AN EXPERIMENT
For a long while I have been fascinated by what happens to TFF films after they screen at Telluride. I've watched, over the last several years, announcements from other fests concerning their lineups and where TFF films landed. So I decided this year to actually survey what the pedigrees became for films that played The SHOW.
To keep the project from becoming ridiculously large I limited the assessment to two fests that precede Telluride that always screen films that then play at Telluride-Cannes and Venice. I included four major post-Telluride fests-Toronto, New York, London and AFI and then I included what are often referred as Regional fests. I asked a number of journalist friends which fests fit that description and landed on: Mill Valley, Middleburg, Savannah and The Hamptons. There is a fifth fest that fits the profile and that's Palm Springs which doesn't happen until Jan. 4-15, 2024.
39 TFF #50 films played at least one other festival in addition to its Telluride screening.
So which films play the most of these 10 festivals (it'll be 11 after Palm Springs)? Any film that plays as many as possible would have a total of nine as Cannes and Venice screenings are mutually exclusive. The only film to have made that happen is Wim Winders Perfect Days.
Three films made appearances at eight of these fests:
Aki Kaurismaki's Fallen Leaves which only missed Savannah.
Alice Rohrwacher's La Chimera which didn't play London.
Jonathan Glazer's The Zone of Interest. It isn't scheduled to play at the AFI Fest which just got under way this past Sunday.
A single film will have made seven stops in addition to TFF and that is Tran Ahn Hung's The Taste of Things.
Six films will score six fest screenings beyond Telluride: Anatomy of a Fall, The Promised Land, All of Us Strangers, Fingernails, The Holdovers and The Teachers' Lounge.
Films with five screenings: The Pigeon Tunnel, Rustin and Totem.
Films that would seem to be likely Oscar possibilities that each have four are Poor Things, The Bikeriders and Nyad.
So, does this little exercise mean anything?
At a minimum it may give us a bit of insight into the International Feature Oscar race. Eight films that were submitted for the International Oscar played TFF #50: Fallen Leaves, The Taste of Things, Perfect Days, The Zone of Interest, The Promised Land, The Monk and the Gun, The Teacher's Lounge and Totem. The only one of those eight that will have screened at less than five of these fests is Bhutan's selection The monk and the Gun.
The other thing I think this may show us is the perhaps hidden strength of Anatomy of a Fall and The Zone of Interest and their chances of making the final field of ten films nominated for best Picture.
I'll check back as we move through awards season to assess if this exercise had anything to reveal.
BIFA AWARDS NOMINATIONS
Overnight the British Independent Film Awards announced its nominees. Six TFF films earned a total of 21 nominations lead by 14 for Andrew Haigh's All of Us Strangers. Here's the breakdown:
All of Us Strangers: Best British Independent Film, Direction, Lead Performance-Andrew Scott, Supporting Performance-Paul Mescal, Jamie Bell and Claire Foy, Screenplay, Casting, Cinematography, Editing, Music Supervision, Makeup and Hair, Production Design and Sound.
Bobi Wine: The People's President (from TFF #49): Best Documentary Feature, Best Debut Direction of a Documentary Feature and Documentary Editing.
Anatomy of a Fall: Best International Independent Film.
Fallen Leaves: Beat International Independent Film.
Occupied City: Best Feature Documentary.
High and Low: John Galliano: Best Editing.
WRITERS' GUILD MOVES AWARDS
The writers' strike continues to alter the film landscape with the announcement yesterday from the WGA that they will hand out their awards on April 14th. The WGA will announce their nominees on Feb. 21st, one day before final Oscar voting begins. Variety reported that the WGA issued a statement which said, in part:
“This year’s Writers Guild Awards are being held in April to allow for a full awards submissions process to occur after the strike."
So at least one major Guild precursor is set to occur after the Oscar nominations are announced on Jan. 23rd.
One wonders if other Guilds might re-visit their plans with the Actors' strike still on-going.
INTERVIEWS AND PROFILES: HERZOG, NIKOU AND HEMINGSON
Werner Herzog on the Conan O'Brien Needs a Friend Podcast. (Shout out to MTFB friend Patrick Pringle who alerted me to this)
