Writers mint affects American contingent
Directors David Fincher and Jan Troell and actress Jean Simmons will trek this weekend to the Rockies, where each testament be feted with a tribute at the thirty-fifth Telluride Film Festival.
The pocketable festival, which traditionally doesn't reveal its lineup until the net minute, gets under way today in the Colorado mountain township and runs through Monday. Despite the all-American venue, this year's event testament have an especially international feel.
"Internationally, this has been another terrific year," Gary Meyer, wHO serves as fest director along with Tom Luddy, said of the lineup the iI have assembled.
The only easy spot might be the U.S. component.
"The trend that all the fall festivals are lining," Meyer aforementioned, "is that because of the writers strike, a lot of high-profile American films that might experience been useable just aren't going to be ready in time."
That, in turn, could touch the way some of the participants perceive Telluride. By launching such movies as "Walk the Line" and "Juno" in recent years, the festival earned a repute for providing an former peek at the developing awards season.
But while Meyer said those films deserved the limelight Telluride trained on them, "We don't want to become known as just a display case for a bunch of Hollywood movies."
Certainly, there will be plenteousness of films on hand likely to attract awards buzz. For example, Mike Leigh's drollery "Happy-Go-Lucky" already has handicappers doing cartwheels over Sally Hawkins' performance as a cockeyed optimist. Meyer illustrious that the fest, which has a long-standing relationship with Leigh, spotted the movie in Berlin in February, engagement it even before Miramax picked it up for U.S. release.
Marc Abraham's "Flash of Genius," in which Greg Kinnear plays the man wHO invented the intermittent windshield wiper, is expected to pop up, unannounced, in one of the sneak preview muscae volitantes. And Danny Boyle's "Slumdog Millionaire," set in Mumbai, could substantially show up in another preview slot.
A number of films that established themselves at Cannes also volition be on hand, like the animated Israeli feature "Waltz With Bashir," Matteo Garrone's Italian crime drama "Gomorra" and Steve McQueen's prison study "Hunger."
But Telluride also will unveil several new films, including Paul Schrader's modish feature, "Adam Resurrected," an adaptation of Yoram Kaniuk's novel in which Jeff Goldblum plays a troubled concentration camp survivor. "It will split audiences correct down the middle," Meyer predicted. "We had a small screening of it, and multitude stood about in the lobby for over an hour discussing it."
Other titles that could stake tabu turf at Telluride include the French film "With a Little Help From Myself," directed by Francois Dupeyron, in which Felicite Wouassi, head an African-French cast, turns in what is said to be an award-worthy performance; Tim Disney's "American Violet," starring Nicole Behaire as an black undivided mother; the Indian feature "Firaaq," which will be introduced by Salman Rushdie; Ole Christian Madsen's "Flame & Citron," set amid the Danish resistance to the Nazis; and the documentary "Learning Gravity," Cathal Black's portraiture of Thomas Lynch, an undertaker and poet.
As for the tributes, Fincher volition be lauded as a contemporary movie maker whose work out has steadily become more rich as he's stirred from such films as "Alien 3" and "Seven" to the recent "Zodiac" (Telluride will screen the director's cut of the latter film). The protection is besides likely to include a first look at footage from Fincher's "The Curious Case of Benjamin Button," which Paramount is releasing Christmas Day, just as last year's honoree Paul Thomas Anderson used the occasion to show footage from Par Vantage's "There Will Be Blood."
Simmons, whose extensive credits range from "Great Expectations" (1946) and "Guys and Dolls" (1955) to "Hamlet" (1948) and "Elmer Gantry" (1960), will look back over her long playing career. "When you really start looking for at her filmography, when you really see her performances and range, it blows you away," Meyer said.
Although Troell received two Oscar nominations for committal to writing and directing his 1971 film "The Emigrants," Luddy and Meyer felt that his more than recent films had non received the attention in the U.S. they merit. The program will include his up-to-the-minute feature, "Everlasting Moments."
Slovenian-born culture critic Slavoj Zizek, portion as this year's guest director, testament aim his spotlight on three examples of time of origin film noir: Edmund Goulding's "Nightmare Alley" (1947) stellar Tyrone Power, Nicholas Ray's "On Dangerous Ground" (1952) starring Robert Ryan and John Frankenheimer's "Seconds" (1966) starring Rock Hudson.
The fest also is presenting a special salute to Romanian director Nae Caranfil with showings of two of his films, "Philanthropy" (2002) and "The Rest Is Silence" (2007).
Meyer and Luddy are hoping to swerve down on some of the lines that had attendees complaining last class. They've cut back the program, and this year instead of five slip previews, at that place will be only two. They've also resorted to some strategical scheduling so that films expected to be hot tickets are programd against each other, forcing festivalgoers to get some tough choices.
"We don't want people to feel they have to stand in channel one or two hours in advance," Meyer said.
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