Telluride eschews flashiness other film festivals embrace
By John Horn
Los Angeles Times
HOLLYWOOD – As soon as executives at Sony Pictures Classics saw a rough cut of “Capote,” they decided to launch their film at a top film festival. But Sony wasn’t focused on Cannes, didn’t shoot for Sundance and hadn’t singled out Toronto, Venice or Berlin.
The company wanted the film to premiere at the Telluride Film Festival, a small Labor Day gathering that isn’t exactly at the top of the industry food chain.
“Because it’s a holiday weekend, and because it’s virtually impossible to get to – it’s easier to get to Cannes than it is to Telluride – the people who go to Telluride are truly die-hard movie fans,” says Michael Barker, co-president of Sony’s specialized film unit. “Everyone is there to see movies. There is no other agenda, there are no deals. It’s a place to discover movies.”
Sundance has swag, Cannes has yachts, Toronto stars. Telluride has class.
“Capote” emerged from last year’s Telluride festival with overwhelmingly positive buzz and not only went on to become a critical smash but also to win a best actor Oscar for Philip Seymour Hoffman.
In addition to “Capote,” the Colorado ski town festival has hosted world or domestic premieres of “Lost in Translation,” “Bowling for Columbine,” “Brokeback Mountain,” “Cache” and “Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon.” So what next great film will Telluride launch in this year’s 33rd annual festival, running from Friday to Monday? Don’t ask festival programmers, or even the makers or stars of the movies themselves. They’re all sworn to secrecy.
Unlike virtually every other festival, Telluride keeps the names of its 20 or so new films under wraps until opening day. What some people say is a precious affectation is part of the festival’s idiosyncratic gestalt.
Big studio films are rarely invited, but “Walk the Line” was. Christopher Nolan’s remake of “Insomnia” didn’t play in Telluride. But the original 1997 Norwegian thriller did.
Where other film festivals welcome paparazzi, Telluride discourages them. At Sundance, a few thousand dollars buys you an all-access credential that allows you to cut lines as if you held a Disneyland Fast Pass. At Telluride, almost all pass holders are created equal, as top stars queue alongside lowly Rocky Mountain film geeks. And while cell phones chirp throughout screenings at other festivals, Telluride guests will be escorted out of the auditorium should their mobile phone ring.
“I’ve been to a lot of festivals over the years, and I think Telluride has its own personality,” says Bill Pence, who directs the festival with Tom Luddy. “It’s easygoing; there is a lot of intimate contact between the people who make the films and the people who see the films, and the entire town becomes the festival. I have heard so many times that some of the best talks are between people waiting in line.
“We really designed the festival from the get-go for the pass holder. The person attending the movies is the mission. Not the press. Not the chamber of commerce. Not to develop filmmakers. It’s the audience.”
That audience can become a bellwether of a film’s prospects. While Telluride audiences were among the first to embrace the Palestinian movie “Paradise Now,” they also were the earliest moviegoers to dismiss William H. Macy as “Edmond” and director Neil Jordan’s “Breakfast on Pluto.”
“The great thing about Telluride is that it draws from a national audience of film lovers,” says Albert Berger, who with partner Ron Yerxa produced “Little Miss Sunshine.” Berger and Yerxa’s “Bee Season” premiered at last year’s Telluride festival, and their new film, writer-director Todd Field’s “Little Children,” is set to be shown in this year’s Telluride festival. “It’s a great place to start a grass-roots dialogue about films and filmmakers.”
Even though area real estate is stratospherically priced (homeowners include Tom Cruise and Oprah Winfrey), the festival feels more Patagonia than Gucci. “It feels very democratic,” says John Lesher, head of Paramount’s specialty film label, Paramount Vantage. “Everybody has to wait in line together.”
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Predicting Telluride
Like any good politician, organizers of the Telluride Film Festival will neither confirm nor deny what might be in this year’s program. But here’s our best guess at a few titles:
•“Little Children” – An adaptation of the Tom Perrotta novel, starring Kate Winslet and Patrick Wilson. Directed by Todd Field.
“Infamous” – The second feature in as many years about Truman Capote writing “In Cold Blood.” Stars Toby Jones and Daniel Craig; directed by Douglas McGrath.
•“Fur” – Nicole Kidman stars as the photojournalist Diane Arbus. Directed by Steven Shainberg.
•“Babel” – Cate Blanchett and Brad Pitt top the cast in an episodic drama directed by Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu.
•“The Last King of Scotland” – Forest Whitaker plays Idi Amin in an adaptation of Giles Foden’s novel. Directed by Kevin Macdonald.
•“The Life of Others” – A black comedy about spying in 1980s East Germany. Directed by Florian Henckel-Donnersmarck.
•“Venus” – Peter O’Toole heads a cast in a story about two aging actors and a young interloper. Directed by Roger Michell.
•“Waitress” – Keri Russell plays a sad waitress looking for love. Directed by Adrienne Shelly.
•“Ghosts of Cite Soleil” – A documentary about Haitian gangs. Directed by Asger Leth and Milos Loncarevic.
•“After the Wedding” – A Danish drama directed by Susanne Bier.
•“Deep Water” – A documentary about a catastrophic sailing race in 1968. Directed by Louise Osmond.

Yes, it will go to Rome first. Many films go to more then one Film Festival. It is how they create buzz especially for the Oscars.

From the Telluride Film Fest site:
17    Fur
P/Fri 6:30 PM - C/Fri 10:00 PM - N/Sat 9:00 AM
Here is an amazing fairy story from modern Manhattan, a version of beauty and the beast (but which is which?). Diane Arbus is married and the mother of two. She helps her husband’s photography business and the family fur company. And she is a nervous wreck—because she isn’t expressing herself. Then a stranger moves into the upstairs apartment—call him Lionel, and step carefully. He is rare and alarming, but he is a tender soul who will introduce Diane to the lives of the other-than-ordinary. He will give us the Arbus we know. This is an astonishingly bold fable by Steven Shainberg (SECRETARY) that relies to a great extent on the courage, the beauty and the sheer adventurousness of its two central players: Robert Downey Jr. as Lionel and Nicole Kidman going for broke again and suggesting that it’s about time someone wrote a book about her. –DT (U.S., 2006, 120m)  In person: Steven Shainberg

*DT=David Thomson

http://www.telluridefilmfestival.org/press.html

So is that good or bad? I cannot tell with him sometimes, lol.

So does this mean David Thompson saw it then?!? Because that's a very positive mention.

Here is an amazing fairy story from modern Manhattan, a version of beauty and the beast (but which is which?). Diane Arbus is married and the mother of two. She helps her husband’s photography business and the family fur company. And she is a nervous wreck—because she isn’t expressing herself. Then a stranger moves into the upstairs apartment— call him Lionel, and step carefully. He is rare and alarming, but he is a tender soul who will introduce Diane to the lives of the other-than-ordinary. He will give us the Arbus we know. This is an astonishingly bold fable by Steven Shainberg (SECRETARY) that relies to a great extent on the courage, the beauty and the sheer adventurousness of its two central players: Robert Downey Jr. as Lionel and Nicole Kidman going for broke again and suggesting that it’s about time someone wrote a book about her. –DT (U.S., 2006, 120m)

I *do not like* to be the bearer of bad tidiings as far as Bob Berney and the fortunes of Picturehouse are concerned, but the Telluride consensus so far is saying we should all forget about Nicole Kidman being any kind of Best Actress contender for her Diane Arbus performance in Fur. if there's a standout performance, they're saying, it belongs to Robert Downey, Jr.

From the Telluride Film Fest site:
17    Fur
P/Fri 6:30 PM - C/Fri 10:00 PM - N/Sat 9:00 AM
Nicole Kidman going for broke again and suggesting that it’s about time someone wrote a book about her. –DT (U.S., 2006, 120m)  In person: Steven Shainberg

*DT=David Thomson

http://www.telluridefilmfestival.org/press.html

Wait a cotton pickin' minute here - so it's time "someone" wrote a book about her?  Well, what a funny coincidence that Thompson has!  And no doubt is carting around a trunkful of signed copies to sell.

So he's using the film to promote his book (apparently with her implied blessing)?  What ever in the world happened to his vaunted "distance" from his subject? A lot of stuff and nonsense if you ask me.

Wait a cotton pickin' minute here - so it's time "someone" wrote a book about her?  Well, what a funny coincidence that Thompson has!  And no doubt is carting around a trunkful of signed copies to sell.

So he's using the film to promote his book (apparently with her implied blessing)?  What ever in the world happened to his vaunted "distance" from his subject? A lot of stuff and nonsense if you ask me.

Funny funny things here!. I posted this on my blog a few months ago:
"The book might in fact use some of the publicity that will result when Kidman starts promoting Fur, a fictional portrait of the photographer Diane Arbus."

Prophetic, eh? Maybe, with skanky's permission, I should write a sequel to "Well Duh". I might finish it in two years and use the Wong Kar Wai film to promote it.  .

At right is the window display at a store on Colorado Avenue. It's David Thomson's latest book, which I will be reading shortly. Apparently, Telluride organizers wanted Kidman to be one of their three honorees this year (in lieu of Penélope Cruz, below on a panel with Forest Whitaker and Infamous director Douglas McGrath and in her tribute marquee photo outside the Sheridan Opera House), but that didn't work out. Pity, I say. David Thomson was an attendee and Fur was playing, so Kidman would've been a perfect choice to receive the TFF honoree treatment (which includes a clip reel of performances, a Q&A, and the bestowal of the Telluride silver medallion -- all in front of a theater of 250 non-paparazzi cinephiles).