend.  Garcia Bernal, who has made a number of appearances at Telluride over the years as an actor in various projects (The Motorcycle Diaries, No, Neruda) is on the midst of continuing to roll out the film, his second feature effort as a director, with a presentation at the Sarjevo Film Festival.  The film has already screened at San Sebastian, Shanghai and Cannes.

After turning this information up over the weekend, I think there's at least some chance that the film makes its North American debut at Telluride.

Along with Crip Camp mentioned above, Chicuarotes also probably gets added to the list of "Other Possibilities on Friday.

CURRENT TEN BETS AND BONUS BETS

10) The Aeronauts
9) Ford v. Ferrari
8) The Two Popes
7) Judy
6) Pain and Glory
5) Uncut Gems
4) Portrait of a Lady on Fire
3) Motherless Brooklyn
2) Marriage Story
1) Parasite


Bonus Bets:

Bonus 1) Varda by Agnes
Bonus 2) First Cow
Bonus 3) A Hidden Life
Bonus 4) The Report
Bonus 5) The Kingmaker
Bonus 6) The Climb
Bonus 7) Waves
Bonus 8) Lyrebird
Bonus 9) Verdict


THE PEOPLE'S TELLURIDE

For the eighth consecutive year MTFB is soliciting your input for The People's Telluride.  All you have to do is watch films during the fest and then, when it's all over, report to me your assessment of each film on a 1-5 scale with 1 being "UGH!" and 5 being "GREAT".


Report your ratings with any of the following contact methods:


EMAIL:  mpgort@gmail.com OR michael_speech@hotmail.com

TWITTER @Gort2 (and follow me there as well)

FACEBOOK Message me on FB MTFB's Facebook Page

COMMENT TO THE BLOG

2019 Ten Bets #7 (Plus Bonus Bets) / More from Toronto / Lucy in the Sky Has a Date for Lift Off / The People's Telluride: It's Time to Plan Your Participation

Friday...Three Weeks...



2019 TEN BETS #7 (PLUS BONUS BETS)

Time for the weekly update of MTFB's Ten Bets for the 46th Telluride Film Festival (plus some Bonus Bets).

Here were your Ten Bets and Bonuses from last week along with "Other Possibilities":


10) The Aeronauts
9) Ford v. Ferrari
8) The Two Popes
7) Pain and Glory
6) Uncut Gems
5) Judy
4) Motherless Brooklyn
3) Marriage Story
2) Portrait of a Lady on Fire
1) Parasite


This week, I add some "Bonus Bets":

Bonus 1) The Truth
Bonus 2) Varda by Agnes
Bonus 3) First Cow
Bonus 4) Family Romance LLC
Bonus 5) Country Music

Other possibilities (in no particular order):

The Climb, Little Women, The Good Liar, Untitled Todd Haynes Project (Dry Run?), Atlantics, Nomadland, Synonyms, Ad Astra, Molly, Lucy in the Sky, Seberg, Wasp Network, The King, A Hidden Life, Matthias and Maxime, 1917.


Now, after this week's digging and sleuthing...your new Ten Bets and Bonus Bets:

10) The Aeronauts
9) Ford v. Ferrari
8) The Two Popes
7) Pain and Glory
6) Uncut Gems
5) Judy
4) Motherless Brooklyn
3) Marriage Story
2) Portrait of a Lady on Fire
1) Parasite

Bonus 1) The Truth
Bonus 2) Varda by Agnes
Bonus 3) First Cow
Bonus 4) A Hidden Life
Bonus 5) The Report
Bonus 6) Beanpole
Bonus 7) The Kingmaker

Gone from the list of "Other Possibilities"- Wasp Network, Atlantics, Synonyms.  Also gone that I had given some serious thought to: The Traitor, Bacurau and Young Ahmed.

Still on the list of Other Possibilities:

Family Romance LLC, Country Music, The Climb, Little Women, The Good Liar, Untitled Todd Haynes Project (Dry Run/Dark Water), Nomadland, Ad Astra, Molly, Lucy in the Sky, Seberg, The King, Matthias and Maxime, 1917.


MORE FROM TORONTO

The Toronto International Film Festival announced a slew more of films for their soiree that traditionally takes off the weekend after Telluride.  They added films for their Discovery, Midnight Madness and Docs sections.  Here's what those new announcements tell us for Labor Day weekend:

It looks as if Laura Greenfield's documentary about former Philippine First Lady Imelda Marcos is probable for Telluride as TIFF lists it as a Canadian Premiere and I can't find a trace of it having screened anywhere else.

And that seems like the only TFF addition we make from yesterday's TIFF news.  All other films added to the three sections are listed as either World Premieres, North American Premieres, International Premieres-none of which are listed as American films -and the only other Canadian Premiere listed is such because it screened earlier this year at the Tribeca Film Fest.

Among notable docs that are listed as World Premiere's that I thought might have been a Telluride consideration:

Alex Gibney's Citizen K
Bryce Dallas Howard's Dads
Gabe Polsky's Red Penguins
Ellen Page's There's Something in the Water
Mark Cousins' Women Make Film
Fisher Stevens' And We Go Green

Toronto still has more to reveal over the next couple of weeks.

Here's the complete list of films announced yesterday from Variety.


LUCY IN THE SKY HAS A DATE FOR LIFTOFF

Multiple sources revealed that Fox Searchlight's Lucy in the Sky starring Natalie Portman has been dated for release in a limited fashion on Oct. 4th. 

That means that we could still see it added to lineups for NYFF or TIFF.  Even Venice.  And it certainly remains a TFF #46 potential title.

The Noah Hawley film is loosely based on the true story of an astronaut's return from space and her personal difficulties upon that return.

Some news outlets suggest that a fall film presence is still possible and perhaps likely.

Here's coverage from

The Playlist

Indiewire

Entertainment Weekly 

The Wrap



IT'S TIME TO PLAN YOUR PARTICIPATION

Yes indeed.

For the eighth consecutive year MTFB is soliciting your input for The People's Telluride.  All you have to do is watch films during the fest and then, when it's all over, report to me your assessment of each film on a 1-5 scale with 1 being "UGH!" and 5 being "GREAT".

Each year the level of participation has grown and I'd like to keep that increasing.

Here are the top three People's results from each year we've done it:

2012:

1) Stories We Tell (4.80)
2) Argo  (4.75)
3) The Attack (4.70)

2013:

1) Tim's Vermeer (4.67)
2) 12 Years a Slave (4.55)
3) Gravity (4.40)

2014:

1) The Imitation Game (4.73)
2) Birdman (4.46)
3) Wild Tales (4.23)

2015:

1) Room (4.47)
2) Spotlight (4.45)
3) Beasts of No Nation (4.35)

2016:

1) Moonlight (4.37)
2) La La Land (4.33)
3) Maudie (4.29)

2017:

1) Lady Bird (4.38)
2) The Shape of Water (4.22)
3) Darkest Hour (4.04)


2018:

1) Roma (4.47)
2) First Man (4.34)
3) Shoplifters (4.29)


The all time People's Top Ten going into the 2019 Telluride Film Festival are:

1) Stories We Tell (4.80) (12)
2) Argo (4.75) (12)
3) The Imitation Game (4.73) (14)
4) The Attack (4.70) (12)
5) Tim's Vermeer (4.67) (13)
6) 12 Years a Slave (4.55) (13)
7) Roma (tie-4.47) (18)
7) Room (tie-4.47) (15)
9) Birdman (4.46) (14)
10) Spotlight (4.45) (15)


When the time comes, you can send those ratings to me in any of the following ways listed as contact info for me listed below.


EMAIL:  mpgort@gmail.com OR michael_speech@hotmail.com

TWITTER @Gort2 (and follow me there as well)

FACEBOOK Message me on FB MTFB's Facebook Page

COMMENT TO THE BLOG