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Events

IMG_7572 Two organizations founded and operated by fans of the rock band Phish, Phish Fans, charity announced today that they have raised and distributed a combined $1,000,000 for charity. The joint announcement was made by The Mimi Fishman Foundation, which raises funds through online auctions, and The Mockingbird Foundation, which publishes historical information about Phish in print and online. Both organizations are operated on an all-volunteer basis, with no salaries, paid staff, or offices.

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 /

Telluride Adaptive Sports Program has two major fundraisers each year: "Going Country at the Opera" in the Winter, and "The Bob Miller Golf Classic" in the Summer. The Golf Classic, now in its twelfth year, is Thursday, September 16, 2010. You can participate...

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 /
[click "Play" to listen to Susan's conversation with Jeb Berrier]

IMG_8960
Suzan Beraza

Telluride triumphed in Monterey's BLUE Ocean Film Festival when the homegrown documentary "Bag It" by Reel Thing – director Suzan Beraza and her team – won in the category of Ocean Issues and Conservation. "Bag It" profiles a self-proclaimed “average guy” – Telluride local Jeb Berrier – who undertakes a global pilgrimage to explore our plastic world and understand our addiction to the supposedly disposable items. As we are learning everyday, plastic is amphibious, polluting our waters and lands with equal vigor and effectiveness.

"We were totally surprised. We were a bit like David, up against giants – National Geographic, BBC, Disney and Discovery. We did not enter BLUE Ocean with high expectations," said Beraza. "And we were totally surprised and delighted when we won."
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 /