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
"But it's our job." - Anne Thompson, Indiewire
I am piecing together a schedule for tomorrow based on what I am seeing on the TFF #44 App...which I am suggesting you get certainly until you can snag a hard copy of the program.
OPENING NIGHT FEED/COLORADO AVE.
5:30pm
By Venue for Friday, Sept. 1, 2017
PALM
6:30pm-Darkest Hour- Joe Wright, Gary Oldman and Ben Mendelsohn
9:30pm Lean on Pete-Andrew Haigh, Travis Fimmel
GALAXY
7:00pm-Film Stars Don't Die in Liverpool-Paul McGuigan, Jamie Bell
9:45pm-Darkest Hour
5:15pm-A Man of Integrity-Mohammed Rasoulof
8:00pm-The Rider-Chloe Zhao
10:15pm-Loving Vincent-Dorota Kobiela, Hugh Welchman
MASONS HALL
5:30pm-Land of the Free-Camilla Magid
8:00pm-Titicut Follies
10:15pm-Tesnota-Kantemir Balagov
LE PIERRE
5:00pm-Hostages-Rezo Gigneishvili
7:45pm-The Other Side of Hope
10:15-Faces/Places-Rosalie Varda. JR
ABEL GANCE/ELKS PARK
8:30pm-The Rider
Personal note: My schedule is likely to depend on what the patron screening is Friday afternoon. It looks to me like the big gets tomorrow might be Darkest Hour and Downsizing or maybe Lean on Pete. I'd also be really interested late in Loving Vincent or Faces/Places. Depends.
More tomorrow and I will be tweeting some throughout the day. My Twitter handle is @Gort2.
MTFB DOES WELL...BUT NOT PERFECT
If you were keeping Score (and I always do) the final Ten (25) Bets was 24 of 25. my mistake was inadvertantly bumping AiWeiWei's Human Flow off the list and keeping Before We Vanish. My mistake.
Seriously, I had Human Flow in the Bets for awhile and then just seemed to loose track of it.
Still, 96% isn't awful.
RANDOM THOUGHTS
Weird that we only have two tributes lined up this year. One for Christian Bale/Hostiles and the other for Ed Lachman/Wonderstruck. I suspect that the third tribute existed in some way but was derailed at the past minute.
Might have to be at The Abel Gance Sunday Night for Al Gore and An Inconvenient Sequel.
Thrilled Billie Jean King and Emma Stone will be in town for Battle of the Sexes.
Also pretty stoked that Richard Jenkins will be here with Guillermo Del Toro for The Shape of Water.
Come back for more here tomorrow...
EMAIL: mpgort@gmail.com OR michael_speech@hotmail.com
You're staring at Tuesday, August 29, 2017...TFF #44 cranks up in three days!
WORMWOOD TRAILER LANDS
Maybe the most mysterious likely inclusion in the TFF #44 lineup is Errol Morris' Wormwood. We got more info about it yesterday including the notes that it will be six episodes and that Netflix will drop it on Dec. 15th.
Scott Foundas, who has been a Telluride festival or three Tweeted out a big surprise and reveal late last night.
TFF#44 will program a restoration of Francis Ford Coppola's Cotton Club. Here's the screen grab of two Foundas Tweets with the reveal:
And the second:
So if you have a yen for a restoration, looks like Telluride has your answer. Also, you have to think that Coppola would likely be in town to present.
SORROW ABOUT SEA SORROW
After reading the NYFF announcement stories in a number of different places, I concluded that Vanessa Redgrave's directing debut, the documentary Sea Sorrow, could be Telluride bound. That was based on the lack of any premiere status designation in the stories. Last night I discovered that the actual NYFF/Film Society of Lincoln Center website does, in fact, list it as a U.S. Premiere meaning that it will NOT be a player at TFF #44 after all.
Here's your evidence:
So...no Sea Sorrow. Apologies to all.
VIEWS OF THE FILM FIELD: AWARDS SEASON
The Playlist's awards guru Greg Ellwood has published a story that focuses on 13 films that he has highlighted as possible awards season dominators. Among them he has included Alexander Payne's Downsizing, Guillermo Del Toro's The Shape of Water, Greta Gerwig's Lady Bird and Joe Wright's Darkest Hour.
Ellwood also sprinkles in some Telluride intimations ahead of Thursday's lineup reveal so you might to look for those.
I came across a couple of stories that were focused on female directors that look to have films in the end of the year awards conversation and naturally I was interested in which of those films included by the authors could make a splash this weekend at Telluride.
Both Tomris Laffly writing for Film School Rejects and Kate Erbland at Indiewire examine the group of films from directors such as Angelina Jolie, Chloe Zhao and others that seem, at least as we stand on the precipice of the fall film festival season, could make the most awards noise.
Both writers include these films in their musings that I am thinking will be announced as part of the TFF #44 lineup on Thursday: First They Killed My Father, The Rider, Visages/Villages (Faces/Places) and Lady Bird.
Laffly also includes Battle of the Sexes which is co-directed by Valerie Faris.
Nick Vivarelli writing for Indiewire last week examined the dynamic between the three fall film fests that are set to launch over the next ten days with a particular focus on Venice and an ancillary focus on Telluride.
Vivarelli interviews Venice artistic director Alberto Barbera who talks considerably about the current state of the two fests and Toronto as well.
Vivarelli confirms that this year may have the largest crossover between the two fests that anyone can remember. Venice reportedly wanted both Last Flag Flying which will open the New York Fest in a few weeks and Hostiles which we believe will first screen at Telluride this weekend.
DON'T FORGET...THE FINAL LIST OF TELLURIDE PREDICTIONS WILL BE UP TOMORROW MORNING IN A SPECIAL EDITION OF MTFB.
ALSO, WE MAY GET ONE MORE ANNOUNCEMENT FROM TORONTO TODAY...STAY TUNED...
JOIN MTFB AND RATE THOSE FILMS
Don't forget, my friends, I want your ratings of the films you see next weekend. Use a 0-5 scale with 0 being "putrid" and 5 being "best film since..."
Have a great weekend and get rested up for next week. More on Monday!
EMAIL: mpgort@gmail.com OR michael_speech@hotmail.com
LATE BREAKING: TORONTO TITLES TODAY OFFER NEW TELLURIDE CLUES
Toronto's purported final announcement of titles today sheds light on films that we think are now newly added to our list of T-ride screenings or confirms others that we thought were going or reveals titles that we thought might play that will not.
TIFF announced further Galas, Special Presentations, Masters and Contemporary World Cinema titles earlier today.
Here's what we think we've learned based on the premiere status of the films named:
New films that appear headed to Telluride:
Foxtrot
Lean on Pete
The Insult
First Reformed
Loveless
Films that appear to be further confirmed for Telluride:
The Other Side of Hope
Visages/Villages
Films that WILL NOT BE PLAYING TELLURIDE:
Chappaquiddick
Molly's Game (disppointed about this)
Mark Felt-The Man Who Brought Down the White House
Redoubtable
Happy End
And films confirmed out that we already thought were out:
The word is that the Toronto International Film Festival will have their first announcement of films for their fest a week from today. For those of you that have been reading this space for a long time, you know what that means. For those of you that are new or have been casual readers, here's why that's important:
TIFF will announce each film complete with its "premiere status". (Venice will too). When they do that [as we have seen with New York's announcement that Last Flag Flying is a world premiere, so it will not be seen at Telluride] that will tell us some things that allow us in many cases to determine whether a film will/won't or could play TFF #44. New York's recent announcement that Todd Haynes' Wonderstruck will be its Centerpiece as a "New York" premiere indicates an almost certainty of a Telluride play.
Fort example, if George Clooney's Suburbicon is announced as a World Premiere next Tuesday at TIFF that means it will not play Telluride. If it's a North American premiere...no Telluride.
If a film is an International premiere...that depends on where else it has already played or will be announced to play. If it's a Canadian Premiere and didn't play Sundance or Tribeca...it's almost certainly headed to Telluride.
Toronto won't announce it's whole lineup but it's crucial to note that the overlap between Toronto and Telluride is historically impressive. Last year the fests shared 22 titles. That level of crossover may not quite happen this year owing to TIFF's announcement earlier that they will program 20% fewer titles this year so that should mean a bit less of an overlap.
TIFF will have other announcements each week as we wind down the summer and we'll need to pay attention to each just as we'll need to scrutinize announcements from Venice, New York and London.
But don't sweat figuring that all out...That's what MTFB is here for. I'll probably have a special Wednesday edition next week to analyze the TIFF announcement.
THE USUAL SUSPECTS 2017
As I do each summer...here's a look at some of the people that often have projects that land at Telluride, what this year's project is and an assessment of that project's chances of making the TFF #44 lineup:
Ken Burns: Vietnam documentary...25%
Werner Herzog-Exec. Prod. on A Gray State...10%
Alexander Payne-Downsizing...80%
Paul Schrader-First Reformed...10%
Wim Wenders-Submergence...20%
Todd Haynes-Wonderstruck...85%
Alejandro Inarritu-V.R. Installation Carne y Arena...30% (if I could believe that Telluride could find a suitable venue...)
Michael Haneke-Happy End...50%
Stephen Frears...Victoria and Abdul...30%
Lynne Ramsay-You Were Never Really Here...50%
Errol Morris-The Lure...35%
Agnes Varda-Visages/Villages...70%
Ritesh Bakta-Our Souls at Night...20% (see below)
Aki Kaurismaki-The Other Side of Hope...35%
Sebastain Lelio-A Fantastic Woman...40%
MR. OSIASON SAYS...
Jason Osiason is a friend of MTFB and a cinephile to make note of. He digs as deep as anyone I know with regard to film world so when he makes a practice of sussing out/predicting what will happen there, you'd do well to take note.
Jason has been posting his predix for Telluride choices this summer and, in a spirit of providing my readers with as big a picture as possible, here are his latest comments re: TFF #44:
Jason also added Scott Cooper's Hostiles as a possible and You Were Never Really Here as "hard to believe these don't go".
REDFORD AND FONDA AT VENICE
The Venice Fest announced yesterday that Robert Redford and Jane Fonda will be honored there and their film Our Souls at Night from director Ritesh Bakta will World Premiere there on Sept. 1.
MTFB friend Kenny Miles points out that, despite the WP at Venice, that the film could play there and make the jump to Telluride for Sunday and Monday screenings. He also makes the point that the film was filmed in Colorado which he believes boosts its chances for a SHOW spot. That point is very well taken.
My original response was to think that the Venice announcement made the film's TFF #44 appearance unlikely but Mr. Miles analysis makes some sense. So, I'm not ruling out the film's chances for a T-ride play.
And so because it's Friday, it's time for the third iteration of MTFB's Ten Bets for Telluride. It's my weekly attempt to guess what will play at this year's fest ranked in order of what I believe their likelihood to be. Last week's Ten Bets looked like this:
1) Wonderstruck
2) Loveless
3) Visages/Villages
4) Battle of the Sexes
5) Downsizing
6) The Florida Project
7) A Fantastic Woman
8) The Other Side of Hope
9) 120 BPM
10) You Were Never Really Here
This week's Ten Bets...
1) Wonderstruck
2) Visages/Villages
3) Loveless
4) The Florida Project
5) A Fantastic Woman
6) Battle of the Sexes
7) 120 BPM
8) The Other Side of Hope
9) You Were Never Really Here
10) Downsizing
Others to consider: The Shape of Water, Three Billboards Outside Ebbing Missouri, Our Souls at Night, The Rider, Lean on Pete, Loving Vincent.
They specifically mention Telluride in the context of six films (seven if you count a reference from their "other" films beyond the 50 they highlight. They are:
Battle of the Sexes
The Current War
The Death of Stalin (MTFB comment...yes, please)
Mary Magdalene
mother!
Under the Silver Lake
and Breathe which is mentioned outside their 50
Among others of their 50 films that I have been following as potential T-ride players, here is that list and The Playback's notes regarding where they think the film will screen and/or premiere (and even in the case of these films, a play at any of the fests that are listed doesn't mean that the film would not also play at Telluride):
Blade Runner 2049-Venice (you might remember my comment yesterday about BR2049 maybe not playing any fest)
The Darkest Hour-Venice/TIFF (see below)
Disobedience From the director of A Fantastic Woman (which I think is likely for T-ride)-Venice/TIFF
Downsizing-all they say is that a "fall premiere...is a lock" which would almost certainly be Telluride I would think but there is still buzz concerning whether it will be ready.
Hostiles-AFI
Lady Bird-TIFF
Lean on Pete-Venice/TIFF
Molly's Game-AFI
Roman Israel, Esq-TIFF/AFI
The Shape of Water-TIFF
The Snowman-Venice
Stronger-Venice
Suburbicon-The Playlist says' We hear this already has a major festival slot lined up" but they don't speculate about which one. They do say to expect an announcement sooner rather than later which would mean that whatever it is, it's not Telluride. That doesn't preclude a T-ride play, however.
We saw yesterday that we would get a trailer for Joe Wright's Darkest Hour. The big buzz has been about Gary Oldman's performance as Winston Churchill. Here's the newly released trailer:
The film is being distributed by Focus Features and is set to be released on Nov. 22nd.
Here are a couple of stories about the film and its trailer release from:
Here we are on a Friday in July once again which means it's time for our weekly update of my list of ten films that seem, at least at this point, the most likely to play as a part of this year's Telluride Film Festival.
Last week's first attempt looked like this:
1) Loveless
2) A Fantastic Woman
3) Wonderstruck
4) Visages/Villages
5) The Florida Project
6) Downsizing
7) You Were Never Really Here
8) 120 BPM
9) The Rider
10) Battle of the Sexes
The Next Bets, in no particular order of likelihood: Happy End, Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri, The Current War, Loving Vincent, Lean on Pete, Redoubtable, Spoor.
In light of bits and pieces of information, here's this week's Ten Bets:
1) Wonderstruck
2) Loveless
3) Visages/Villages
4) Battle of the Sexes
5) Downsizing
6) The Florida Project
7) A Fantastic Woman
8) The Other Side of Hope
9) 120 BPM
10) You Were Never Really Here
Other films bubbling just below these Ten Bets:
The Rider, Happy End, Three Billboards Outside of Ebbing, Missouri, The Current War, Loving Vincent, Lean on Pete, Redoubtable, Spoor.
WONDERSTRUCK CENTERS NEW YORK AND...
The New York Film Festival announced yesterday that Todd Haynes' Wonderstruck will be their Centerpiece this year on Oct. 7th. Of special note to Telluride followers was the note in the announcement from the Film Society of Lincoln Center that the film would be presented as its New York premiere.
That implies that the film will have played previously as a North American and U.S. premiere somewhere else. My conclusion...it plays Telluride.
And additional coverage of the selection by the NYFF from Indiewire.
In light of this announcement, I moved Wonderstruck up to the number one spot in today's Ten Bets as you can see above.
A TRAILER FOR CALIFORNIA TYPEWRITER
One of last year's sort of underground hits at TFF #43 was the documentary California Typewriter. The film acts as a love letter to the machine and the people that still love to use them. The film is being distributed by Gravitas Ventures and The Playlist reports that it has a domestic release date of August 18th.
The trailer, however, is out and here it is from YouTube:
That's a wrap for this Friday and this week. More to come on Monday.
EMAIL: mpgort@gmail.com OR michael_speech@hotmail.com
Welcome my friends...to the machine...for Friday, June 30, 2017.
THE FIRST TEN BETS FOR TFF #44
Well, it's arrived. Since 2011, I have been formally taking a stab at what films will be at The SHOW with what I call "Ten Bets". For what will be the seventh year running, those begin appearing the last week of June and will run on a weekly, updated basis until the day before the lineup is actually announced-probably Aug. 31.
As to its success...well, this first one you need to take with a gigantic grain of sodium chloride. The success rate of the first Ten Bets each year is less than impressive.
The average over these past six years 5.5 but as you can see, the last two years have been particularly challenging. Last year's first list only correctly named Moonlight, Toni Erdmann and Fire at Sea.
Okay then, enough disclaiming...here's your first "Ten Bets" for 2017:
1) Loveless
2) A Fantastic Woman
3) Wonderstruck
4) Visages/Villages
5) The Florida Project
6) Downsizing
7) You Were Never Really Here
8) 120 BPM
9) The Rider
10) Battle of the Sexes
The Next Bets, in no particular order of likelihood: Happy End, Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri, The Current War, Loving Vincent, Lean on Pete, Redoubtable, Spoor.
THE DISTRIBUTORS: WARNERS AND PARAMOUNT
Of the "major" film studios the two that have had the biggest footprint at Telluride over the past few years are Warners and Paramount.
Warners has particularly become a consistent presence in the past five years:
2012: Argo
2013; Gravity, Prisoners
2104:
2015: Black Mass
2016: Sully
Certainly Argo and Gravity worked out well for them both in terms of financial success and Oscar success. Less so for Black Mass and Sully. Still, you'd have to think that there's a least a decent shpt that Warners returns in 2017 with one film, So what's in the Warners cupboard that has Telluride potential?
The big question, and maybe the only question regarding Warners this fall and Telluride is: Do they bring and does Telluride want Denis Villenueve's Blade Runner 2049?
I've been grappling with that question for most of the spring and into the summer. The case for it is that it is from Warners and it is directed by Denis Villenueve and he and Telluride have a long and pleasant history:
1998-August 32nd on Earth
2009-Incendies
2013-Prisoners
2016-Arrival
And as I have said a number of times, the inclusion in recent years of Gravity and Arrival make a pretty good empirical evidence for a film like Blade Runner 2049 to make the TFF lineup.
Finally, I suspect that BR 2049 is going to make a big splash when it opens Oct. 6th. Too many people have wanted anxiously for so long for the sequel to the 1982 original and I believe Villenueve is going to make the material sing.
But...
I still am not completely sold on the idea. Had anyone been suggesting this style of film for Telluride prior to 2013 I almost certainly would have said "no way" with Villenueve attached or not. And Villenueve's track record does show a pattern of gaps between Telluride appearances. So BR 2049 is no cinch for a T-ride play.
Chances: 30%
And at this point, if BR 2049 does NOT play, I doubt Warners has a film at the fest in 2017.
Paramount Pictures has a spotty Telluride resume:
Arrival played in 2016
Anomalisa in 2015
Labor Day 2013
Up in the Air 2009
Paramount has, in my estimation, three films that they could be interested in bringing to Telluride:
Alexander Payne's Downsizing
George Clooney's Suburbicon
Darren Aronfsky's mother!
All three film makers have been at Telluride within the last few years. Payne has become a regular and as you can see from the Ten Bets above, I expect him back again this year with Downsizing.
Clooney was in Telluride in 2011 with Payne's The Descendants. Clooney was a tribute recipient that year but hasn't returned.
Aronofsky sneaked Black Swan at the fest in 2010.
Chances:
Downsizing 75%
Suburbicon 30%
mother! 25%
BREATHE WILL OPEN BFI-LONDON FEST
We saw the first signs of Andy Serkis' directing debut yesterday with the trailer for Breathe and the announcement from the BFI-London Film Fest that it would open there on Oct. 4th as an European Premiere meaning that it will world premiere somewhere previously not on the European continent. That almost certainly means a play at Telluride, Toronto and/or New York.
My bet, at the moment is Toronto.
The film is being distributed by Bleeker Street Media which partnered with Netflix in 2015 to release Beasts of No Nation.
Here's the trailer for Breathe from YouTube:
And that's a wrap for Friday. Enjoy your weekend.
EMAIL: mpgort@gmail.com OR michael_speech@hotmail.com
A note here about MTFB in the summer of 2017. Because I'm going to be on the road a lot this summer, MTFB is going to go with a four day a week publishing schedule for most weeks between now and the Festival. Normally, MTFB posts on Mondays and Thursdays and for this summer in the run up to TFF #44 I am going to add posts for Tuesday and Friday. This is a little departure from the last couple of years in which I have posted five times a week for the summer schedule.
So, at least here at the start of the three month countdown to Telluride, that's the plan.
TELLURIDE HISTORY CONTINUED: TFF #27
Today, I continue my amble back through Telluride Film Fest history. We look at TFF #27 that took place Sept. 1-4, 2000.
Guest Director: Edgardo Cozarinsky
Tributes: Ang Lee, Stellan Skarsgard. Im Kwon Taek
Special Medallion: Serge Silberman
Special Programs:
Norman Lloyd Reminisces
Elmore Leonard: Storyteller
Films:
Aberdeen
About Bunuel
Beauty Will Save the World
Better Than Sex
Boseman and Lena
The Burger and the King: The Life and Cuisine of Elvis Presley
Chinese Coffee
Chopper
Chuck Jones: Extremes and In-Betweens
Chunhyang
Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon
Dinner Rush
The Endurance
Faithless
Forever Mine
Hell's Heroes
House of Mirth
Innocence
Jazz
The King is Alive
Kippur
Lon Chaney: A Thousand Faces
Native Son
Nosferatu
One Day in September
Our Lady of the Assassins
Rapt
Quills
Seven Men from Now
Shadow of the Vampire
Stranger on the Prowl
Sunset Boulevards
Sweet and Lowdown
A Time of Drunken Horses
The Widow of St. Pierre
Wings of Hope
Yi Yi
Yolgnu Boy
Guests:
Eric Bana
Angela Bassett
Ken Burns
Willem Dafoe
Andrew Dominick
Sarah Gavron
Danny Glover
Werner Herzog
Phil Kaufman
Ang Lee
Elmore Leonard
Kevin Macdonald
Leonard Maltin
Todd McCarthy
Janet McTeer
Al Pacino
Peter Reigert
Paul Schrader
Barbet Schroeder
Peter Sellars
Stellan Skarsgard
Barry Sonnenfeld
Note: Film maker Sarah Gavron made her first Telluride appearance with her short film Losing Touch.
Also, personally...would have loved to have been there for the Elmore Leonard program and the presentation of Nosferatu.
Sperling specifically mentions The Beguiled (opening on June 30, so off the table for Telluride) and Lynne Ramsay's You Were Never Really Here as potential Oscar hopefuls. She also makes the point that The Florida Project could be a dark horse (as I have said as well).
Foreign Language film candidates that she assesses are Palme d'Or winner The Square, Loveless, Happy End and BPM. For my money Loveless and BPM seem the most likely T-ride choices.
Anderson, in his post for Awards Watch, starts with mentioning, The Square, BPM and Loveless as real Foreign Language contenders.
Other article highlights are his suggestion that neither Wonderstruck nor Happy End were probably hurt by their lack of awards and that we should be watching for Agnes Varda and JR's Visages/Villages (Faces/Places) as a serious contender for Best Documentary.
IF I HAD TO...
I won't put up the first "official" Ten Bets for Telluride of the year until June 23rd...but...if I had to tell you right now what I think...in no particular order...
Wonderstruck
The Florida Project
Loveless
A Fantastic Woman
Downsizing
Visages/Villages (Faces/Places)
You Were Never Really Here
BPM
The Current War
Battle of the Sexes
...might be near the top of a hypothetical "Ten Bets" three months before the fest commences...but don't quote me.
And that'll do it for this Monday. I'll have more tomorrow...
EMAIL: mpgort@gmail.com OR michael_speech@hotmail.com
It's June...also a Thursday which means another post for MTFB...
CANNES: THE CRITICS' FINAL ANALYSIS
The long awaited and much anticipated 70th Cannes Film Festival has concluded. It struck me this week that I get almost as obsessive about it as I do about Telluride. That Cannes obsession is a means to and as I have pointed out any number of times, the overlap of films between the two fests is substantial with an average of 7-8 films playing Cannes first and then following that with a Labor Day bow in the San Juans. Last year Bright Lights, Bernadette LaFont, Family Whistle, Graduation, Journey Through French Cinema, Neruda and Toni Erdmann (7 films) made an appearance at both.
In 2015 the list included: Carol, Son of Saul, Rams, Hitchcock/Truffaut, Ingrid Bergman: In Her Own Words and Sembene.
So it pays to note what makes noise in Cannes if you're trying to figure out possible films that could play three and a half months later.
To that end...the critics take from Cannes can be a useful tool. Let's look at some of that.
Screen Daily's Critics of Palme competition films:
1) (tie) Loveless 3.2
1) (tie) You Were Never Really Here 3.2
3) (tie) The Square 2.7
3) (tie) Wonderstruck 2.7
5) (tie) BPM 2.5
5) (tie) Good Time 2.5
5) (tie) The Day After 2.5
Focus Features released the first trailer for Stephen Frears Victoria and Abdul earlier this week. We're going to keep an eye on it for a possible Telluride slot based on three factors: 1) Frears who was a tribute recipient in 1987 and returned to the festival in 2010 with Tamara Drewe. His 2013 Philomena was rumored to be in play for TFF #40. 2) Focus Features...despite a spotty record of T-ride plays over the last few years-Suffragette in 2015 and Hyde Park on Hudson in 2012 and 3) the release date is Sept. 22 so a TFF #44 play might well make sense.
Now that the Cannes Fest is in the can, so to speak, I'm taking a moment to note three films that seemed to jump into Telluride consideration or, perhaps solidified my thinking in that regard.
The first is Sean Baker's The Florida Project. It has not been a film that I was seriously considering as a real T-ride possibility until its pickup for U.S. distribution by A24 and the glowing reviews that came from its Cannes appearance last week.
Baker, who made a big splash two years ago at Sundance with Tangerine (shot entirely on iPhones), is also getting the kind of notice that makes me think that A24 may want to push the film hard as they have had such success in the last two years with Room and Moonlight.
Both Variety's Guy Lodge and Deadline's Pete Hammond have suggested that the film could be an Oscar sleeper and I would think that if A24 has that plan that they're going to want the film to play Telluride.
The next film for this segment is Agnes Varda and JR's Visages/Villages (or Faces/Places if you prefer) whcih I probably should have been taking more seriously as a TFF possibility from the very beginning simply because of Varda.
The fact that the film was nearly universally adored and that many think it may be Varda's swan song also suggest the potential for a SHOW slot.
The third film in that seemed to me to jump into serious Telluride consideration was BPM or 120 BM or 120 Beats Per Minute or whatever it's going to ultimately be called. The film's title seemed to mutate throughout the festival.
Its claim to Telluride consideration comes from its critical reception, its winning of the Grand Prix and its pickup for distribution by The Orchard (TFF #43-Neruda) and the fact that it is being bandied about in the foreign language film Oscar conversation depending, of course, on what film France decides to put forth for consideration.
Maybe all three make the TFF #44 lineup. Maybe none of them do but all three are more serious players today than they were two weeks ago.
That's it for this Thursday...more on Monday...
EMAIL: mpgort@gmail.com OR michael_speech@hotmail.com
