The Bening hits Venice. Telluride and TIFF queue up.
Thursday, August 31, 2017 at 12:21PM by Nathaniel R
Consider prestige season officially on. The Venice Film Festival is currently in its first full day of screenings after last night's glitzy opening and Telluride just announced its lineup (which they always keep secret until after everyone has booked their passes). You can safely expect that many of the Oscar players will emerge in the next two weeks though with Spielberg's film not ready for the festivals and with Dunkirk already in theaters this could be the first year in ages where the eventual Best Picture winner does NOT emerge at the fall festivals...
Venice First
Annette Bening, President of the Jury, is already being grilled about the festival's lack of female directors though it's not like she programmed the damn thing. She's just there to judge it. The first two movies already making huge buzzy waves are Alexander Payne's satire Downsizing (reviews: Variety, The Guardian, IndieWire) and Guillermo del Toro's fantastical woman/sea creature romance The Shape of Water (reviews: Variety, The Daily Beast, The Telegraph)
— Guillermo del Toro (@RealGDT) August 31, 2017
Expect both to be find enthusiastic fanbases though of course it's far too early to say what Oscar might love since so very many movies are yet to screen. There's only room for so many top contenders. Even if we get 10 Best Picture nominees (the max) we already have one spot sewn up with Dunkirk and two more spots that could, theoretically, be earmarked for two early bird zeitgeist smashes IF (and only if) Oscar voters are feeling genre-friendly and "fun" this year (Get Out and Wonder Woman).
Telluride's Lineup
The pricey weekend festival in the mountains kicks off tomorrow. Much Oscar buzz always follows. Their lineup which they always keep secret until after everyone has bought their tickets, has just been announced. [KEY: Titles that previously premiered at Cannes or Berlinale and other festivals have a •. Titles marked with a + are premiering at Venice. Titles marked with an asterisk will also be playing at TIFF. If the film is opening very soon in regular movie theaters that's also listed.]
“Arthur Miller: Writer” (d. Rebecca Miller, U.S., 2017) tv documentary
“Battle of the Sexes” (d. Valerie Faris, Jonathan Dayton, U.S., 2017) * OPENING IN THEATERS Sept 22nd
“Darkest Hour” (d. Joe Wright, U.K., 2017) *
“Downsizing” (d. Alexander Payne, U.S., 2017) +*
“Eating Animals” (d. Christopher Quinn, U.S., 2017) documentary
“Faces Places” (d. Agnes Varda, JR, France, 2017) •*
“A Fantastic Woman” (d. Sebastián Lelio, Chile-U.S.-Germany-Spain, 2017) •*
“Film Stars Don’t Die in Liverpool” (d. Paul McGuigan, U.K., 2017) *
“First Reformed” (d. Paul Schrader, U.S., 2017) +
“First They Killed My Father” (d. Angelina Jolie, U.S.-Cambodia, 2017) * AVAILABLE ONLINE Sept 15th
“Foxtrot” (d. Samuel Maoz, Israel, 2017) +*
“Hostages” (d. Rezo Gigineishvili, Georgia-Russia-Poland, 2017) •
“Hostiles” (d. Scott Cooper, U.S., 2017) *
“Human Flow” (d. Ai Weiwei, U.S.-Germany, 2017) +
“The Insult” (d. Ziad Doueiri, France-Lebanon, 2017) +
“Lady Bird” (d. Greta Gerwig, U.S., 2017) *
“Land of the Free” (d. Camilla Magid, Denmark-Finland, 2017) • documentary
“Lean on Pete” (d. Andrew Haigh, U.K.-U.S., 2017) +*
“Loveless” (d. Andrey Zvyagintsev, Russia-France-Belgium-Germany, 2017) •*
“Love, Cecil” (d. Lisa Immordino Vreeland, U.S., 2017) documentary
“Loving Vincent” (d. Dorota Kobiela, Hugh Welchman, U.K.-Poland, 2017) OPENING IN THEATERS SEPT 22nd
“A Man of Integrity” (d. Mohammad Rasoulof, Iran, 2017) •
“The Other Side of Hope” (d. Aki Kaurismäki, Finland, 2017) •*
“The Rider” (d. Chloé Zhao, U.S., 2017) •*
“The Shape of Water” (d. Guillermo del Toro, U.S., 2017) +*
“Tesnota” (d. Kantemir Balagov, Russia, 2017) •
“The Venerable W.” (d. Barbet Schroeder, France-Switzerland, 2017) •
“The Vietnam War” (d. Ken Burns, Lynn Novick, U.S., 2017) television miniseries
“Wormwood” (d. Errol Morris, U.S., 2017) + television miniseries
“Wonderstruck” (d. Todd Haynes, U.S., 2017) •
Notable awards hopefuls that they aren't screening at Telluride include: Call Me By Your Name, mother!, Suburbicon, Wonder Wheel, Mudbound, The Killing of a Sacred Deer, The Florida Project, The Current War, Breathe, and Victoria & Abdul and films which are skipping the fall festivals like The Papers, Blade Runner 2049, All the Money in the World. and PT Anderson's Phantom Thread. Not that that necessarily means anything but could this be the year that the future BP winner DOESN'T play Telluride?
TIFF
The festival runs Sept 7-17th (kicking off just as Venice wraps up basically). Nathaniel R and Chris Feil will both be covering it on the ground and there will even be only the second ever photop with our podcast team as Katey Rich is coming out of hiding for the fest.
Reader Comments (14)
SO excited for LADY BIRD -- hearing the most amazing things.
What are you seeing at TIFF, Nat?
Just selected my picks this morning! :)
Octavia Spencer is on her way to having a one out of three record with the Academy.
What are you seeing at TIFF, Spencer? I have six tickets from a package. Will try to get a few singles as well.
I so hope Sally Hawkins gets a Best Actress nomination this year. She is remarkably talented.
It wasn't until this poster that I realized Lois Smith is in LADY BIRD - as if I needed something else to make me excited for this.
However, I'm bummed to not see Doug Jones show up in any of these fun Venice SHAPE OF WATER photos. He plays the sea creature and is crucial to a lot of Guillermo Del Toro's movies! Give him a profile, folks!
@Joseph
My schedule goes like this:
The Children Act
- I love me some Emma Thompson
The Killing of a Sacred Deer
- Gotta support Nikki
Disobedience
Mudbound
The Shape of Water
- I'm especially excited after the Venice hype!
What are you seeing??
Watch out, The Bening will be the clear front-runner for best actress by the weekend.Friends of mine have seen Film Stars Don't Die In Liverpool and have been raving about her, Jamie Bell and the whole film ever since.It doesn't seem to be the sedate, cute film most people are expecting but instead intense, passionate and moving. The description on the BFI website says exactly that also.Not long to wait before the reviews drop...
Get Out and Wonder Woman aren't going to the Oscars.
It's a very exciting slate this year,some Actress drivenfilms,genre films and subversive comedies plus new films from edy directors,can't wait to see my own lists.
That is a very, very strong cast for Lady Bird. I'm very optimistic about this - Gerwig sure knows how to assemble a very talented cast, and we already know her writing skills are sharp (Frances Ha). This could be a sleeper hit.
And my anticipation for mother! is at an all-time high. I cannot wait for this movie. Word is that it is very, very, very dark and violent, so it may not be up the Academy's alley, but who cares. I'm all in.
The fact that she's gotten shit for supposedly not speaking up against the lack of female directors in the main competition has driven me crazy. Vanity Fair had a particularly snarky article about her. It just makes me so furious - why not direct this criticism and questioning to the curator of the festival, instead of venting the frustrations with her? Like you said, Nathaniel, she is not the programmer, and she likely didn't receive the full competition schedule until after she had accepted the role as jury president! Is she just supposed to scream "FUCK EVERYTHING!" in the press conference and just jump into the Lido? Ugh
@ Spencer - Lady Bird, Florida Project, Mudbound, Lean On Pete, The Square, Downsizing, Sacred Deer, Shape of Water, Loveless, BPM and Call Me By Your Name.
@ Joseph @ Spencer - I'm heading to TIFF for first time so have tried for a schedule that includes stuff I'd never normally consider:
Beast
Jim & Andy
The Captain
Lean on Pete
First Reformed
Looking for Oum Kulthum
A Fantastic Woman
Downsizing
Let the Corpses Tan
Mudbound
Dragonfly Eyes
The Insult
The Hungry
Three Christs
Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri
Soldiers, Story from Ferentari
With maybe some rush tickets for a couple of gaps.