Telluride Film Festival, presented by the National Film Preserve, has unveiled its official program selections. Among the world premieres will be Jonathan Dayton and Valerie Faris’ Battle of the Sexes, Angelina Jolie’s First They Killed My Father, Joe Wright’s Darkest Hour and Scott Cooper’s Western Hostiles. The 44th edition of the Telluride Film Festival runs from Sept. 1-4 and will screen more than 60 feature films, short films and revival programs representing 26 countries along with special artist Tributes, Conversations, Panels, Student Programs and festivities.
The feature films to play in the Telluride Fest’s main program are:
Arthur Miller: Writer director Rebecca Miller, U.S.
Battle of the Sexes directors Valerie Faris and Jonathan Dayton, U.S.
Darkest Hour director Joe Wright, U.K.
Downsizing director Alexander Payne, U.S.
Eating Animals director Christopher Quinn, U.S.
Faces Places directors Agnes Varda and street artist JR, France
A Fantastic Woman director Sebastián Lelio, Chile-U.S.-Germany-Spain
Film Stars Don’t Die in Liverpool director Paul McGuigan, U.K.
First Reformed director Paul Schrader, U.S.
First They Killed My Father (director Angelina Jolie, U.S.-Cambodia
Foxtrot director Samuel Maoz, Israel
Hostages director Rezo Gigineishvili, Georgia-Russia-Poland
Hostiles director Scott Cooper, U.S.
Human Flow director Ai Weiwei, U.S.-Germany
The Insult director Ziad Doueiri, France-Lebanon
Lady Bird director Greta Gerwig, U.S.
Land of the Free director Camilla Magid, Denmark-Finland
Lean on Pete director Andrew Haigh, U.K.-U.S.
Loveless director Andrey Zvyagintsev, Russia-France-Belgium-Germany
Love, Cecil director Lisa Immordino Vreeland, U.S.
Loving Vincent director Dorota Kobiela, Hugh Welchman, U.K.-Poland
A Man of Integrity director Mohammad Rasoulof, Iran
The Other Side of Hope director Aki Kaurismäki, Finland
The Rider director Chloé Zhao, U.S.
The Shape of Water director Guillermo del Toro
Tesnota director Kantemir Balagov, Russia
The Venerable W. director Barbet Schroeder, France-Switzerland
The Vietnam War director Ken Burns, Lynn Novick, U.S.
Wormwood director Errol Morris, U.S.
Wonderstruck director Todd Haynes, U.S.
Two documentary shorts, Heroin(e) (director Elaine McMillion Sheldon, U.S., 2017) and Long Shot (director Jacob LaMendola, U.S., 2017) will also play together in the main program.
The 2017 Silver Medallion Awards, given to recognize an artist’s significant contribution to the world of cinema, will be presented to Academy Award winning actor Christian Bale (TFF selection Hostiles), and Oscar nominated cinematographer Ed Lachman (TFF selection Wonderstruck).
Tribute programs include a selection of clips followed by the presentation of the Silver Medallion, an onstage interview and a screening of the aforementioned films.
Guest Director Joshua Oppenheimer, who serves as a key collaborator in the Festival’s program, presents the following revival programs:
• EVEN DWARFS STARTED SMALL (director Werner Herzog, West Germany, 1970)
• HOTEL OF THE STARS (director Jon Bang Carlsen, Denmark, 1981)
• THE NIGHT OF THE HUNTER (director Charles Laughton, U.S., 1955)
• SALAM CINEMA (director Mohsen Makhmalbaf, Iran, 1995)
• TITICUT FOLLIES (director Frederick Wiseman, U.S., 1967)
• THE UMBRELLAS OF CHERBOURG (director Jacques Demy, France, 1964)
Additional film revival programs, all newly restored, include THE BAKER’S WIFE (director Marcel Pagnol, France, 1938); THE COTTON CLUB (director Francis Ford Coppola, U.S., 1984/2017); KEAN, OR DISORDER AND GENIUS (director Aleksandr Volkoff, France, 1924), with the Mont Alto Orchestra; and SUCH IS LIFE (director Carl Junghan, Czechoslovakia, 1929).
Telluride Film Festival annually celebrates a hero of cinema who preserves, honors and presents great movies. This year’s Special Medallion award goes to Katriel Schory, director of the Israeli Film Fund.
Backlot, Telluride’s intimate screening room featuring behind-the-scenes movies and portraits of artists, musicians and filmmakers, will screen the following programs:
• CINEMA THROUGH THE EYE OF MAGNUM (director Sophie Bassaler, France, 2017)
• FILMWORKER (director Tony Zierra, U.S., 2017)
• HITLER’S HOLLYWOOD (director Rüdiger Suchsland, Germany, 2017)
• JAMAICA MAN (director Michael Weatherly, U.S., 2017)
• PORTRAIT OF VALESKA GERT (director Volker Schlöndorff, Germany, 1977) + EDGE OF ALCHEMY (director Stacey Steers, U.S., 2017)
• SLIM GAILLARD’S CIVILISATION (director Anthony Wall, U.K., 1989)
• THAT SUMMER (director Göran Hugo Olsson, Sweden-U.S.-Denmark, 2017)
“Telluride Film Festival has long been a platform for films from many different cultures and backgrounds that celebrate diversity,” said Telluride Film Festival executive director Julie Huntsinger. “We feel it’s more important than ever to promote the unique and beautiful differences that exist in the world. From a wide range of new American and foreign cinema to eye-opening documentaries and beautiful restorations, we are proud to present this 44th program and honor those artists who have made it possible.”
Telluride Film Festival’s shorts program, Filmmakers of Tomorrow, includes three sections: Student Prints, Great Expectations, and Calling Cards from sixteen emerging filmmakers from around the globe.
Telluride Film Festival’s Student Programs present students the opportunity to experience film as an art and expand participants’ worldview through film screenings and filmmaker discussions. The Student Symposium provides 50 graduate and undergraduate college students with a weekend-long immersion in cinema. The City Lights Project brings 15 high school students and five teachers from three schools the opportunity to participate in a concentrated program of screenings and discussions. FilmLAB offers a master-class program for UCLA School of Theater, Film and Television graduate filmmaking students. The FilmSCHOLAR program gives young film scholars and aspiring critics the opportunity to immerse themselves in a weekend of cinema and learn from some of the best in the field. Created in conjunction with the University of Wisconsin. University Seminars offer university professors and students special festival programming throughout the weekend.
Telluride Film Festival’s Talking Heads programs allow attendees to go behind the scenes with the Festival’s special guests. Six Conversations take place between Festival guests and the audience about cinema and culture, and three outdoor Noon Seminars feature a panel of Festival guests discussing a wide range of film topics. These programs are free and open to the public.
Additional Festivities will take place throughout the Festival including a Poster Signing with 2017 poster artist Lance Rutter; Book Signings with Loung Ung (First They Killed My Father), Peter Turner (Film Stars Don’t Die in Liverpool), Alice Waters (Coming to My Senses: The Making of a Counterculture Cook), Brian Selznick (Wonderstruck), and Willie Vlautin (Lean on Pete); and a special outdoor screening of AN INCOVENIENT SEQUEL: TRUTH TO POWER (directors Bonni Cohen, Jon Shenk, U.S., 2017) with Al Gore.
