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Author: Susan Viebrock

One of the truly great rock voices of all time agreed to be the closer opening day, Friday, September 18, of Steve Gumble's 16th annual Telluride Blues & Brews Festival. And why not be neighborly? The enduring gravel-throated super star, Joe Cocker, lives just up the road a piece in Crawford, Colorado.


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18 September, 2009 /
[click "Play" to listen to Jackie Greene on his music]


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Into the fame game? There's no shortage of legends at the 16th annual Telluride Blues & Brews Festival, 
this weekend, September 18 – 20: Joe Cocker, Bonnie Raitt and Taj Mahal to name drop three. Then there's the skinny, soft-spoken man-boy who bears an uncanny resemblance to another icon, who, on more than one occasion has also performed in Telluride. But at this point in Jackie Greene's meteoric career, any allusion to Bob Dylan is so much horse exhaust.
17 September, 2009 /
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Joe Cocker heads the list of super stars performing in Telluride at Steve Gumble's 16th annual Blues & Brews Festival. Off-stage Joe Cocker is still a super star, especially in the eyes of the kids he and wife Pam support through the Cocker Kids Foundation.

This chapter of the Joe Cocker story begins in 1978, when a fan named Pam Baker, a local summer camp director, convinced Jane Fonda to rent her Santa Barbara ranch to the rocker. Cocker and Baker married in 1987.

17 September, 2009 /
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Following their visit to Telluride and total immersion in the Telluride Film Festival, four young Russian directors are heading for Boulder, Colorado, to present their work and meet fellow students at the University of Colorado before traveling on to New York for a screening at Tribeca Cinemas.

Natalya Govorina's "Sanatorium," was named Best Narrative Film at the 2008 Moscow Festival of Short Film.

16 September, 2009 /
[click "Play" to hear Susan's interview with Caycee Ames]

Caycee Telluride's Ah Haa School for the Arts wants to give you the tools to rub people the right way.

Director Caycee Ames of The Connecting Point (and spa manager at the Hotel Telluride) offers a 600-hour/ 20 credit esthetician certification, including coursework in skincare techniques (facials, waxing) plus reiki, ayurvedic therapies, reflexology, aromatherapy and spa therapies. Successful completion of the program enables graduates to sit for the Colorado State Board Exam to become a licensed esthetician.

16 September, 2009 /
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Film is a window on the world. The Telluride Film Festival uses the medium to enhance participants worldview, one reason the directors require an artistic as well as a screen presence. In-depth Q & A sessions follow many of the screenings.  Free seminars in town parks  and "Conversations" at the courthouse feature celebrated guests talking about cinema, culture, and the culture of cinema. Programs such as City Lights and the Student Symposium offer high school and college students respectively a weekend of immersion in film and film discussion. Sunday at the Palm provides local teachers with curriculum ideas to incorporate monthly film selections into lesson plans.

In this context, From Russia with Love is not the second film in the James Bond series. From Russia with Love describes a partnership between the Telluride Film Festival and CEC ArtsLink to co-host a group of emerging filmmakers from Russia for a residency that brought them first to Telluride over the long Labor Day festival weekend. Last year, the young Russian directors screened their films at the Telluride Film Festival. This year they came as observers. (New projects will be screened in Boulder, Colorado and New York.) Participants were selected for their cinematic accomplishments in a competitive nomination process.

15 September, 2009 /

Telluride's SquidShow Theatre, in support of Black Bear Awareness Week, presents an original play by Sasha Cucciniello and Colin Sullivan:  "Bear It! – Bear Safety for the 21st Century." The FREE event is one night only,Tuesday, September 15, 8 p.m., Fly Me to the...

15 September, 2009 /

IMG_5491
Anne Thompson, George
Gittoes, Nicholas Cage,
and Jason Reitman
at Labor Day seminar

The Telluride Film Festival invented downsizing: for 36 years, the directors of the event have selected just 20 – 30 movies from among the hundreds submitted to them each year, which explains why the celluloid celebration appeals to discriminating cinephiles. Elitist? Unapologetically. This year as every year, the Telluride Film Festival shunned the usual suspects, going out on a limb to inspire and educate.

The Telluride Film Festival is also about making connections. Over the long Labor Day weekend, the tail end of moviedom's so-called popcorn season (Memorial Day – Labor Day), actors, directors, cinematographers, producers, distributers, and buffs chat like long lost friends on Main Street, the Gondola, and in lines, about what gladdened, saddened and maddened.

14 September, 2009 /