With the Cannes Film Festival finally admitting that staging a traditional 2020 edition of the festival was unlikely, the film world is slowly moving forward attempting to figure out “what’s next.” Many are raising doubts the traditional fall festivals can be held if large gatherings are still being discouraged by national and state governments. One festival that might find a way around that is Telluride.
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Set in the picturesque town of Telluride, Colorado, the 47th edition of the Telluride Film Festival was originally set for Sept. 4 – 7, 2020. Traditionally, the Oscar-bellwether has been held on Labor Day weekend with the first screening Friday afternoon and the last sometime on Monday. During the 45th anniversary, the festival began a day earlier to add more events around the landmark achievement. Yesterday, the Telluride Town Council approved a measure that will allow the festival to once again expand to five days for 2020.
During a zoom call for a town meeting, Telluride News quoted festival representative Brandt Garber as remarking, “We’re trying to create more space. We need to be agile and nimble. Having more time seems it would be good for the town.”
Garber also remarked, “We’re looking for a more relaxed and calmer atmosphere. We can spread out the programming. We’ll have more time and less hectic energy.”
Like many of the summer festivals that dot Telluride’s schedule, the population in the town effectively doubles when the film festival is in effect. The county of San Miguel, in which Telluride resides, has a population of around 8,200. It’s also one of the few places in the nation where free testing has been made available to all with only eight positive tests revealed so far. How the town and the festival expect to move forward if stay at home orders remain in effect in Colorado or other states remains to be seen.
Garber noted that the festival won’t be adding more films to its slate with the extra day. Usually the festival programs around 25 non-repertory films). But, what Garber didn’t note is that there might be more world premieres than usual in the slate. An extra day allows for the festival to make sure every “big” film or filmmaker gets a moment in the spotlight at one of the larger venues used for the festival. Telluride usually programs 4-6 films from Cannes a year (“Parasite,” “Portrait of a Lady on Fire,” “Beanpole,” “The Climb,” “Diego Maradonna,” and “A Hidden Life” were all Cannes premieres that screened at Telluride in 2019). The need for an extra day makes a lot of sense as it looks like a slew of expected Cannes premieres will be searching for a new festival to make their debut.
The Playlist has reached out to the Telluride Film Festival for comment. We’ll update this story accordingly.
In theory, the 47th Telluride Film Festival will now be held from Sept. 3-7, 2020.