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Festivals

[click "Play" for Susan's conversation with Matt Schofield]

Matt19(small) copy British blues guitarist Matt Schofield is on his way to the Telluride region for a FREE Telluride Blues & Brews pre-show, with still a few months left to go on a tour that brought him across the pond in June. The not-to-be-missed concert takes place Thursday, June 16, 5 – 7 p.m., Sunset Plaza, Mountain Village. Schofield's set on Friday, opens the Blues & Brews weekend.

Matt Schofield may not be a household name in the U.S –  yet – but the musician is clearly on his way. Over a relatively short career, Schofield’s prowess as a stringbender has taken him to 12 countries; seen him play with iconic guitarists such as Robben Ford; and brought him high praise in the Penguin Book of Blues Recordings as one of only two living British artists in recording history to gain the top four-star rating. "In Schofield, the UK has produced the best blues guitarist from any country in decades,"  raved the LA Daily News.

14 September, 2010 /
[click "Play" for Otis Taylor's conversation with Susan]

A-Otis_Clovis-Photo-by-David-Raccuglia Blues singer/composer, multi-instrumentalist Otis Taylor returns to town for the 17th annual Telluride Blues & Brews Festival, September 17 – September 19.

Telluride Blues & Brews Festival founder/director Steve Gumble brought Taylor to town for the first time in the late 1990s and wound up becoming his manager.

“There are lots of performers playing the blues out there, but Otis is sort of reinventing it,” said Gumble. “I would describe his style as ‘hip blues.’ I have found the man’s appeal is universal: young people in the crowd like his consistent beat for dancing; older people seem to enjoy the authenticity of his lyrics on subjects ranging from personal to political. By stretching the boundaries of the genre, Otis is keeping blues fresh.”

13 September, 2010 /
IMG_5859 The Telluride Blues & Brews Festival, Friday, September 17 – Sunday, September 19, is synonymous with its founder, impresario Steve Gumble. His event is the first of its kind in the country, combining as it does micro-breweries with the best of blues music. Telluride Blues & Brews Festival was not always about music with a beer back. The event started out as the Telluride Brewers Festival.

The Telluride Brewers Festival opened for business 17 years ago in 1994 as the beer drinker's answer to the Telluride Wine Festival, which catered back then to the Prada (versus Chaco) brigade. Gumble had met many of the vendors who would return year after year back in the days he owned a liquor store. Year 1, the impresario expected 500 diehards and 1200 showed up. Profits were spread among several non-profits. A home run for sure. But not enough for Gumble.
12 September, 2010 /
[click "Play" for Katherine Stuart's view of TFF 37]

IMG_7960 The world may be schlepping around with a thundercloud over its head, but the 37th annual Telluride Film Festival shone with authority. This year, for a change, I add the voice of a close friend, Festival patron and screenwriter Katherine Stuart to my own, to sing praises, some qualified.


The tribe of cinephiles that makes an annual pilgrimage to Telluride for the Telluride Film Festival are not thrill seekers in the conventional sense of the words. They are not lusting after a testosterone-induced orgy of bang! zoom! pow! Unless, of course, the thrills and spills come packaged with complex characters and their battles with sex, money, social convulsion, and the vagaries of the human heart. (See "Carlos.")

This year, once again, almost every one of the 26 movies screened at the Telluride Film Festival found that elusive sweet spot where intelligent storytelling, top notch filmmaking, and yes, escapist entertainment meet to fuse into a phenomenon that sings hosannas to the art of the cinema. A number of these films – and I am including the shorts – are sure to become classics.

07 September, 2010 /

 I ran across this copy of a painting by old-time local Birdi Boyd of the Sheridan Opera House - before it was "renovated" - and was stunned by the memories it invoked. How quaint and quiet Telluride was in "back in the...

05 September, 2010 /
IMG_7876 Telluride Inside... and Out witnessed two outstanding films to open the 2010 Telluride Film Festival: first, "Carlos," Olivier Assaya's 5 1/2 hour epic, the first film pick by Festival directors Gary Meyer, Tom Luddy and Julie Huntsinger. And then this morning, "Precious Life,"  written and directed by Shlomi Eldar.

"Carlos," tells the story of the notorious terrorist, Carlos the Jackal, from his early efforts in the cause of anti-imperialism in the Middle East (and beyond), to the preening caricature, looking for any country that will accept him.

"Precious Life" takes a different approach. Raida Abu-Mustafa, has come to an Israeli hospital from Gaza in the hope that her baby son may be saved from the immune system failure that claimed two of her daughters. Her efforts are complicated, not only by the physical barriers separating Gaza from Israel, but by the pressures of Israeli and Gazan attitudes, and of course the Israeli retaliation for rocket attacks out of Gaza.
04 September, 2010 /

37th Telluride Film Festival feature line-up (Titles in bold are also scheduled to screen at the Toronto International Film Festival where a few are slated to be World or North American Premiere screenings): 

A LETTER TO ELIA (Scorsese and Jones, U.S., 2010) 

ANOTHER YEAR (Leigh, U.K., 2010) 

BIUTIFUL (Iñárritu, Mexico, 2010) 

CARLOS (Assayas, France, 2010) 

CHICO AND RITA (Trueba, Mariscal Spain-Cuba, 2010) North American premiere ahead of Toronto

THE FIRST GRADER (Chadwick, U.K., 2010) World premiere ahead of Toronto

02 September, 2010 /
[click "Play", Gary Meyer talks about this year's films with Susan]

IMG_5479 The great sucking sound you hear is the air going out of the Telluride's Film Festival's competition. Among the world's film festivals – and there are about 1,700 similar events – "The SHOW" is in a league of its own and bulletproof.

Film Festival directors (Tom Luddy, a co-founder, Gary Meyer and Julie Huntsinger) make no attempt to fill their shopping carts with fluff. The Telluride Film Festival is renowned for turning its back on The Industry, Hollywood shorthand for special effects and mind-numbing plots.
02 September, 2010 /
[click "Play", Gary Meyer reveals the 2010 Tributees]

Every year, since the event got off the ground in 1974, the Telluride Film Festival, known locally as The SHOW, has paid tribute to artists whose contributions resonate throughout the medium.

Thirty-seven years ago, the first tributees were Gloria Swanson, Francis Ford Coppola, and Leni Riefenstahl.

The list of Telluride Film Festival honored actors swelled over the years to include Jack Nicholson, Gerard Depardieu, Clint Eastwood, Isabelle Huppert, Jodie Foster, Klaus Kinski, Shirley MacLaine, Toni Collette, Daniel Day Lewis, and part-time local (she met her husband Marc Schauer, her V.I.P host, when she was honored in 2004), Laura Linney.

02 September, 2010 /

[click "Play" to hear Gary Meyer's conversation with Susan] Monsoon season in Telluride appears to have ended. The grass is green, the sun is shining bright yellow and the sky is Colorado blue. But this weekend, people who like watching...

02 September, 2010 /