The Denver Post
September 3, 2004 Friday
FINAL EDITION

Telluride’s signature role is introducing “the new”

Lisa Kennedy Denver Post Film Critic

Smitten. Beguiled. Blissed out. Pick your adjective to describe the
person who has experienced the Telluride Film Festival.

Telluride, which begins its 31st outing today, is the most beloved of
film festivals.

“The people that are there, whether they’re exhibitors, journalists,
whether they’re filmmakers or distributors, they’re there because
they love movies,” said Michael Barker, co-president of Sony Pictures
Classics. “Otherwise they would be on the beach or on holiday
somewhere with the rest of America. There’s a genuine quality to film
fanaticism there, which is pretty pure.”

Cannes has glitz and the Meditteranean going for it. Toronto, with
its hundreds of movies and influx of talent grinding through the
junket juggernaut, is nearly all things to all filmgoers. Sundance
has indie cred and a hip, burgeoning music scene – not to mention
insta-celebs like Paris Hilton wandering Park City’s Main Street.

But Telluride proves there’s a gold standard in them thar hills.

“Telluride for us is the best festival in the U.S. in which to
discover films that are fresh and challenging,” Sony’s Barker said
when asked why Telluride matters. He went on to do what everyone does
when pondering the fest: He slipped into a reverie that had more to
do with seeing movies than selling them.

“I remember seeing ‘Blue Velvet’ there the first time, “River’s Edge’
there the first time,” he said. “It is known as the festival that
introduces the new.”

This year’s slate again features Telluride’s trademark mix of U.S.
and world premieres; tributes that honor the past and lay claim to
the future, and special presentations. This year’s offerings include
George Lucas’ screening of “THX 1138” and a conversation between
“Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind” director and music-video whiz
Michel Gondry and film critic Elvis Mitchell.

Sony Classics has three films in the festival that hint at the
festival’s breadth: Pedro Almodovar’s “Bad Education,” starring
Mexican actor Gael García Bernal; Istvan Szabo’s “Being Julia”; and
Zhang Yimou’s “House of Flying Daggers,” which stars Zhang Ziyi as a
blind revolutionary during the waning of the Tang Dynasty.

“You could not get a more eclectic group of films,” Barker said.
“Each one is directed by a film master.” Szabo’s “Being Julia” stars
Annette Bening. “It reminds me of those Bette Davis movies,” said
Barker, “like ‘Mr. Skeffington’ – where the actress is at the center
and there all these characters at the periphery.”

This year, women aren’t pushing men to the outskirts, but they have
emerged as the festival’s theme.

“Both women in front of the screen and women behind the screen are a
major happening at Telluride this week,” said Bill Pence, who, along
with wife Stella and Tom Luddy, began this cinema love fest.

“We don’t set quotas,” he said. “We judge everything on its own
merits. But this year we’ve seen some of the best work by women and
performances by women that are really knockout.”

Bening, as well as Joan Allen (Sally Potter’s “Yes”), Ellen Barkin
(Todd Solondz’s “Palindromes”), Zhang Ziyi and Laura Linney, will be
in Telluride this weekend.

Linney, famed screenwriter Jean-Claude Carrière (“The Discreet Charm
of the Bourgeoisie”and “That Obscure Object of Desire”) and Greek
director Theo Angelopoulos are honorees at this year’s tributes.
Linney’s “P.S.” and “Kinsey” get their premieres this weekend.

Pence confided that his favorite two films in the festival are by
female directors. Since festival directors are notoriously
egalitarian parents about their festival children, he then offered,
“I would only tell you because they’re shorts and they’d be underdogs
and underseen.

“One is by a British woman named Andrea Arnold called ‘Wasp,’ ” he
said. “The the other is by a young Armenian woman named Maria
Saakyan. She has made a 27-minute film called ‘Proshanie.’ To me it
represents the best thing (Andrei) Tarkovsky did in his prime. And if
you know any Telluride lore at all, you know Tarkovsky is our idol,
our god.” For the uninitiated, the late Tarkovsky was a legendary
Russian filmmaker (“Andrei Rublev,” “Solaris”) who was honored at the
festival in 1982.

Cinema’s brightest history and its best future – that sums Telluride.

“The films just interact with each other,” says film critic Howie
Movshovitz, who teaches in Telluride’s weekend program. “You see
something old then you see something new, and over the course of four
days you realize they’re connected.”

Festival passes are sold out, but there are still ways to participate
in Telluride’s immersion therapy. (Check out tellu

ridefilmfestival.com for info.)

Festival co-director Bill Pence promises, “by the end of four days,
you’re sort of burned out if you do it right.” Here’s to doing it
right.

Film critic Lisa Kennedy can be reached at 303-820-1567 or
lkennedy@denverpost.com.