Navel-gazing warning: I've been restraining myself as long as possible from this most self-indulgent exercise, but with the majority of the Venice, Toronto, and New York festival lineups announced, I can no longer resist speculating about what I'll be trying to see in three weeks at the 49th Telluride Film Festival:
Very Likely Appearing at Telluride (>60% chance)
These are almost all basically confirmed by virtue of their Toronto/NYFF premiere status, barring some last-minute change of plans or error on the part of those festivals; the two exceptions are the Iñárritu and Guadagnino films, which Venice director Alberto Barbera indicated would be at Telluride but haven't been credibly confirmed otherwise. This is only 12 films, where usually there'd be 15-18 of the eventual 30ish titles confirmed by now, which points to the potential for a lot of unexpected surprises in the final program.
Aftersun (Charlotte Wells)'
Armageddon Time (James Gray)
Bardo (Alejandro González Iñárritu)
Bones and All (Luca Guadagnino)
Broker (Hirokazu Kore-eda)
Empire of Light (Sam Mendes)
Good Night Oppy (Ryan White)
Holy Spider (Ali Abassi)
One Fine Morning (Mia Hansen-Løve)
TÁR (Todd Field)
The Wonder (Sebastián Lelio)
Women Talking (Sarah Polley)
Possibilities (40-60% chance)
These all seem like decent possibilities, mostly due to the filmmakers' histories with the festival.
Close (Lukas Dhont)
A Compassionate Spy (Steve James)
The Pale Blue Eye (Scott Cooper)
The US and the Holocaust (Ken Burns)
Long Shots (<40% chance)
All the Beauty and the Bloodshed (Poitras) — the premiere status of this one at NYFF isn't clear; it's called a U.S. premiere in
some places and
not others, so I'll say it has a slim chance
Argentina 1985 (Santiago Mitre)
Athena (Romain Gavras)
Babylon (Damien Chazelle) — very unlikely this plays any festivals at all, but if it was going to it would probably be a sneak at Telluride given Chazelle's relationship with the festival, and it's probably the film I most want to see this year so let me have this fantasy for a few more weeks
Blonde (Andrew Dominik) — no indication it's playing anywhere except Venice yet, and the eventual schedule release for that festival should give a sense of whether it would even be a possibility
Dead for a Dollar (Walter Hill) — like
Blonde and
Argentina 1985, zero indication that it's playing anywhere but Venice, but I'd love to see Hill get a career recognition tribute
Living (Oliver Hermanus)
Pinocchio (Guillermo Del Toro) — supposedly this isn't going to be finished in time, but if it was I'm sure they'd scramble to get it in
She Said (Maria Schrader)
Biggest Disappointments (<5% chance)
Telluride has been known to steal premieres from other festivals at the last minute or convince studios/directors to unexpectedly screen films, so there's only the slimmest of possibilities that these will appear, which bums me out, especially given the frequent appearances of Schrader, Baumbach, and Aronofsky at this festival.
The Banshees of Inisherin (Martin McDonagh)
Corsage (Marie Kreutzer)
Decision to Leave (Park Chan-wook)
The Eternal Daughter (Joanna Hogg)
Master Gardener (Schrader)
R.M.N. (Crisitan Mungiu) — this was my top candidate for the Crushingly Depressing Eastern European Drama I look forward to so much at this festival each year
Triangle of Sadness (Ruben Östlund)
The Whale (Darren Aronofsky)
White Noise (Noah Baumbach)