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
Terrence Malick remains the auteuriest of auteurs. His next feature: "Knight of Cups" has been gestating for a good long while and from reports seems to be ready to launch. Malick has never played Telluride, though you'd think that his best stuff would do very well there. And a reminder, purportedly "Tree of Life" was screened in Telluride in 2011 for Fox Searchlight which led to them acquiring and distributing the film.
To the end that "Knight" could make the T-ride 2015 lineup, here's this note that a bunch of new stills can be found in this post from The Playlist:
Michel Gondry's latest film "Microbe and Gasoline" dropped an International trailer yesterday (it's in French) and that's what you can view here:
"Microbe and Gasoline" trailer via YouTube
The film currently lacks distribution but Gondry was feted by Telluride in 2004, not as a tribute recipient, however. Nevertheless, Gondry's latest has to be at least a consideration for T-ride inclusion.
PREDICTING VENICE
Nicholas Bell writing for Ioncinema posted a set of predictions for possible selections for the Venice Film Fest. Regular readers of MTFB know that, on average, Venice and Telluride will share about three titles (last year it was five: "Birdman", "Ida", "The Look of Silence" "99 Homes" and "The Price of Fame").
If Bell's prognostications are close, one wonders, what might double as a Venice/Telluride play?Among the films he lists as possible Venice fare, the films that seem most likely to make the quick turnaround to Telluride are:
Jeff Nichols' "Midnight Special"
Todd Solondz's "Wiener Dog"
Werner Herzog's "Salt and Fire"
Frederick Wiseman's "In Jackson Heights"
Luca Guadaginino's " A Bigger Splash"
There's more. Take a look at the following link from Ioncinema:
In the run up to this year's Cannes Film Fest there was some thought in some quarters that auteur Michael Haneke's secretive "Flashmob" might show up as a part of one of the programs during the fest. I also had it as an outside shot film to keep an eye out for at Telluride because Haneke has made a home there with frequency. But the Cannes screening did not happen, of course, and now we know why.
Haneke has abandoned the project and moved on according to a number of reports. Apparently, things did not come together to his liking and thus, after having postponed the film for some time, Haneke has turned the page and moved on to something new.
Here's the reporting from The Playlist and Rope of Silicon:
FUTURE TELLURIDE: "IT'S ONLY THE END OF THE WORLD"
Marion Cotillard in the first image from Xavier Dolan's "It's Only the End of the World" via The Playlist
Xavier Dolan joined the ranks of Telluride alumni with the presentation of his film "Mommy" in 2014. In 2012, Marion Cotillard was feted as a recipient of a TFF tribute which was accompanied by Jacques Audiard's "Rust and Bone". We found out the last 24 hours that Dolan and Cotillard are teaming for a new film: "It's Only the End of the World" which focuses on a family dealing with a member with a terminal illness.
The film is expected to be released in 2016 and IMDb lists it as currently filming. One could reasonably expect that the film might make its way to TFF #43 next year.
Parenthetically, one also might see both Audiard and Cotillard return to Telluride this year. Audiard with "Dheepan" and Cotillard with Justin Kurzel's "Macbeth" (yes please!)
Here's reporting on the Dolan film from The Playlist and Rope of Silicon:
UK Trailer for "13 Minutes" (formerly "Elser") via YouTube
One of the films that emerged as a result of the Berlin International Film Festival back in February was Oliver Hirschbiegel's "Elser". The film was acquired by Sony Pictures Classics and was generally well received critically.
We found out yesterday that the film has changed titles. It is now called "13 Minutes".
The film is based on a true story about a lesser known attempt to assassinate Adolf Hitler in 1939 (as opposed to the more well known attempt immortalized by Tom Cruise in Bryan Singer's 2008 film "Valkyrie".
I may have "13 Minutes" on the very first "Ten Bets" list for 2015 which is coming in about 10 days...
Last week, I reported that Quentin Tarantino had committed to retro-fitting 50 screens across the nation to be able to screen "The Hateful Eight" in 70mm. News emerged over the weekend that revealed the release date and strategy for the film that was shot near Telluride last winter.
The film will be released on Christmas Day in 70mm and then go wide two weeks later digitally. Over the weekend a number of the Telluride Film Fest faithful and I engaged in a fairly involved Twitter convo about the chances that we might still see "Hateful" at TFF #42.
My feeling is that time doesn't favor that approach but that we might see a sequence or a selection of clips. It would be a thrill to get Tarantino in Telluride during Labor Day weekend. We'll see...
Here's coverage of the "Hateful" release story from Variety, The Hollywood Reporter, Indiewire, The Playlist, Rope of Silicon and The Wrap:
Julianne Moore and Ellen Page in "Freeheld" via Entertainment Weekly
Lionsgate has the distribution for the Julianne Moore, Ellen Page, Steve Carell starrer "Freeheld" based on the true life experience of policewoman Laurel Hester (Moore) who fought the power when she was faced with dying and wanted her survivor benefits to go to her same sex partner (Page).
The Lionsgate as distributor might seem to be a TFF disqualifier (listed as a distrib for "all is Lost" in 2013...and that's all) but the Lionsgate/Roadside Attractions (also "All is Lost" as well as "Mommy", "The Homesman", "'71") /Saban ( "The Homesman") connections make it a possibility. "Freeheld" is directed by Peter Sollett ( "Nick and Norah's Infinite Playlist").
Entertainment Weekly had the image (above) and the story:
Director Stephen Frears "Lance Armstrong" project has a new name. It was being referenced as "The Icon" and now it is being billed as "The Program". The film is still unattached to a distributor in the U.S. but does have a late September release date in France. Frears presence means we have to take the film seriously as a potential Telluride player.
Ben Foster stars as the disgraced former Tour de France champion.
At any rate, the film has an international trailer that dropped yesterday. It's in German. I have linked a couple of stories with the trailer here:
News yesterday that "Spotlight", the Tom McCarthy film that focuses on the reporters that broke the case of Catholic priests and their pattern of abuse in the Boston area, has a release date of Nov. 6th. Michael Keaton, Stanley Tucci, Rachel McAdams and Liev Schreiber, among others, star.
The film is distributed by Open Road which was at Telluride last year with Jon Stewart's "Rosewater".
Open Road also has Oliver Stone's "Snowden" and John Hillcoat's "Triple 9". The same news blast yesterday revealed that "Triple 9" has been moved to a March 2016 release date.
The big announcement came from Netflix this week that the video delivery service has struck a deal with Brad Pitt and David Michod to produce and distribute "War Machine" a satire of America's military involvement in the War on Terror.
This comes in the wake of the earlier news that Netflix will do the same with Cay Fukunaga's "Beasts of No Nation".
I'm very interested to see how Netflix plays this and if it has an effect on film festivals in any fashion. "Beasts" seems to me to be catnip for most film fests if it was being handled traditionally. However, the new "Netflix" (and others) world may turn film festivals to making different decisions concerning how and what they program. Stay tuned...
Various stories about the Netflix/Brad Pitt project.
It was announced yesterday that Cannes competition film "Mountains May Depart" from director Jia Zhangke has been acquired for U.S. distribution by Kino Lorber. Here's the story via Variety:
"MMD" ended up as a top three film from three of the four critical compilations that I was keeping track of.
Kino Lorber has had a noticeable presence at Telluride over the last couple of years so it's acquisition of "MMD" could easily presage a TFF #42 play for the film. Here's Kino Lorber's T-ride play the last two years:
2014- "The Decent One" ("Der Anstandige")
2013- "Burning Bush", "Manuscripts Don't Burn" and "La Maison de la Radio"
In addition, Kino Lorber will distribute Berlin's Golden Bear winner "Taxi" which is also a very real Telluride candidate.
Werner Herzog's "Queen of the Desert" suffered middling reviews from its play at the Berlin Film Fest but still has to be considered a very realistic possibility for inclusion in this year's Telluride lineup.
The Playlist dropped a ton of new images from the true life story that stars Nicole Kidman. I have included a couple and you can take a look at the rest here:
I was really expecting that J.C. Chandor's "A Most Violent Year" would play T-ride last year, and, of course, I was wrong. Really wrong. Reportedly the film wasn't ready for Labor Day...so no J.C. and no Oscar Isaac and no Jessica Chastain and no "Most Violent Year".
Now, looks like we might have another opportunity next year as Chandor's newest project came to light in multiple reports yesterday.
Chandor looks set to direct "Liar's Ball" which puts him in a general sense back in some of the territory he dealt with in his first feature "Margin Call". "Liar's Ball" us set in the middle of the NYC real estate scene and is based on a true story.
A24 is producing and distributing. They have appeared at Telluride with "Ginger and Rosa" in 2012 and "Under the Skin" in 2013. So a future Telluride play is a possibility.
"HATEFUL EIGHT" IS A DISH SERVED COLD...REALLY COLD AND OTHER "HATEFUL" NEWS
Samuel L. Jackson told the world last week that Quentin Tarantino kept his "Hateful Eight" set chill...very chill. Jackson was quoted as saying that the set was refrigerated to create and keep the reality of the freezing, snowy conditions. Check the story here from Rope of Silicon:
We still wish that we'd see it on Labor Day weekend...but doubt that will happen.
In other "Hateful" news, Rope of silicon was reporting yesterday that Tarantino is going to aid in the retro-fitting of up to 50 screens nationwide to be able to screen the new film in the 70mm format that he's shot it in. I'd also point out that T-ride has the capability to screen in 70 mm.
Scott Cooper's "Black Mass", the story of gangster Whitey Bulger played by Johnny Depp remains one of four films from Warners that are on my watch list for T-ride '15. The others: "In the Heart of the Sea", "Our Brand is Crisis" and "Midnight Special".
The film dropped what was described by The Playlist as a teaser poster, which you see above.
Take a look at the new pics from the film that are also included as a part of The Playlist's post from yesterday:
I keep coming back to the London Film Festival announcement form last week that Sarah Gavron's "Suffragette" will open the BFI LFF in early October and their listing of the film as its "European" premiere. (MTFB-June 4)
As Anne Thompson mentioned in her "Screen Talk" podcast that I linked here yesterday...the "European" designation means that the film will have played somewhere in North America before LFF. As others noted in the analysis of the original announcement, that also means that it will not have played Venice.
I think the key to parsing this out is whether or not the LFF announcement and its designating the film as an "European" premiere means that it is NOT the film's "International" premiere. If LFF is designating it as "European" as opposed to "International" because they wish to be specific in terms of that designation, then I believe the chances that "Suffragette" plays Telluride go way up. If the choice to designate as "European" makes this distinction, then it likely means that the film will have played Toronto and either New York or T-ride (or both). In the scenario of choosing one over the other, Telluride may have the upper hand.
If, on the other hand, it is NOT an LFF distinction of any real consequence, then the odds for "Suffragette" in the San Juans remain moderate at best. Of course, there's no way (at least that I have found yet) to determine whether LFF officials made this calculation when they announced the film as a "European" premiere last week,
LOOKING BACK WE FIND SOMETHING THAT SOUNDS FAMILIAR
I spent some time this weekend looking back at last summer's Toronto/Telluride drama. I wanted to remind myself how that had played out in a number of ways.
One of the things that I remembered and re-visited was the reaction from Sony Pictures Classics Tom Bernard and his characterization that the policy TIFF adopted last year was "imperialistic". Interestingly, as I was reviewing some of my posts and the posts of others that I linked, I discovered that Bernard may well have provided the template for this year's "adjustment". Bernard is credited in the Toronto Star (and subsequently in The Hollywood Reporter) as suggesting:
"Bernard suggested a compromise to the premiere tussle.
TIFF could create special evening premiere slots for the first Friday, Saturday and Sunday of the festival at major venues such as Roy Thomson Hall and the Princess of Wales and Elgin theatres. That would give TIFF some exclusive premieres, while also allowing Telluride and other fests first dibs on showing other movies."
Sounds familiar doesn't it? It's not exactly the newly announced "adjustment"...but there's a good deal of similarity.
The posts from both The Star and THR from last summer are re-linked below:
Bruce Kirkland writing Friday afternoon in the Toronto Sun explains last week's change in film policy from the Toronto International Film Festival in terms more closely in line with my take. We're not 100% compatible but he does make some of the same points that I have. Kirkland writes that "...TIFF did change the rules of combat-but the tension continues. And TIFF is still positioned as the bully..."
Anne Thompson/Thompson on Hollywood and Eric Kohn/IndieWire, both of whom have been kind enough to participate in my "Professionals of Telluride" film ratings, have posted their latest installment of their podcast: Screen Talk in which they spend a good chunk of time discussing the Fall Film Fest season. In fact, the podcast is titled: "Why We're Excited for Fall 2015".
Anne and Eric get to the Toronto "adjustment" at about the 6:40 mark in the cast.
A new trailer dropped yesterday for Justin Kurzel's Cannes competition adaptation of Shakespeare's "Macbeth" starring Marion Cotillard and Michael Fassbender. The trailer is quite intriguing and "Macbeth" remains as a real T-ride possibility. Here's the new look at the film:
New "Macbeth" teaser/trailer via YouTube
And a slew of stories that accompanied the trailer release:
Meanwhile, recently, The Playlist posted a n article focusing on the ways that director Kurzel has used to provide a different take on the Bard's classic:
I have linked a number of further posts from film media outlets that seek to outline and analyze the Toronto International Film Fest announcement that came down Wednesday concerning their "adjustment" of their premiere policy and its relationship to Telluride.
Almost everyone is still characterizing it as TIFF "backing down". If you've read yesterday's MTFB post, you'll know that I think that is a mis-characterization.
I think it's a passive/aggressive "tweak" that attempts to achieve the same thing they were looking for in last year's policy while simultaneously appearing to be regarded as "seeing the light". My description in a couple of messages to friends yesterday was that Toronto wants "to have their cake and eat it too".
My feeling is that they still want to dissuade film makers from playing Telluride at all...and their "plausible deniability" is the defense that the first four days of TIFF is now accessible to any and all...albeit, you'll be relegated to smaller and less glitzy venues during that opening weekend if you played Telluride first. I don't think it's "backing down" in the least. It's just a different way to achieve their desired result while appearing to have made the policy seem more "reasonable".
Additionally, a number of reports the last two days say that the TIFF bigwigs had conferred with "key stakeholders". I would love a list of who/what those "stakeholders" are.
Anyhow...here's some more analysis from around the web about the decision:
You can take Robert Zemeckis' "The Walk" off your Telluride watch list, if you ever had it there. Frankly, I never thought it was a likely TFF player anyway. The film was announced yesterday as the opening night gala for the 53rd New York Film Festival. That seems about right.
The film stars Joseph Gordon_Levitt as the real life Phillipe Petit who set out in 1974 to walk a wire between the twin towers of The World Trade Center.
The trailer from "The Walk" is here via YouTube:
And from Entertainment Weekly, the story of its choice for NYFF:
Hello Thursday...Wednesday was a busy day and night at the MTFB Ranch...
It's unusual to have two big Telluride related stories break the same day...and then a third...but it happened yesterday. We'll start with the last one first...
TORONTO CHANGES COURSE...SORT OF...
Scott Feinberg broke the story late yesterday afternoon at The Hollywood Reporter: The Toronto International Film Festival was backing down and reversing its premiere policy that they established last year and which was clearly aimed at Telluride.
Feinberg reported that TIFF will allow films that play Telluride to play during the first four days of their fest but with a caveat: NOT IN ANY OF TIFF'S THREE LARGEST VENUES.
So film makers still have a price to pay should they opt to play T-ride prior to a TIFF presentation.
Left uncertain was whether TIFF would continue their "honest premiere" status in terms of categorizing the films they chose to play.
That uncertainty was addressed in a post from Steve Pond of The Wrap a bit later in the day. The Wrap reporting that TIFF will retain that portion of their policy. Of course, to place films in a smaller venue or later in their week, they'd still need to require film maker's disclosure about whether the film was going to appear at Telluride and The Wrap story indicates that TIFF will continue to announce that actual status when they announce films for their lineup.
Many in the media reported it as a "reversal" and I suppose, strictly speaking it is. To me it seems rather more insidious than the original position TIFF took last year. T-ride films still get "punished" with relegation to smaller venues or later in the TIFF schedule and they still have to reveal their Telluride plans. Further, TIFF comes off looking as if they have "backed down". Pete Hammond of Deadline.com called it "clever", seeming to agree with my feeling here.
And many could fairly say, vis-a-vis the "honest premiere status", "Come on, Mikey, that's exactly what you do." And that makes some sense...sort of.
What I actually have done, up until last year, was detective work, guess work...
Last year's and now this year's TIFF policy allowed anyone to easily deduce a number of films that would play Telluride and many much bigger media fish than I did just that.
I think it's fundamentally a different animal all together for me to scurry about and out bits and pieces together and make some educated guesses as opposed to the spoiler party that TIFF announcements brought and will bring.
That's my take anyway...
Here's reporting on the new TIFF policy from Variety and The Guardian:
Normally, this would have been your MTFB lead today...The announcement came via email yesterday morning. We have poster artist and we have a poster AND IT IS COOL:
Here's the actual announcement from the Telluride FIlm Festival:
42ndTelluride Film Festival presented by National Film Preserve LTD., proudly announces illustrator Laurent Durieux as its 2015 poster artist. Telluride Film Festival’s prestigious annual gathering for film industry insiders, cinema enthusiasts, filmmakers and critics takes place every Labor Day weekend in the picturesque town of Telluride, Colorado. The 42nd edition of TFF will run September 4 – 7, 2015.
“It’s a great honor for me to have been asked to design this year's poster for the Telluride Film Festival,” said Durieux. “To be associated with so many great names of graphic design and fine arts is, on its own, something I will cherish for a very long time. I am a big cinema enthusiast too and as such, it certainly was a thrill to work on a poster for a film festival of this calibre. My image for the poster is a tribute to the work of the great Edward Hopper whose work, like mine, is very cinematic. I came up with what I hope to be my own take of his painting, New York Movie (1939), by giving it a surreal twist and a dash of modernity to it. The way Hopper used shadows and lights has had a big influence on my work in general and he certainly has on this poster. I love nature too and so, naturally, I look forward to attending the festival and discover all the wonderful things this place has to offer!”
“We first noticed Laurent’s work when he created the art for Criterion Collection,” commented Telluride Film Festival executive director Julie Huntsinger. “DVD jacket and one-sheet design is an art-form unto itself; capturing the mood of the film with one image. Laurent has done the same with this year’s poster. He’s managed to conjure the feeling and atmosphere of Telluride Film Festival with one breathtaking shot. It’s simply stunning.”
Durieux joins a prestigious list of artists who have shared their talents with Telluride Film Festival. Past poster artists include Christian Marclay, Dean Tavoularis, Ed Ruscha, John Mansfield, Julian Schnabel, Dottie Attie, Doug and Mike Starn, David Lance Goines, Chuck Jones, David Salle, Alexis Smith, Jim Dine, Seymour Chwast, Frederic Amat, Francesco Clemente, Dave McKean, Gary Larson, Chip Kidd, John Canemaker, Mark Stock, Laurie Anderson, William Wegman, Ralph Eggleston, Maira Kalman and Dave Eggers.
42nd Telluride Film Festival posters will be available for purchase throughout the four-day Festival or by visiting the TFF website atwww.telluridefilmfestival.org.
"SUFFRAGETTE" HAS NEW TRAILER AND OPENS LONDON FEST (PLUS OTHER CLUES)
The Sarah Gavron film "Suffragette" was all over the interweb yesterday with the announcement that it would open the BFI London Film Festival the first week of October. That announcement coupled with the above mentioned poster announcement kept me busy much of the day.
"Suffragette" seems like a very good candidate for Telluride's lineup. Even the LFF announcement yesterday could be seen as stoking the fire of its possibility. A number of the film outlets that I follow reported that the film's LFF screening will be its "European Premiere" (though at least one claimed it would be a "World" premiere...which makes a lot of difference).
If it is the "European" premiere, that implies a number of things...that it will NOT have played Venice but that it will have "World" and "Internationally" premiered other places prior to its bow in London on Oct. 7. We can infer then that it is almost certain to play Telluride and/or New York and Toronto seems a given.
Additionally, I'd point out that last year's LFF opener was "The Imitation Game" which managed to first be seen in Telluride.
Another note, director Sarah Gavron's "Brick Lane" (her last feature) played Telluride in 2007 complete with her appearance.
"Suffragette" was also produced, in part, by Pathe' and Film4, both of which have had their share of films play Telluride Pathe' most recently last year with the sneak inclusion of "Escobar: Paradise Lost" and Film4 was a part of the "Mr. Turner" production group).
All of that would likely make you think it's a 90% certainty to play...ummm...nope.
"Suffragette" is being distributed in the U.S. by Focus Features (Gavron's "Brick Lane" was distributed by Sony Pictures Classics) and their T-ride footprint has been smallish. Here's their Telluride list from the past dozen years:
2003: Lost in Translation
2004: The Motorcycle Diaries
2005: Brokeback Mountain
2006: Catch a Fire
2012: Hyde Park on Hudson
So, though I personally would love to see this film make the Telluride lineup...let's not count on it.
Here's the new trailer:
"Suffragette" Trailer via YouTube
And a good deal of the coverage tat accompanied the announcement and the trailer drop yesterday:
Mark Cousins had been a consistent part of the Telluride program this last half decade until last year. Cousins had been involved in Telluride's program for many years beginning in 2009 with "The First Movie" and continuing in 2011 with "The Story of Film: An Odyssey". He continued in 2012 with "What is this Film Called Love?" and in 2013 with "The Story of Children and Film" and "Here Be Dragons".
In 2014 Cousins didn't make the Telluride SHOW (despite having "Life May Be" as a possible entrant).
So, in 2015? Cousins could return. His "I Am Belfast" is finished and has been announced for the Karlovy Vary documentary lineup (that fest runs in early July). Cousins has often played Karlovy Vary prior to bringing his films to Telluride.
I have linked a couple of stories about the announcement of "I Am Belfast's" inclusion for the Karlovy Vary Fest as well as the film's IMDb page:
Fox Searchlight has dated Paolo Sorrentino's Cannes competition entry "Youth" for a Dec. 4 release date in the U.S. according to Anne Thompson/Thompson on Hollywood:
The awards friendly date continues to suggest that the film which received relatively good reviews, especially for Michael Caine, Harvey Keitel and Jane Fonda's performances, could easily slide into the program in T-ride on Labor Day. Sorrentino's last film "The Great Beauty" won the Best Foreign Language Oscar in 2014.
"THREE GENERATIONS" RELEASE DATE TOO
The Weinstein Company is wasting little time. TWC acquired Gaby Dellal's transgender drama "Three Generations" for $6 million during the Cannes Fest last month and has already slated it for a September release. The 18th to be exact. That's a small two week window after this year's Telluride Fest begins but it's not without precedent that a TWC film could play T-ride and then hit theaters that quickly.
Two years ago, "Salinger" opened in the U.S. a week after it was s screened in Telluride. So don't count out "Three Generations" in your Telluride speculation.
Anne Thompson recently talked to "Carol" director Todd Haynes and screen writer Phyllis Nagy about the upcoming film starring Cate Blanchett and Rooney Mara.
Last Thursday I posted a story that examined the Oscar prospects of the films that have just completed their premieres at Cannes, which also means that it's the first real Oscar analysis of films that people have eyeballed that may also make the Telluride lineup. Last week's post specifically included work from Sasha Stone/Awards Daily, Peter Knegt/Indie Wire and Anne Thompson/Thompson on Hollywood.
Today I'm adding one more of Oscar/Cannes piece from Pete Hammond of Gold Derby:
Hammond's Cannes Oscar evaluation includes these five films which may have a future in Telluride:
"Carol"
"Macbeth" (see below)
"Youth" (see below)
"Dheepan"
"Son of Saul"
LOOKING AT "YOUTH"
"Youth" clip via YouTube
The Playlist recently posted this story that includes four clips from Paolo Sorrentino's "Youth" The Keitel, film stars Michael Caine, Harvey Keitel and Rachel Weisz (who is featured in the above clip).
They're all in Italian and I should note that the first clip from The Playlist post is not safe for work.
Director Justin Kurzel spoke recently to IndieWire about his version of "Macbeth" that stars Michael Fassbender and Marion Cotillard. The film played in competition at Cannes but didn't receive any awards. The critical reception was also mixed. Nevertheless, it remains as a Telluride possible.
I'm starting the summer publication schedule for Michael's Telluride Film Blog today. I'm going to vary it a little bit form what I've done the last couple of years. The plan is to publish five days a week, Monday through Friday beginning to day and running right through the 42nd Telluride Film Festival.
That's the plan anyway.
Onward...
WHERE WE STAND ON JUNE 1
It's likely that the first real stab at a list of films that I think are your best bets at making an appearance on the Telluride program is around thee-four weeks away. Nevertheless, I though we'd start the summer with some idea of films that feel like we ought to be thinking about anyway. So...here are eight films that could play:
"45
Years"
"Carol"
"Dheepan"
"Elser"
"I Saw the Light"
"Queen of the Desert"
"Son of Saul"
"Truth"
The list will change between now and the end of the month when I'll post that first "official" guess.
TORONTO OPENER SPECULATION
Screen Daily and the The Playlist (following the Screen Daily original post) put up some speculation about films that are reportedly under consideration to open the Toronto International Film Festival. If it opens TIFF, it will be off the Telluride table. Among the films suggested were three that I feel have some shot at making the Telluride lineup:
Jean Marc Vallee's "Demolition" (Fox Searchlight)
Jay Roach's "Trumbo" (Bleeker Street)
Tom McCarthy's "Spotlight" (Open Road Films)
Following the Cannes Fest, acquisitions continue to be announced for U.S. distribution. Those of interest to Telluride watchers likely include the following:
KINO LORBER:
"Mountains May Depart" Jia Zhangke
Kino Lorber's recent Telluride presence includes:
"The Decent One" in 2014
"Manuscripts Don't Burn" in 2013
IFC Films (which is associated with Sundance Selects as well) has been at Telluride recently with "Frances Ha" 2012, "Pina" 2011. (Sundance Selects- "Seymour: An Introduction", "Two Days, One Night"-2014, "Blue is the Warmest Color"-2013)
