The national political conventions may be over, but Hollywood’s version of “the race” is just getting started as the fall festival season begins, and this year’s Telluride has plenty to offer for politicos and cinephiles alike.
The 51st annual festival gets underway Friday in Colorado with a slate of world premieres including a Hillary Clinton- and Jennifer-Lawrence-produced abortion film that is up for acquisition, Zurawski v Texas, a Jason Reitman-directed thriller-comedy about the first season of Saturday Night Live — Sony’s Saturday Night — and an adaptation of an August Wilson play on intergenerational trauma helmed by first-time director Malcolm Washington, son of Denzel (Netflix’s The Piano Lesson).
A year after the Screen Actors Guild strike robbed festivals of much of their star-power, Telluride is expected to be thick with A-listers once again, including Angelina Jolie, attending for the North American premiere of Pablo Larrain’s Maria, hot off its acquisition by Netflix in Venice; Selena Gomez, who will be there on behalf of Jacques Audiard’s Cannes-winning crime musical, Netflix’s Emilia Pérez; and Pharrell Williams, with his Morgan Neville-directed docu-biopic told via Legos, Focus Features’ Piece by Piece.
In addition to Zurakwsi v Texas, which Clinton will be in the Rockies to support, there will be a host of other political docs, including Carville: Winning is Everything, Stupid, Matt Tyrnauer’s portrait of the Democratic political operative; Petra Costa’s Apocalypse in the Tropics, on the evangelical takeover of Brazilian politics; and The White House Effect, Bonni Cohen, Jon Shenk, Pedro Kos’s thriller about climate change policy, all sales titles that could appeal to audiences engaged by this year’s presidential election — if they get bought in time.
“Even if these movies don’t get distribution in time for the election, I want everybody to leave here saying, ‘My God, I was so moved by this,’” says Telluride director Julie Huntsinger, of the political titles. “I want people to feel more hopeful, more enlightened and more resolute about our ability to make a difference in the world.”
Some of the narrative titles premiering also have a topical lens, including Conclave, the Ralph Fiennes-starring Edward Berger movie on papal politicking (Focus Features) and September 5, an acquisitions title in which Tim Fehlbaum recreates the terrorist attack on Israeli athletes during the 1972 Munich Olympics from the perspective of the team of ABC TV sports journalists who were covering it.
Other major premieres include Nickel Boys, RaMell Ross’ adaptation of Colson Whitehead’s Pulitzer Prize-winning novel about boys at an abusive reform school in Jim Crow Florida (Amazon MGM); The Friend, a drama about a woman (Naomi Watts) who inherits a Great Dane from her old mentor (Bill Murray), directed by Scott McGehee and David Siegel; The End, a Joshua Oppenheimer-directed apocalypse musical starring Tilda Swinton (Neon); and Embeth Davidtz’s adaptation of Alexandra Fuller’s bestselling 2001 memoir Don’t Let’s Go to the Dogs Tonight.
This year’s festival will also make room for television, showing all episodes of Alfonso Cuarón’s Disclaimer, an upcoming AppleTV+ psychological thriller series starring Cate Blanchett, and Lauren Greenfield’s Social Studies, FX docuseries following a group of Los Angeles teenagers as they grow up online.
As it does each year, the festival will host three tributes, honoring Saoirse Ronan, alongside a screening of Nora Fingscheidt’s The Outrun (Sony Pictures Classics), which premiered at Sundance; Jacques Audiard, with Amelia Perez; and editor Thelma Schoonmaker, known for her work with Martin Scorsese.
Festival-goers will see some familiar and unexpected faces on the streets of Telluride, including Martha Stewart, the subject of R.J. Cutler’s doc, Martha, and British pop star Robbie Williams, the subject and star of Michael Gracey’s biopic Better Man (Paramount).
Several other movies that made a splash at Cannes will bow, including Sean Baker’s Palme d’Or winner Anora (Neon), Mohammad Rasoulof’s The Seed of the Sacred Fig (Neon) and Andrea Arnold’s Bird, starring Barry Keoghan (Mubi).
Guest director Kenneth Lonergan has programmed a slate of older films, including Barry Lyndon and Dr. Zhivago.
