The 2024 Telluride Film Festival was a success on many fronts, delivering packed screenings (and commensurate turnaways) at the big titles booked in the popular venues, with smaller turnouts for docs and classic titles in the less-frequented theaters. Below, IndieWire lays out the festival hits, commercial breakouts, Oscar contenders, and distribution seekers.
Festival Holdovers
The Telluride movies that played best for audiences were already anointed with credibility from prior festival reviews and/or prizes. That includes Cannes prize-winners “Emilia Pérez” (Jacques Audiard, Netflix), “Anora” (Sean Baker, Neon), and “All We Imagine as Light” (Payal Kapadia, Janus/Sideshow), and “The Seed of the Sacred Fig” (Mohammad Rasoulof, Neon), the banned Iranian film submitted for Oscar consideration by Germany. All will be strong Oscar contenders, assuming that “All We Imagine as Light” is submitted by India or France for Best International Film, which is not a foregone conclusion. From Sundance was secret screening “A Real Pain” (Searchlight), starring Kieran Culkin and writer/director Jesse Eisenberg, which played well at Telluride with its stars on hand. Writing and acting nominations seem likely.
On the documentary side, Sundance entry “Will & Harper” (Netflix), produced by and starring Will Ferrell, is an engaging yet serious look at Harper Steele, a recently transitioned trans woman who nervously embarks on a road trip across America with her old SNL buddy. This is a strong documentary Oscar contender.
Commercial Breakouts
Among the new films breaking at Telluride, two mainstream Focus releases played well for the festival crowd, including Edward Berger’s solid Vatican thriller “Conclave (limited release November 1), featuring exemplary crafts and an Oscar-worthy performance from Ralph Fiennes, and LEGO animated documentary “Piece by Piece,” Morgan Neville’s music-packed biodoc about Pharrell Williams, which will open wide on October 11 and is aimed a wide demo from hip-hop music fans to kids. Also engaging Telluride audiences was Jason Reitman’s entertaining behind-the-scenes look at the 1975 launch of SNL in “Saturday Night” (Sony Pictures), which showcases another talented ensemble of young actors, from Gabriel LaBelle to Rachel Sennott.
Oscar Contenders
Pablo Larraín’s “Maria” (picked up by Netflix at Venice) is perfect Oscar fodder: Angelina Jolie is perfectly cast as opera diva Maria Callas in the last days of her life in 1977 Paris. Partly because she learned how to sing opera on camera, Jolie will add a Best Actress nomination to her one win (“Girl, Interrupted” for Best Supporitng Actress) and one other nomination (“Changeling”), and the Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Oscar. The sumptuous movie, with a lush operatic soundtrack, should lure Academy voters, sophisticated adult filmgoers, and opera lovers.
RaMell Ross’s “Nickel Boys” (MGM/Amazon) wowed critics and festivalgoers alike, while drumming up debate about whether the filmmaker’s daring cinematic aesthetic actually works with moviegoers trained to see shot-countershot mise en scène. In other words, moviegoers are primed to see faces onscreen, and this immersive movie often relies on the behind-the-eyes-and-neck points-of-views of its characters, two teenagers incarcerated at a harshly abusive reform school in Florida. Based on Colson Whitehead’s Pulitzer-prize-winning novel, this movie will go far with critics and Academy voters, and Aunjanue Ellis-Taylor will likely grab a Best Actress nod. What will the other branches think? There will be respect and admiration. But will the cinematography branch reward this extraordinary new approach to photography? Hard to tell.
R.J. Cutler’s “Martha” (Netflix) is not hagiographic, as its subject Martha Stewart will be the first to say, which could help its Oscar chances, although these days the internationally slanted documentary branch is often resistant to rewarding successful American filmmakers (Cutler was Emmy-nominated for “Billie Eilish: The World’s a Little Blurry”).
NatGeo is backing “Blink,” from “Navalny” Oscar-winner Daniel Roher and Edmund Stenson, who tell the heart-rending story of how a family, when given the news that their children are genetically disposed to going blind, takes them on a world tour to create vivid visual memories.
Australian stop-motion animator Adam Elliot’s endearing second feature film, “Memoir of a Snail,” should follow its Annecy feature win with an Oscar notation for Best Animated Feature.
Looking for Distribution
1972 Munich Olympic Games thriller “September 5” impressed critics and audiences in Venice and Telluride, and is expected to announce a distributor soon. It’s a riveting look at how the ABC Sports newsroom covered the terrorist attack on the Israeli Olympic team, which ended in bloodshed. They changed live news coverage forever. Peter Sarsgaard and John Magaro lead a strong ensemble, including German actress Leonie Benesch, who led 2024 Best International Oscar nominee “The Teachers’ Lounge.”
One of the more audience-friendly movies with heart at Telluride, David Siegel and Scott McGehee’s equity-financed “The Friend” stars Naomi Watts and a Great Dane named Bing.
“Separated,” Errol Morris’ timely and urgent expose of the Trump administration’s cruel and inhumane zero tolerance policy in 2017-2018 at the U.S./Mexican border, was backed by NBC News and would seem a natural for Universal specialty distributor Focus or Peacock. The story should get out before the election, but at this stage no theatrical distributor has the bandwidth to mount a campaign that fast. It seems that there is some action behind the scenes, as well as fear of Trump.
Maisie Crow and Abbie Perrault’s abortion exposé “Zurawski v Texas” had a packed screening, possibly because producers Hillary and Chelsea Clinton were on hand for the Q&A. Before the screening, I was told the filmmakers had zero interest from distributors, but the enthusiastic response to the screenings should change that.
Veterans Bonni Cohen and Jon Shenk’s global warming archive documentary “The White House Effect” (Submarine is selling), which charts how U.S. policy on climate change changed for the worse during the Geoge Bush administration, met a warm reception at Telluride.
Warning for the future: When director Julie Huntsinger would say, “This is about you,” to the audience, some in the back of the house knew they had squeaked in after patrons ($5,000 per badge) and reserved seats were given first crack. And many were left hanging after waiting as long as two hours. Festival pass holders had no guarantees of admittance to the bigger titles. Of course, there were many other riches on hand for them to see. When the Nugget Theatre completes construction, it may make things easier for the festival and its cinephile attendees.
