By Ray Pride Pride@moviecitynews.com

Telluride Fest Looks Back At 44

Posted Monday, September 11th, 2017 - 2 Comments »
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Telluride, CO, September 11, 2017 – Telluride Film Festival (September 1-4, 2017), presented by the National Film Preserve, reflects upon a spectacular four-day celebration of diverse programming and special guests attended by more than 4,000 movie lovers.

“This was my 44th Telluride Film Festival,” remarked co-founder and artistic director Tom Luddy. “I feel it was one of our strongest festivals. The organization, the content and balance of the program, the weather and vibes in the street made for a weekend that was really special. The films were terrific and the feedback from the filmmakers and pass holders was very satisfying.”

Telluride Film Festival curated over 60 programs representing twenty-six countries including thirty new feature films in its main program; six film revivals selected by the extraordinary and eloquent Guest Director Joshua Oppenheimer; seven Backlot programs; four revival programs; over fifteen shorts and/or student films, and hosted nine seminars and conversations between festival guests.

Luddy notes, “The Panels and Conversations were exceptional this year. Elks Park was packed for the Real Life Wonder Women panel with Angelina Jolie, Billie Jean King, Natalie Portman and Alice Waters; The Conversation between Francis Ford Coppola, Ken Burns and Lynn Novick on Vietnam was extraordinary; Bob Baer with Errol Morris and Eric Olson was another ‘only in Telluride’ event.

I don’t want to single out any one film from our selection of new films – I loved them all – but I will single out The Cotton Club Encore, Coppola’s new restoration featuring more than 25 minutes of amazing footage, mostly involving song and dance sequences that had been cut from the original film. The standing ovation for Francis from the sold out audiences moved me to tears. In this version, the film takes its place beside The Godfather, The Godfather: Part II, The Conversation, and Apocalypse Now as one of Coppola’s greatest films.”

44th Telluride Film Festival guests and program participants include: Bob Baer, Kantemir Balagov, Christian Bale, Jamie Bell, Ken Burns, Christian Camargo, Jon Bang Carlsen, Hong Chau, Scott Cooper, Francis Ford Coppola, Jonathan Dayton, Guillermo del Toro, Ziad Doueiri, Valerie Faris, Travis Fimmel, Greta Gerwig, Rezo Gigineishvili, Al Gore, Andrew Haigh, Sherwan Haji, Ethan Hawke, Todd Haynes, Werner Herzog, Maurice Hines, Zachary Hines, Alejandro González Iñárritu, Brady Jandreau, Lilly Jandreau, Tim Jandreau, Barry Jenkins, Richard Jenkins, Angelina Jolie, JR, Billie Jean King, Dorota Kobiela, Irakli Kvirikadze, Ed Lachman, Jacob LaMendola, Sebastián Lelio, Tracy Letts, Camilla Magid, Ben Mendelsohn, Anthony McCarten, Paul McGuigan, Laurie Metcalf,  Rebecca Miller, Mont Alto Orchestra, Errol Morris, Kimhak Mun, Lynn Novick, Gary Oldman, Eric Olson, Goran Hugo Olsson, Rithy Panh, Alexander Payne, Nigel Pemberton, Rosamund Pike, Natalie Portman, Christopher Quinn, Mohammad Rasoulof, Pierre Rissient,  Céline Ruivo, Sreymoch Sareum, Katriel Schory, Paul Schrader, Barbet Schroeder, Lane Scott, Peter Sellars, Millicent Simmonds, Donald Sosin, Elaine McMillion Sheldon, Elisabeth Shue, Emma Stone, Wes Studi, Peter Turner, Paolo Loung Ung, Cherchi Usai, Rosalie Varda, Daniela Vega, Willy Vlautin, Lisa Immordino Vreeland, Anthony Wall, Alice Waters,  Michael Weatherly, Ai Weiwei, Hugh Welchman, Joe Wright, Chloé Zhao, Tony Zierra, Andrey Zvyagintsev

“This year will be hard to top, but we are already looking toward the 45th Festival with anticipation and vigor,” said Luddy. “Every year brings us many new treasures to share with the Telluride family. I think we may outdo ourselves yet again.”

A complete list of 44th Telluride Film Festival films and events is available at www.telluridefilmfestival.org

About Telluride Film Festival

The prestigious Telluride Film Festival ranks among the world’s best film festivals and is an annual gathering for film industry insiders, cinema enthusiasts, filmmakers and critics. TFF is considered a major launching ground for the fall season’s most talked-about films. Founded in 1974, Telluride Film Festival, presented in the beautiful mountain town of Telluride, Colorado, is a four-day international educational event celebrating the art of film. Telluride Film Festival’s long-standing commitment is to join filmmakers and film connoisseurs together to experience great cinema. The exciting schedule, kept secret until just before Opening Day, consists of over three dozen filmmakers presenting their newest works, special Guest Director programs, major Tributes to guest artists, special events and remarkable treasures from the past. Telluride Film Festival is a 501 (c)(3) non-profit educational program. Festival headquarters are in Berkeley, CA.

About Our Sponsors

We are extremely proud of our committed relationships, each of which are aligned with a unique feature of the festival and contribute to enhancing the festival experience, including Signature Sponsors: Turner Classic Movies, EY and Meyer Sound; Major Sponsors: Amazon Studios, FilmStruck, ARRI, Participant Media, Universal Studios, Delta Airlines, Mandarin Oriental Hotel Group, UCLA School of Theater, Film and Television; Festival Sponsors: Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences, Criterion Collection, Dolby, DELL, Boston Light and Sound; General Sponsors: Telluride Ski & Golf Resort, Telluride Mountain Village Owners Associated, National Endowment for the Arts, Colorado Office of Film, Television & Media; our wonderful Hospitality Partners: Telluride Alpine Lodging, The London West Hollywood, New Sheridan Hotel, The Chatwal New York; and Festival Auto Partner: Tesla; plus Colorado Creative Industries, Fotokem, Spectrum, and the Town of Telluride, among others.

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Posted in MCN Curated Headlines, Movie City News, Press Releases | 2 Comments »

2 Responses to “Telluride Fest Looks Back At 44”

  1. Jose Angel Cruz says:
    September 12, 2017 at 7:22 am

    Do you know if The Cotton Club Encore will be released?

  2. Ray Pride says:
    September 12, 2017 at 9:38 am

    Unconfirmed rumor has it won’t be seen, that it’s being blocked in any form of distribution by MGM’s Gary Barber.

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It shows how out of it I was in trying to be in it, acknowledging that I was out of it to myself, and then thinking, “Okay, how do I stop being out of it? Well, I get some legitimate illogical narrative ideas” — some novel, you know?

So I decided on three writers that I might be able to option their material and get some producer, or myself as producer, and then get some writer to do a screenplay on it, and maybe make a movie.

And so the three projects were “Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep,” “Naked Lunch” and a collection of Bukowski. Which, in 1975, forget it — I mean, that was nuts. Hollywood would not touch any of that, but I was looking for something commercial, and I thought that all of these things were coming.

There would be no Blade Runner if there was no Ray Bradbury. I couldn’t find Philip K. Dick. His agent didn’t even know where he was. And so I gave up.

I was walking down the street and I ran into Bradbury — he directed a play that I was going to do as an actor, so we know each other, but he yelled “hi” — and I’d forgot who he was.

So at my girlfriend Barbara Hershey’s urging — I was with her at that moment — she said, “Talk to him! That guy really wants to talk to you,” and I said “No, fuck him,” and keep walking.

But then I did, and then I realized who it was, and I thought, “Wait, he’s in that realm, maybe he knows Philip K. Dick.” I said, “You know a guy named—” “Yeah, sure — you want his phone number?”

My friend paid my rent for a year while I wrote, because it turned out we couldn’t get a writer. My friends kept on me about, well, if you can’t get a writer, then you write.”
~ Hampton Fancher

“That was the most disappointing thing to me in how this thing was played. Is that I’m on the phone with you now, after all that’s been said, and the fundamental distinction between what James is dealing with in these other cases is not actually brought to the fore. The fundamental difference is that James Franco didn’t seek to use his position to have sex with anyone. There’s not a case of that. He wasn’t using his position or status to try to solicit a sexual favor from anyone. If he had — if that were what the accusation involved — the show would not have gone on. We would have folded up shop and we would have not completed the show. Because then it would have been the same as Harvey Weinstein, or Les Moonves, or any of these cases that are fundamental to this new paradigm. Did you not notice that? Why did you not notice that? Is that not something notable to say, journalistically? Because nobody could find the voice to say it. I’m not just being rhetorical. Why is it that you and the other critics, none of you could find the voice to say, “You know, it’s not this, it’s that”? Because — let me go on and speak further to this. If you go back to the L.A. Times piece, that’s what it lacked. That’s what they were not able to deliver. The one example in the five that involved an issue of a sexual act was between James and a woman he was dating, who he was not working with. There was no professional dynamic in any capacity.

~ David Simon