The Distributors 2019: Many a Firm Part Two / Deadline Looks at Venice / Telluride and Oscar Part One: Best Picture / Forman v. Forman Trailer

Welcome back from the weekend and to July 2019!


THE DISTRIBUTORS 2019: MANY A FIRM PART TWO:

Today looking at the chances for two films from two different distribution companies: A24 and Annapurna

-A24

After s strong build over five years from 2012-2016. 2017 seemed like a real breakout year for A24 with three films making he TFF lineup.  But the relatively new firm didn't place a film at the fest in 2018.  Here's the history:

2018: No SHOW
2017: Lean on Pete, First Reformed, Lady Bird
2016: Moonlight
2015: Room
2014:  No SHOW
2013: Under the Skin
2012: Ginger and Rosa

Now with the 46th edition of the Telluride Film Festival fast approaching, A24 finds itself in much the same situation as last year when Jonah Hill's Mid 90's seemed their only possible play.  This year A24 looks to have only Robert Eggers" The Lighthouse as a possible TFF contender.

As of right now though, I'm feeling fairly bullish on the film's chances especially in light of its very strong positive critical reaction from Cannes.  Reini Urban's collective Cannes critical response had it at #2 among the entire fest's films trailing only Bong Joon-ho's Palme d'Or winning Parasite.

Meanwhile...

-ANNAPURNA

Annapurna's connection to Telluride in its short tenure has been as a producer of films as opposed to a distributor, which is a fairly recent development for the firm.  TFF films as a production/distribution company include: Destroyer (2018) and Foxcatcher (2014).  As with A24, it feels like Annapurna has a single film that could possibly make TFF #46.

Up until this weekend it was references as the Untitled Miranda July project but as of this past weekend is now called Kijillionaire.  Evan Rachel Wood, Debra Winger and Richard Jenkins star in a crime drama. Brad Pitt and Dede Gardner's Plan B  (12 Years a Slave, Moonlight) is also producing which doesn't hurt the film's TFF profile.

The chances for each of these films...

The Lighthouse-55%
Kijillionaire-40%



DEADLINE LOOKS AT  VENICE (and a little at Telluride)

Deadline writers Nancy Tartaglione and Andreas Wiseman posted a piece last week speculating about what films...especially awards season films...might find their way to the Venice Film Fest.  We probably need to pay heed.

The Venice-Telluride connection has become very solid in recent years.  Last year the two fests shared a total of nine films: First Man, Graves Without a Name, Non-Fiction, Peterloo, Roma, The Favourite, The Great Buster, The Other Side of the Wind and They’ll Love Me When I’m Dead.

Though the changing interactions of film fests and streamers like Netflix and Amazon may alter that symbiosis, I expect we’ll see another substantial connection between the two fests’ lineups again this year.  Consequently, the programming and scheduling for Venice is valuable for TFF clues.

So back to the Deadline story...

Among the films that they suggest have a shot at the Lido are:

Joker
Untitled Noah Baumbach Project- which gets a specific Telluride mention in the article
Against All Enemies
The Aeronauts
Ad Astra
Ford v. Ferrari
The Pope
The King
The Last Thing He Wanted
The Laundromat
Bad Education (which also gets a specific Telluride mention)
Judy
Jojo Rabbit
Ema

Also mentioned are Roman Polanski’s An Officer and a Spy and Martin Scorsese’s The Irishman both of which are unlikely for Telluride for very different reasons.

The complete Deadline article is linked here.

Venice is set to announce its lineup on July 25th.


TELLURIDE AND OSCAR PART ONE: BEST PICTURE

I spent nearly a year working on my Telluride Film Festival history project in 2017-18.  You can see the links for that at the top of this page.

Now, I’ve decided to dive into the relationship between TFF and the Oscars.

Regular readers know that when the fest concludes each year that I devote the blog to following the awards season with emphasis on the films that played at the festival.  Then, once Oscar is done, I return to the primary reason that I started writing this thing back in 2008 which is the attempt to divine the films that will make up the program for The SHOW.

In the course of the “Oscar” portion of the year I have written a lot about how T-ride has been a huge factor in the Best Picture race.  You can’t escape the fest’s track record over the past decade plus.  Green Book’s win last year notwithstanding, I suspect Telluride’s presence in the Best Picture category will continue for the foreseeable future.

Recently, I decided to take a look back at Telluride’s place in the Best Foreign Language Film Oscar race.  I knew on a surface level that the connection had been substantial but I wanted to quantify it.  So I did the homework and put that story up back on June 10th.

After I finished the work on that post, I got to thinking that a bigger look at the Telluride-Oscar connection might be interesting...fun...worth the time.

So, I decided to expand the field and look at how Telluride films have fared in the other seven major Oscar categories: Direction, Actress, Actor, Supporting Actress, Supporting Actor, Adapted Screenplay and Original Screenplay.

I’ll be rolling these out over the next couple of weeks and by way of introducing the collection, here’s a reminder of all the films that have been nominated for Best Picture that played Telluride since 2005 (with winners denoted with ***):

2005: Brokeback Mountain, Capote
2006: Babel
2007: Juno, There Will Be Blood (I always count this and Benjamin Button even though we only saw a portion of each film in tributes to Daniel Day Lewis and David Fincher)
2008: Slumdog Millionaire***, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
2009: (first year of expanded field of nominees): An Education, Up in the Air
2010: The King’s Speech***, 127 Hours, Black Swan
2011: The Artist***, The Descendants
2012: Argo***, Amour
2013: 12 Years a Slave***, Gravity,  Nebraska
2014: Birdman***, The Imitation Game
2015: Spotlight***, Room
2016: Moonlight***, Arrival, La La Land, Manchester by the Sea
2017: The Shape of Water***, Darkest Hour, Lady Bird
2018: The Favourite, Roma

In the 14 years included here 32 TFF films were nominated for Best Picture with nine of them winning Oscar’s highest honor including the incredible eight straight year run from 2010-2017.

The first TFF film to earn a nomination for Best Picture was Francis Ford Coppola's The Conversation in 1974, the very first Telluride Film Festival.  The second wouldn't happen until 1989 with Jim Sheridan's My Left Foot.

Tomorrow, a look at Best Director candidates from TFFs past.



FORMAN VS. FORMAN TRAILER

The Karlovy Vary Fest is ongoing as I write and one of the docs screening there that has caught my eye as a potential TFF selection is Jakub Henja and Helena Trestikova’s Forman vs. Forman focusing on the life and career of the late, great Milos Forman.

With its screening at the Czech fest, the producers have released a trailer which I have included here from YouTube:

That's your first July MTFB.  More to come tomorrow...

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The New Malick at TFF #46? / The Critics at Cannes /Coming Soon

Hope that your week has been going well.  It's Thursday!

THE NEW MALICK AT TFF #46?

Like a lot of the film community, I've been keeping an eye on the latest film, A Hidden Life,  from auteur Terrence Malick for...well...a long time.  News appeared this week that might nudge its chances of playing at Telluride a bit closer to a reality.

Fox Searchlight acquired the film for U.S. distribution after its play in Cannes.  The film was reportedly acquired for somewhere between $12-14 million.  

The anticipation at this point is that Searchlight will likely position the film for a fall release, plays at a fall fest or fests and campaign it as an awards contender.

Malick is notoriously reclusive and his previous Telluride brief, as best as I can sniff it out, came in 1998 as a producer for the film Endurance (IMDb link here).

Fox Searchlight's participation certainly doesn't hurt the films chances of playing at TFF #46 as the distributor has become a frequent presence in the San Juans over Labor Day weekend.  Last year Searchlight was at the fest with Can You Ever Forgive Me, The Favourite and The Old Man and the Gun.  In 2017, FS screened The Shape of Water at TFF #44 which, of course, went on to capture the Oscar for Best Picture.  Searchlight has also has Best Picture wins in the last decade with 12 Years a Slave and Birdman both of which also played the Telluride fest.

So...this week's acquisition activity probably bumps up the chances that A Hidden Life makes its way to southwest Colorado in about thee months.

THE CRITICS AT CANNES

Checking in with Reini Urban's collection of critical responses to the films that have been screening this last week-plus at the 72nd Cannes Film Festival.

With just a few days left before awards are handed out Bong Joon-Ho's Parasite sits atop the overall critical reception.  The film boasts a cumulative 8.57 rating on a scale of 10 (with over 200 critics counted) making it not only the highest rated film of the Palme competitors but the top rated film when all categories are considered.

Parasite has U.S. distribution from a relative newcomer on the scene: Neon.  Despite its youth, Neon has been well represented at Telluride the past few years with The B Side: Elsa Dorfman's Portrait Photography (2016), Border (2018) and The Biggest Little Farm (2018) all making the TFF lineup so Parasite becomes a serious potential TFF #46 film.

Other notes from the critical compilation: 3 other Palme competing films are in the critics top ten at the moment.  That includes Almodovar's Pain and Glory (8.43 at #3) , Sciamma's Portrait of a Lady on Fire (7.76 at #6) and Tarantino's Once Upon a Time in...Hollywood (7.57 at #9).

Robert Eggers The Lighthouse is at #2 with a 8.48 rating.  The Lighthouse is being distributed domestically by A24.  Aside from the Tarantino film which with be released in the U.S. on July 26th, the other four films have a shot at Telluride.

Other Cannes films that I've taken note of as potential TFF choices and their critical response at this point include:

Young Ahmed/Dardennes- 5.47
A Hidden Life/Malick- 6.93
Matthias and Maxime/Dolan 5.84
Frankie/Sachs 5.53
Joan of Arc/Dumont 6.30
Port Authority/Lessovitz 5.56
Diego Maradona/Kapadia 7.11
Family Romance/Herzog 5.95
The Climb/Covino 6.76

A rating above 6.0 is generally regarded as good to great but hasn't necessarily been a determinative factor regarding whether TFF programs a Cannes film.


The Palme and other awards will be announced tomorrow and Saturday.

The Urban critical compilation is linked here.


COMING SOON

Still of Sarah Paulson in The Goldfinch (from IMDb)

Anton Volkov's Trailer Track website says we're about to get the first trailer for John Crowley's The Goldfinch.  Based on the Pulitzer Prize winning novel, the film stars Nicole Kidman, Sarah Paulson and Ansel Engort. 

The film is set for U.S. release on Sept. 13th and is distributed by Warner Bros with Amazon Studios distributing worldwide and also acting as a production company for the film.

All of this means that it's a TFF #46 possibility.

Stay tuned for the trailer.

That's it for today.  Come back Monday for a look at Cannes awards results and if that menas anything for Labor Day weekend.


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More on Ad Astra / Pierre Rissient: One Year Gone / Indiewire's 15 Anticipated Cannes Films

Hello all on this Thursday...

MORE ON AD ASTRA

In my Monday post I passed along the story that Disney/Fox looked like they were going to push James Gray's space drama, Ad Astra, into the fall schedule from its previously announced release date of May 24th.

Well, it didn't take long for that uncertainty to dissipate as multiple sources reported on Tuesday that Ad Astra's new release date will be Sept. 24th. That likely means some premiere at Venice, Toronto and/or Telluride.  New York is removed from consideration as it will run from Sept 28th to Oct. 14th.

Zack Sharf writing for Indiewire specifically suggests that the film's chances at playing one or more of the fests has increased saying: "The move most likely means that Disney will target a launch for the drama at the fall film festivals, be it Venice, Telluride or TIFF."

Ad Astra stars Brad Pitt as an astronaut who goes searching for his father (Tommy Lee Jones) who was also an astronaut but who has been missing for years.

The Sharf story from Indiewire is here.

PIERRE RISSIENT: ONE YEAR GONE

Telluride favorite Pierre Rissient died a year ago ( May 5, 2018) and earlier this week Scott Foundas, who is now an executive for Amazon Studios and who has had a significant past with TFF, wrote a tribute on the one year anniversary of Rissient's passing that appeared this week.

That tribute appeared at Cinema Scope (cinema-scope.com) and you can find that piece linked here.

Foundas is currently credited as the Executive in charge of Production for Amazon's Radioactive from director Marjane Satrapi (Perspolis) which could be a film in the conversation for a spot at TFF #46.

INDIEWIRE'S 15 ANTICIPATED CANNES' FILMS

This week the folks at Indiewire put together a  list of 15 films that are about to premiere over the next couple of weeks at the 72nd Cannes Film Festival.

The article and complete list are linked here.

On their list are a number of films that I think have a chance of making the TFF #46 lineup including:

Family Romance, LLC (Herzog)

Frankie (Sachs)

A Hidden Life (Malick)

The Lighthouse (Eggers)

The Cannes Fest opens on Tuesday evening with Jim Jarmusch's The Dead Don't Die.

That's today's MTFB.  More on Monday.

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A Couple of Outside Shots / New Del Toro May Have DiCaprio / Fienne's The White Crow Opens This Weekend

Good Thursday morning to all...

A COUPLE OF OUTSIDE SHOTS

Looks these last few days at two films that I have avoided including as TFF #46 possibilities are Ang Lee's Gemini Man and Robert Eggers The Lighthouse.

However, we got the first trailer for Gemini Man this week (from YouTube):

And Ang Lee has, though not for awhile, had a presence at Telluride and the film is set for release on Oct. 11th.  Paramount has it under its wing and has occasionally landed at TFF (the last time in 2017 with Downsizing and An Inconvenient Sequel).

Also, here's the story on Gemini Man from Indiewire

Also, we got the first still from Robert Eggers The Lighthouse.  It's from A24 which has been involved at Telluride quite a bit over the last five years or so.  Here's the still via Indiewire:

The Lighthouse was announced as one of the competition films in the Cannes sidebar section Director's Fortnight.  Sometimes films from DF make their way to T-ride.

I have linked this story about The Lighthouse from Indiewire.

NEW DEL TORO MAY HAVE DI CAPRIO

(Photo via Rob Latour/Shutterstock/Variety)

Word is buzzing that Oscar winner Leonardo DiCaprio may sign on to an emerging Guillermo Del Toro project currently titled Nightmare Alley.  The film would be a remake of a 1947 film starring Tyrone Power.

Del Toro's play at TFF 44 with The Shape of Water and its win for Best Picture means we'd be wise to keep an eye on its development.

Variety has the details linked here.

FIENNES' THE WHITE CROW OPENS THIS WEEKEND

Sony Pictures Classics reminded us yesterday that the Ralph Fiennes directed film about the life of Rudolf Nuryev, which played TFF #45, opens in New York and Los Angeles this weekend.  The reminder came in the form of an email with a great poster for the film.

Here's a look at the poster:

The White Crow will expand to other parts of the country in the coming weeks.

That's your MTFB for this Thursday.  Thanks for playing.  More will be on its way to you on Monday!

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