18 Aug Telluride Film Festival: Why So Influential?
Mushroom Festival has come and gone– just behind the imminent flowering of the local mycelia. Now we are heading for the finish line, the apex of the summer season, the Telluride Film Festival, August 29 – September 1. It is easy to lose the essence of the Film Fest in the midst of the nonstop noise about TFF versus TIFF and its ramifications, but one reporter, Sasha Stone, posted this great piece in Awards Daily.
Director Steve McQueen and his stars, “12 Years A Slave,” courtesy of Awards Daily.
Two weeks from today the Telluride Film Festival begins. It is an exciting time of the year because this festival, more than any other, heralds the arrival of the Oscar race. In the years I’ve been attending Telluride, the Best Picture winner has screened there, either premiering or part of the schedule. The last two Best Picture winners debuted there, with their directors bringing the films along to showcase, 12 Years a Slave and Argo. The Artist was the film everyone was talking about in 2011.
In 2010, The King’s Speech, this Deadline headline says it all, “TELLURIDE FEST CLOSES: Colin Firth Feted As ‘King’s Speech’ Draws Oscar Buzz. In 2009, Kathryn Bigelow’s The Hurt Locker did not need Telluride to launch, as it had launched from Toronto the year before to much acclaim before being shelved for the following year. But Slumdog Millionaire premiered at Telluride in 2008. That was when it all began.
Why did the Telluride Film Festival become such a pivotal player in the Oscar race? And why has it stolen Toronto’s thunder? There are several reasons. The first big reason – Oscar changed its date, moving everything back one month. That shifted the entire awards race backwards so that to win Best Picture now you really have to be a known entity by October at the absolute latest. You have to go back to 2004, right around the time of the date change (a year after) to find a film that won being released later in the year, Clint Eastwood’s Million Dollar Baby.
The date change shifted focus off of the very end of the year and put it right around the beginning of the fall season…
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