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.