Don’t be lulled into complacency by its bucolic mountain setting because when the 39th Telluride Film Festival gets underway Friday, movies that reflect an unsettled world will take center stage.
"Without question, it became clear to us as we put together the program that a number of films deal with terrorist issues and international conflict,” said
Gary Meyer, who serves as one of the festival’s directors along with
Tom Luddy and
Julie Huntsinger. “You can’t help it. It’s something of concern to all of us. You can’t fly out of an airport without thinking about it, and it’s a theme at this year’s festival."
A suicide bombing in Tel Aviv, for examples, figures in
Ziad Doueiri’s
The Attack, while the Israeli occupation of the West Bank is examined by six former directors of Shin Bet, Israel’s internal security organization, in
Dror Moreh’s documentary
The Gatekeepers. A 1969 terrorist bombing of a bank in Milan, Italy is the jumping off point for the Italian dramatic feature
Piazza Fontana, directed by
Marco Tullio Giordana, best known for his 2003 epic
The Best of Youth. The tumultuous birth of modern India is the subject of
Deepa Mehta’s
Midnight’s Children, which
Salman Rushdie adapted for the screen from his 1980 novel. And in
Joshua Oppenheimer’s non-fiction film
The Act of Killing – Meyer promises it’s “a total mindblower" – Indonesian death squads re-enact their violent crimes as if the crimes themselves were movies. To try to make sense of it all, festival regular
Annette Insdorf will lead a Sunday panel on the broader subject of political strife entitled "Injustice, Reconciliation and Cinema."
Not that the festival won’t have its quieter, more introspective moments as well. The annual Labor Day weekend gathering, which, following tradition, is only just now revealing its line-up, will also feature
Michael Haneke’s Palm d’Or-winning
Amour, in which an aging couple, played by
Jean-Louis Trintignant and
Emmanuelle Riva, face impending death with stoic dignity.
That film, which Sony Pictures Classics has picked up for U.S. release, is just one of a number of titles that the awards-handicappers will be checking out. Focus Features is bringing
Roger Michell’s
Hyde Park on Hudson, in which
Bill Murray plays president
Franklin Delano Roosevelt welcoming the visiting
King George VI of England, played by
Samuel West. It should play as an intriguing companion piece to the Oscar-winning
The King’s Speech, which drew rousing applause at Telluride two years ago, says Meyer, since one critical scene shows the polio-stricken Roosevelt bonding with the stuttering King George over their mutual handicaps.
Festival-goers will also get first looks at movies like
Sally Potter’s
Ginger and Rosa, in which
Elle Fanning is said to deliver a stunning performance as a teen with artistic ambitions;
Liz Garbus’ doc
Love, Marilyn, in which an array of actresses read passages from
Marilyn Monroe’s diaries;
Noah Baumbach’s
Frances Ha, in which
Greta Gerwig, who co-wrote the screenplay, plays an aspiring dancer trying to find her way in New York;
Ken Burns’ new doc
The Central Park Five; and
Michael Winterbottom’s
Everyday, in which
Shirley Henderson plays the mother of four young children whose husband is serving a stretch in prison.
A couple of films that first attracted attention at May’s Cannes Film Festival will be featured among the festival’s tributes.
Marion Cotillard will be celebrated, and her latest film,
Jacques Audiard’s
Rust & Bone, in which she plays a woman who must contend with the loss of her legs, will screen. Actor
Mads Mikkelsen, who was named best actor this year at Cannes for his performance as a man accused of child molestation in
The Hunt, will also get the tribute treatment, with both
Thomas Vinterberg’s
The Hunt and
Nikolaj Arcel’s
A Royal Affair scheduled to screen.
Producer
Roger Corman will also be honored with a tribute and one of the festival’s Silver Medallions as he makes his first visit to Telluride. "We’ve always wanted to do it, and this is the right time," says Meyer. The festival will screen
Alex Stapleton’s documentary
Corman’s World: Exploits of a Hollywood Rebel, and
The Hollywood Reporter’s
Todd McCarthy will lead one of two onstage interviews with Corman.
A number of films will head directly to Telluride from their world premieres at the concurrent Venice International Film Festival:
Xavier Giannoli ’s comedy
Superstar, which looks at what happens when a man suddenly becomes famous;
Ariel Vroman’s
The Iceman, a dramatic feature in which
Michael Shannon plays the real-life Mafia assassin
Riochard Kuklinski;
Ramin Bahrani’s
At Any Price, in which
Dennis Quaid and
Zac Efron play a father and son brought together to defend their family farm;
Stories We Tell, a documentary in which actress/director
Sarah Polley explores her family’s secrets; and
Wadjda, the first feature from
Haifaa Al Mansour, a female director overcoming the odds in her native Saudi Arabia to tell the story of a young girl who wants a bike.
There are several more titles that first got exposure in Cannes: Among them,
Ulrich Seidl’s controversial
Paradise: Love, about a middle-aged woman on a sex holiday in Kenya;
Pablo Larrain’s
No, about the Chilean elections of 1988 starring
Gael Garcia Bernal; and
Wayne Blair’s
The Sapphires, about an Australian Aboriginal girl group in the 1960s, which the director has reworked a bit since it first appeared in May.
On the retrospective front, there are such forays into the past as
The Marvelous Life of Joan of Arc,
Marco de Gastyne’s 1929 feature about the French heroine and a program devoted to the overlooked silent comedian
Raymond Griffith. Critic and author
Geoff Dyer, who is serving as guest director, is spotlighting an eclectic group of films, including
Andrei Tarkovsky’s
Stalker, which he explored in his recent book
Zona, as well as the 1968
Clint Eastwood movie
Where Eagles Dare, directed by
Brian Hutton.
Of course, the festival also reserves spots for some unannounced surprises, which its organizers refuse to divulge ahead of time. While some have been hoping to catch
Paul Thomas Anderson’s
The Master, that film, which has been sneaking around the country, doesn’t appear to be on tap. But
Ben Affleck’s CIA tale
Argo looks like a good bet.
This year’s festival will be dedicated to the late indie film exec
Bingham Ray and to the Australian producer/director
Jan Sharp.
Ray was, of course, a longtime friend of the festival. "Even on years when he couldn’t come," remembers Meyer, "He’d call us from some little festival he was at to suggest a movie he had just seen. Every year, he’d give us several titles like that. He was always very positive and supportive."
