Culture

The Telluride Choral Society announces its Fall concert, with the first rehearsal for adults, Wednesday, September 9. Rehearsals are every Wednesday from 5:45 to 7:15p.m., Christ Church, 434 W. Columbia. Artistic director David Lingle is preparing singers for a Mahler and Brahms concert with the...

The Telluride Film Festival is not only about film. Conversations between film buffs in the theater waiting lines, a hike in the hills surrounding Telluride between films, face time with actors, directors, and the chance to watch William Wegman sign your personal copy of...

[click "Play" to hear Kate Sibley speak of TFF's educational outreach]


2006 alumni The Telluride Film Festival stands out among the more than 2,000 similar events around the globe for lots of reasons, not the least of which is location, location, location.

The Telluride Film Festival is known to frown upon brown-nosing stars or the media. Quality trumps quantity: the Festival directors vet their selection down to just 20 – 30 films, new and restored, feature length and short. (Only New York does the same diligence.)

In 1966, long before I had even heard of Telluride, I fell in love with Anouk Aimee, one of the Telluride Film Festival's tributees for 2009. I was a young 707 pilot for Northwest Airlines and saw "Un Homme et une Femme" on a...

Have you checked out our new horizontal navigation bar? Slick, isn't it? Have you seen it lately? Just in time for the 2009 Telluride Film Festival, we've put up a link to a new page collecting all the best stories from TFF, both past and...

[click for Gary Meyer's conversation with Susan about the Festival program]

Pasted Graphic It is deja vu all over again as the curtain goes up on the 36th annual Telluride Film Festival, this weekend, September 4 – September 7. The picture on the world screen is dark as pitch: war, genocide, political debauchery and corruption, economic bubbles burst. If there's a silver lining, the toughest times may produce the greatest art – or not.

In 1929, after the global stock market crash, the top grossing film was "The Broadway Melody," escapist treacle based on a backstage show business love triangle. "Broadway Melody," MGM's first musical, was also the first sound film to win Best Picture at the Oscars. The recession of the early 1990s produced "Home Alone," a feel-good family classic featuring an eight-year-old left behind when his family heads out for a Christmas vacation. In 2001, the year America lost its innocence – and possibly its mojo – the trifecta of 9/11, the collapse of the dot.com bubble and corporate scandal led to another socio-economic contraction. The film to beat: "Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone," a movie about a boy magician and his fight against Voldemort and the forces of evil. (Parsing the metaphor is child's play.) Which brings us to the present crisis and the sanguivorous. (And more obvious metaphors about blood-suckers.)

[click "Play" to hear Gary Meyer talk about "the big picture"]Julie Huntsinger, Tom Luddy, Gary Meyer There are about 2500 film festival across the globe, of which about 1700 are similar to the Telluride Film Festival, still, TFF is widely regarded as in a league...

Thursday, September 3, the Telluride Council on Arts & Humanities' First Thursday Telluride Art Walk continues.  Venues in downtown Telluride join forces for a cultural celebration, staying open “late ‘til 8”. The joint is jumping with stills from "Welcome Back," by Jeffrey Schers at Schilling...

[click "Play" to hear Corinne on her work]

CorinneScheman The Stronghouse Studios/Gallery is home base for the Telluride Council for the Arts and Humanities, which sponsors the First Thursday Art Walk, when galleries, studios, and shops stay open late until 8 p.m. to strut their stuff. Many venues, Stronghouse among them, hold artists' receptions, 5 – 8 p.m. The event was designed to deepen ties between Telluride’s business and cultural economies by exposing locals and visitors to emerging and established artists and the town’s vibrant retail scene.

Stronghouse is featuring new works Corinne Scheman, landscapes, what the artist showed last year in the same venue only different. Because Corrine has changed, grown, moved on. And art is made from dreams and visions and things not known that come from within.

[click "Play" to hear Shawna talking with Nicole Finger]


By Shawna Hartley

Little India SM Telluride painter Nicole Finger shows her newest work at Honga’s Lotus Petal restaurant, Main Street, Telluride, starting September 3. The artist's reception is 3 - 5p.m.

Finger's portraits include local children as well as young innocents from around the globe: India, Africa and Nepal. These faces express the total lack of guile and inhibition and the complete confidence we tend to lose all to soon with the passing of years, once we learn our place in society.