The 51st Annual Telluride Film Festival begins today. There will be a fancy brunch in the mountains called the Patron’s Brunch, which Awards Daily was disinvited to attend. There will be a press briefing (which I will not be attending, though Awards Daily will be representing). There will be a secret screening afterwards, not yet announced.
Tonight, there will be the first screening ever of Edward Berger’s highly anticipated film Conclave, a twisty tale of choosing the new Pope, full of intrigue and a jockeying for power. Here is how the Real Book Spy describes it:
Set in the near future, Robert Harris’ latest novel follows the process of selecting a new pope. As the cardinals come together to choose the next head of their church, drama, games, and sinister workings come into play.
These might be holy men, but they have ambition and personal goals, too. Some just hide that beneath the surface.
Cardinal Lomeli, currently the head of the College of Cardinals, serves as the main protagonist. Essentially, he’s in charge of the conclave. And with the pope’s death already trending on social media, he desires a quick, scandal-free selection process, and is eager to address the many rumors surrounding the Vatican.
In the running for being selected as the next pope are several prominent, well-known, and respected cardinals. One leans conservatively. Another wishes to continue on a more secular path that the previous pope had begun leading the church down before his sudden passing. There’s also an African cardinal who, like many want to see, would be the first black pope.
The Real Book Spy does not like the surprise ending, which is a twist. Since I haven’t read the book and I haven’t seen the movie, I did a quick search to find the spoiler, which I will not spoil for you here, but suffice it to say, this is a very 2024 movie. You might not realize just how much it is until you actually see it for yourself. I wanted to know what it is about this story that would fit today. Why make it? Well, it’s obvious once you see it for yourself, which I will do later tonight.
As I said at the start of this year, warning readers ahead of time, there is no way to avoid the election of 2024. It isn’t just a political election. It is like choosing the new Pope, and thereby deciding the future of America and maybe the world. The cynic in me knows how it will go — my sense of dread never fails me. Look around and you can see it too. The optimist in me, a tiny dying houseplant, hopes it goes a different way.
How it all turns out in November will influence how the Oscars go because they are all one in the same. Hollywood is the Democratic Party and the Democratic Party is Hollywood, for better or worse.
The Telluride Film Festival is as obsessed with Trump as MSNBC. Not only will there be a TBA screening of The Apprentice, which will feature a rape by Trump of his former and diseased wife Ivana (who said it was not true), but it will depict him as a ruthless conniver who screwed over his mentor Roy Cohn. But that’s not all. There is a documentary by Errol Morris called Separated, all about the Trump campaign’s family separation policy at the border. There is another documentary called Winning is Everything, Stupid! by Matt Tyrnauer.
It isn’t only Trump who is the focus — it’s all of the policies the Democrats are fighting for and care about — climate change, abortion, racism, transphobia, etc. This isn’t necessarily a bad thing. The only slight problem is that if you already know where it’s going it isn’t exactly an urgent watch. Most people get it, by now, even those who are voting blue no matter who.
More interesting to me would be alternative points of view — a macro story that gets the moment more right than a one-sided look, but I might be in the minority on that. This is a big country full of a lot of different kinds of people, yet we often get just the one perspective, at least that’s true here at Telluride, because what matters more than art is winning.
There is a documentary called The White House Effect:
When George H.W. Bush won the presidency in 1988, scientists had already been warning for years of the dangers of global warming. Bush promised to counter the “greenhouse effect” with the “White House Effect,” but his administration’s ties to the fossil fuel industry soon undermined efforts to environmentalist intentions. This sobering yet humorous all-archival film offers captivating flashbacks to the early days of the climate crisis, raising questions about what might have been if our government was accountable to the will of its people and the health of our planet.
There is an abortion documentary, ZURAWSKI V TEXAS, about the medical emergency law in Texas. A story that will never be told, the over one million abortions had last year, a ten-year high, after the overturning of Roe v. Wade — a fact we’re not allowed to talk about lest we be seen as fascists who want to ban abortion worldwide. Not true, but isn’t it worth asking? No? Okay, shutting up.
There are several films about transgender characters, like Emilia Perez – a highly acclaimed musical about a mob boss living as her true self. Then there is the Will Farrell documentary about his friend called Will & Harper. There is a film about a sex worker, Anora, which won the Palme d’Or at the Cannes Film Festival. Racism and the Jim Crow South will be on display in Nickel Boys and the history and legacy of slavery and the survival of the Black spirit in the face of it in The Piano Lesson.
All of these films are said to be great, so this isn’t a dismissal of them.
There are some films that tell slightly more universal stories:
There is one film called In Waves and War about a Navy SEAL with PTSD:
Highly decorated Navy SEAL Marcus Capone returns from Afghanistan and attempts to readjust to civilian life. But years of unprecedented warfare have left Marcus with treatment-defiant PTSD, traumatic brain injuries, and severe depression beyond what current government treatment options can effectively address. Fearing for Marcus’ life, his wife, Amber, finds hope in a groundbreaking therapy combining two powerful psychedelics unapproved for use in the U.S., but with seemingly limitless applications. Inspired by Marcus’ remarkable recovery but still confronted with the alarming rate of veteran suicide in their community, Marcus and Amber embark on a new mission: providing access to this lifeline. Alongside intimate interviews, captivating animation, and first-of-its-kind research at Stanford’s Brain Stimulation Lab, In Waves and War, from Jon Shenk and Bonni Cohen (Athlete A, An Inconvenient Sequel: Truth to Power), is the emotional, inspiring odyssey of three American heroes as they overcome the after effects of war and rediscover their humanity.
The Friend, which is somewhat more universal in its plot, though gut-wrenching story about how we can bond deeply with our four legged doggie friends. I am personally not sure I can watch this movie but it sounds interesting to me, beautiful even. Maybe I’ll suffer through it. Written and directed by Scott McGehee and David Siegel.
Saturday Night by Jason Reitman, which is the last-minute scramble to put the first episode of Saturday Night Live on the air. Things were very different in 1975, of course, but I have no idea how deep this one will go beyond showing how crazy it all was back then.
Piece by Piece by Morgan Neville tells the story of Pharrell Williams using LEGOS, and stars Pharrell Williams Morgan Neville, Gwen Stefani, Kendrick Lamar, Timbaland, Justin Timberlake, Busta Rhymes, Jay-Z, and Snoop Dogg.
Saoirse Ronan stars in The Outrun, directed by Nora Fingscheidt. Healing from a wild life of alcoholism and into the wilds of Scotland she is healed. A tribute to self and nature.
Lauren Greenfield’s Social Studies, a documentary about teens and social media.
Alfonso Cuaron’s Disclaimer, which is billed as a psychological thriller and will be released on Apple-TV as a longform series.
And the Sundance fave, A Real Pain written, directed by and starring Jesse Eisenberg and strong supporting contender Kieran Culkin.
EI won’t be posting a predictions piece until I see Conclave and Nickel Boys later tonight. I will try to keep my optimism alive and hope for the best.