Cynematik • Cyndi Greening

The Telluride Film Festival always takes place over Labor Day Weekend so, not surprisingly, today’s post is information about the festival. In spite of the horror in New Orleans, things like film festivals continue in other parts of the world. Among the interesting bits from the festival, Dave McKean the wonderful animator/illustrator created the poster for this year’s festival. It’s wonderfully McKeanish. (You may recall that his film, MIRRORMASK, screened at Sundance in January and opens nationwide on September 30, 2005.)

As usual, the films to be screened were not announced until Thursday evening (Telluride is always a surprise). The Screening Guide for the 32nd Telluride Film Festival (pdf) reveals that the tributes this year are to actor MICKEY ROONEY, actor CHARLOTTE RAMPLING and directors LUC and JEAN-PIERRE DARDENNES. Rooney and Rampling may be a bit more familiar to the public but, no doubt, the sophisticated Telluride crowd is equally aware of the Dardennes. The brothers have the distinction of having won the Palm d’Or for two films (THE CHILD, 2005 and ROSETTA, 1999). Tributes are always interesting because you know who’s going to be attending for sure!

I was very excited to see that APPLE has a strong presence at Telluride this year. I always wondered why they didn’t go to Sundance (given how many people are editing on Final Cut Pro) so I’m heartened to see that they’ve made a bit commitment to participate at Telluride. Tomorrow, I’ll write more about the films of festival #32!