Ten Bets #4 for TFF #51 / Bits and Pieces / Another One Bites the Dust

TEN BETS #4 FOR TFF #51

There is a bit of movement in the Ten Bets this week.  One move is the result of Mark Cousin's winning the Crystal Globe, the top prize at the Karlovy Vary International Film Festival, last week.  Relatedly, I re-read the Indiewire article about that and discovered this line from its author, Anne Thompson:

 

Anne Thompson is an impeccable source so that tidbit is enough for me to move Anora up even more on the Ten Bets list.

Here's this week's Ten Bets for TFF #51:

ODDS AND ENDS

I've spent some time looking at the most common distributors who screen films at TFF.  To date that has included these distribs and their most likely films to be possible for Telluride:

A24:Parthenope, Babygirl, On Becoming a Guinea Fowl

NEON: Anora, The Seed of the Sacred Fig, The End, The Actor

Searchlight: Solitary

Sony Pictures Classics: The Room Next Door, I'm Still Here, Marcel Pagnol

Focus Features: Conclave, Piece by Piece, Nosferatu

Netflix: Emilia Perez, The Piano Lesson, Untitled Noah Baumbach

Amazon/MGM: Nickel Boys, Hedda, Long Days' Journey Into Night, Unstoppable

Over the last five fests these seven distributors have been behind a number of films that have played each year.  Here's the total number of films from all seven combined from those years (leaving out the incomplete list from the Covid disabled 2020 fest):

2023: 19

2022: 17

2021: 16

2019: 16

2018: 15

So, you can see that if recent history is a guide, anywhere between 15-20 TFF #51 titles are from these peeps.

BUT...there are also distributors that are hit and miss with Telluride but with enough history to at least take a quick glance at what they might bring to The SHOW.  That group includes:

Cohen Media Group, Janus Films, Mubi, Apple, IFC Films, Magnolia, Kino Lorber and Bleecker Street.  Among those outfits, here's what I think might have a shot to be a TFF #51 selection:

Cohen Media Group: Black Tea

Janus Films: All We Imagine as Light, Caught by the Tides

Mubi: Bird, Grand Tour, Dahomey, The Substance, The Girl with the Needle

IFC Films: Memoir of a Snail

Magnolia: Ernest Cole: Lost and Found

Bleecker Street: Hard Truths, Rumours, The Return, The Wedding Banquet

I don't think we're likely to see anything from Apple (since Blitz is World Premiering in London) or Kino Lorber this year.

ANOTHER ONE BITES THE DUST

On Tuesday the Toronto International Film Festival announced five more films that will World Premiere there.  Among them was John Crowley's We Live in Time which I had been listing as a TFF #51 possibility for some time.  The WP designation means that the film will not be making a stop in southwest Colorado over Labor Day weekend.

Other films announced by TIFF on Tuesday were Eden, Superboys of Malegaon, K-Pops and Shepherds.

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