Well, the hints hit hard this week with the Toronto and Venice Fests announcing the bulk of their 2024 lineups. New York also got into the act by announcing their opening night film: RaMell Ross' Nickel Boys-with its conspicuous absence of a premiere designation in the media release. Needless to say...we know more now than we did a week ago.
1) Anora/Baker
2) Conclave/Berger
3) Emilia Perez/Jacques Audiard
4) The Room Next Door/Pedro Almodovar
5) The Seed of the Scared Fig/Mohammad Rasoulof
6) A Sudden Glimpse to Deeper Things/Cousins
7) Nickel Boys/Ross
8) Maria/Pablo Larrain
9) Queer/Luca Guadagnino
10) Bird/Arnold
Other possibilities:
The End/Oppenheimer
I'm Still Here/Salles
Parthenope/Sorrentino
In the Hand of Dante/Schnabel
Hard Truths/Leigh
The Piano Lesson/Washington
Untitled Noah Baumbach
Megalopolis/Coppola
Napoleon (new restoration)/Gance
Leonardo DaVinci/Burns
Oh, Canada/Schrader
The Actor/Johnson
SNL 1975
All We Imagine as Light
Memoir of a Snail
Now, here's the update:
1) Anora/Baker
2) Conclave/Berger
3) Emilia Perez/Audiard
4) The End/Oppenheimer
5) All We Imagine as Light/Kapadia
6) The Piano Lesson/Washington
7) Misrecordia/Guiraudie
8) Nickel Boys/Ross
9) Better Man/Gracey
10) Piece by Piece/Neville
And a Bonus Five Bets:
11) The Seed of the Sacred Fig/Rasoulof
12) A Sudden Glimpse to Deeper Things/Cousins
13) The Apprentice/Abassi
14) The Friend/Siegel and McGeehee
15) Don't Let's Go to the Dogs Tonight/Davitz
Other possibilities:
Maria/Larrain
Parthenope/Sorrentino
In the Hand of Dante/Schnabel
Untitled Noah Baumbach
Megalopolis/Coppola
Napoleon (new restoration)/Gance
Leonardo DaVinci/Burns
The Actor/Johnson
SNL 1975/Reitman
Memoir of a Snail/Elliot
Babygirl/Reijn
Separated/Morris
One on One: John and Yoko/ Macdonald and Rice-Edwards
Harvest/Tsangari
Allegorie Citadine/ Rohrwacher and JR
My most anticipated: Nickel Boys and Conclave. I'd really love to see Jason Reitman's SNL 1975 make it into the lineup.
TWO GO AWAY
Venice Film Festival Artistic Director Alberto Barbera revealed in a post-announcement interview with Deadline that both Luca Guadagnino's Queer and Pedro Almodovar's The Room Next Door will be scheduled to screen the second week of the fest. That means we can take both of those films off the board and explains why they're no longer among the "Ten Bets" or other possibilities.
Here's the relevant comment from the Deadline post:
"DEADLINE: You said this morning that we’d have to wait into the second week of the festival to see some of the big movies…
BARBERA: Yes, it was a matter of timing and schedules. The Almodóvar, Joker and Queer will be in the second half of the festival. Joker 2 will most likely be on Wednesday, for example."
TWO (MAYBE) GET ADDED
I went through about a four hour period on Tuesday about two films that had "going to Telluride" buzz. I wasn't quite ready to jump in and add them but Jordan Ruimy, following some of the same buzz posted this yesterday at his World of Reel website:
"I can confirm that Ali Abassi’s “The Apprentice” will be having its North American premiere at Telluride. The Donald Trump biopic still has no U.S. distribution, although a deal is on the table with Briarcliffe Entertainment — you can read more about this story here."
Later in the post Ruimy writes:
"Meanwhile, Jason Reitman’s “SNL 1975,” which recounts the 24 hours leading up to the premiere of the first Saturday Night Live episode, is close to being added to the Telluride lineup as a world premiere."
Sooo...The Apprentice from Ali Abassi and possibly SNL 1975 from Jason Reitman on their way to the San Juans?
IS IT POSSIBLE?
Searchlight has dropped a teaser for its Bob Dylan biopic A Complete Unknown. Indiewire reports that the film has been dated for a December release. Here's the teaser:
Searchlight has looked like it probably wouldn't be represented this year at TFF since the announcement that Nightbitch was World Premiering at Toronto. I'd really all but written off anything else (see my post from June 17th).
Sooo...could this be ready? Searchlight has a long history with Telluride and writer/director James Mangold screened Walk the Line and Ford v. Ferrari at past fests.
Then there's this from Scott Menzel of We Live Entertainment posting on X yesterday:
Do I think it could happen? It would be an incredibly fast turnaround. If IMDb Pro is to be believed, the film was largely shot in 2023 and had an additional nine days of shooting in early to mid June of this year.
So, again, do I think it could happen? Not really, but....what if it did?
And, by the way, I love the teaser.
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