2008 Telluride Film Festival

It’s that time of year for the annual Telluride Film Festival. Started in 1974, this is one of the world’s most endearing film events. First off, it’s located in Telluride, an awesome place. Second, the lineup of movies is always eclectic and stimulating. Third, Telluride is such a small place, festival-goers invariably rub elbows with actors, writers, directors. I know this because I’ve attended the festival before, the first time in 1987. My history with Telluride goes back even further — when I lived in Aspen from 1978–1980, playing music for a living, “Myers & O’Flynn” (my musical partner was Pat Flynn, acoustic guitar wizard), performed in clubs in Telluride and in the 1979 and 1980 Telluride Bluegrass Festival. In fact, that’s where Pat and I met the New Grass Revival, a groundbreaking band that Pat later joined and played with for nearly a decade. 

Anyway, back to the film festival. This year’s line-up of movies look very promising, per this Hollywood Reporter article:

Certainly, there will be plenty of films on hand likely to attract awards buzz. For example, Mike Leigh’s comedy “Happy-Go-Lucky” already has handicappers doing cartwheels over Sally Hawkins’ performance as a cockeyed optimist. Meyer noted that the fest first spotted the movie in Berlin in February, booking it even before Miramax picked it up for U.S. release.

A number of films that established themselves at Cannes also will be on hand. Among them: the animated Israeli feature “Waltz With Bashir,” Matteo Garrone’s Italian crime drama “Gomorrah” and Steve McQueen’s prison study “Hunger.”

But Telluride also will unveil several new films, such as Paul Schrader’s latest feature, “Adam Resurrected,” an adaptation of Yoram Kaniuk’s novel, in which Jeff Goldblum plays a troubled concentration camp survivor. “It will split audiences right down the middle,” Meyer predicted. “We had a small screening of it, and people stood around in the lobby for over an hour discussing it.”

Other titles that could stake out turf at Telluride include the French film “With a Little Help From Myself,” directed by Francois Dupeyron, in which Felicite Woussi, heading an African-French cast, turns in what is said to be an award-worthy performance; Tim Disney’s “American Violet,” starring Nichole Behaire as a black single mom; the Indian feature “Firaaq,” which will be introduced by Salman Rushdie; Ole Christian Madsen’s “Flame & Citron,” set amid the Danish resistance to the Nazis; and the documentary “Learning Gravity,” Cathal Black’s portrait of Thomas Lynch, an undertaker and poet.

Great film festival, great town. If you ever get the chance, I highly recommend you do Telluride.

UPDATE: More on the Telluride film festival in this Los Angeles Times article.

And since I’m going down memory lane, here’s a clip of Pat Flynn with the New Grass Revival, performing a song Pat wrote “In the Middle of the Night.” Proud to say it’s the same arrangement that Myers & O’Flynn worked up.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZzC2aZFmSPg