Telluride Film Festival's "Cinematheque" opens at Library, 10/3/2011

02 Oct Telluride Film Festival's "Cinematheque" opens at Library, 10/3/2011

The Telluride Film Festival is not just one long weekend that happens to be the high-water mark of Telluride’s summer festival season. The “Festival” is really shorthand for creative movie events it hosts throughout the year. Sunday at the Palm takes place once a month at the Michael D. Palm Theatre and focuses on family entertainment. Cinematheque, a joint venture between Film Festival and Telluride’s five-star Wilkinson Public Library, is a film club and vehicle for cinephiles in the region to watch and discuss great film. Like Sunday at the Palm, Cinematheque is free.

The 2011/2012 Cinematheque program is a six-part series programmed by Telluride Film Festival co-director and film scholar Gary Meyer, who created “Ciao Cinema” as an inspiring journey through the evolution of Italian film, including a look at the work of iconic directors such as Vittorio de Sica, Federico Fellini, Luchino Visconti, and others. 

“Ciao Cinema” opens with Roberto Rossellini’s war drama “Rome, Open City” (1945, 100 minutes).

“Rome, Open City,” winner of the Grand Prize at Cannes, is considered one of the landmark films of the 1940s. The harrowing drama set during the Nazi occupation of Rome in 1944 tells the tale of a brave few, including a publisher and a priest , who decide to stand up to the Germans. “Rome, Open City” is a work of extraordinary political bravery: Rossellini began the project in secret with members of the Italian resistance movement on his creative staff.  The film is considered to be one of the most influential of the Italian neorealist movement.

“Ciao Cinema” takes place Monday, October 3. Small eats at 5:30 p.m. Showtime is 6 p.m. The ringmasters is producer/director/film professor David Oyster.

To learn more, listen to my interview with David.