Buoyed by its worldwide premiere at the ongoing Venice Film Festival – early reviews are praising the musical as an audacious, deeply romantic feature – Damien Chazelle’s Whiplash follow-up La La Land has booked its place at Telluride 2016.
The picture, one that stars Emma Stone and Ryan Gosling in central roles, is one of the many soon-to-be-released features to be locked in for the imminent film festival, joining the ranks alongside Manchester By the Sea, Moonlight, Things to Come, Bleed For This and Clint Eastwood’s airborne thriller Sully. It is, without question, a fairly stacked lineup, which only has us all the more excited for the onset of the Toronto International Film Festival later this month.
But over the coming weekend, it is Telluride that will take center stage. Similar to La La Land, today’s unveiling confirms a second festival appearance for Denis Villeneuve’s intriguing sci-fi pic Arrival. If the full feature manages to retain even a shred of that mesmerizing sense of awe and mystery that have permeated the film’s trailers, we’ll be there on day-one.
Offering a nice appetizer ahead of Blade Runner 2, Villeneuve’s feature is part of a lineup that includes:
Line-Up
ARRIVAL (d. Denis Villeneuve, U.S., 2016)
THE B-SIDE: ELSA DORFMAN’S PORTRAIT PHOTOGRAPHY (d. Errol Morris, U.S., 2016)
BLEED FOR THIS (d. Ben Younger, U.S., 2016)
CALIFORNIA TYPEWRITER (d. Doug Nichol, U.S., 2016)
CHASING TRANE (d. John Scheinfeld, U.S., 2016)
THE END OF EDEN (d. Angus Macqueen, U.K., 2016)
FINDING OSCAR (d. Ryan Suffern, U.S., 2016)
FIRE AT SEA (d. Gianfranco Rosi, Italy/France, 2016)
FRANTZ (d. François Ozon, France, 2016)
GENTLEMAN RISSIENT (d. Benoît Jacquot, Pascal Mérigeau, Guy Seligmann, France, 2016)
GRADUATION (d. Cristian Mungiu, Romania/France/Belgium, 2016)
INTO THE INFERNO (d. Werner Herzog, U.K./Austria, 2016)
THE IVORY GAME (d. Kief Davidson, Richard Ladkani, Austria/U.S., 2016)
LA LA LAND (d. Damien Chazelle, U.S., 2016)
LOST IN PARIS (d. Fiona Gordon, Dominique Abel, France/Belgium, 2016)
MANCHESTER BY THE SEA (d. Kenneth Lonergan, U.S., 2016)
MAUDIE (d. Aisling Walsh, Canada/Ireland, 2016)
MEN: A LOVE STORY (d. Mimi Chakarova, U.S., 2016)
MOONLIGHT (d. Barry Jenkins, U.S., 2016)
MY JOURNEY THROUGH FRENCH CINEMA (d. Bertrand Tavernier, France, 2016)
NERUDA (d. Pablo Larraín, Chile/Argentina/France/Spain, 2016)
NORMAN: THE MODERATE RISE AND TRAGIC FALL OF A NEW YORK FIXER (d. Joseph Cedar, U.S./Israel, 2016)
SNAPSHOTS: EYES ON THE WORLD – three nonfiction short films including EXTREMIS (d. Dan Krauss, U.S., 2016); REFUGEE (d. Joyce Chen, Emily Moore, U.S., 2016); THE WHITE HELMETS (d. Orlando von Einsiedel, U.K., 2016)
SULLY (d. Clint Eastwood, U.S., 2016)
THINGS TO COME (d. Mia Hansen-Løve, France/Germany, 2016)
THROUGH THE WALL (d. Rama Burshtein, U.S./Israel, 2016)
TONI ERDMANN (d. Maren Ade, Germany/Austria, 2016)
UNA (d. Benedict Andrews, U.K./U.S./Canada, 2016)
WAKEFIELD (d. Robin Swicord, U.S., 2016)Revivals
THE BAREFOOT CONTESSA (d. Joseph Mankiewicz, U.S., 1954)
THE FIRE WITHIN (d. Louis Malle, France, 1963)
I WAS NINETEEN (d. Konrad Wolf, East Germany, 1968)
IT WAS THE MONTH OF MAY (d. Marlen Khutsiev, U.S.S.R., 1970)
LES ENFANTS TERRIBLES (d. Jean-Pierre Melville, France, 1950)
SPIES (d. Fritz Lang, Germany, 1928)
Additional film revival programs include THE PAGNOL TRILOGY: MARIUS (d. Alexander Korda, France, 1931), FANNY (d. Marc Allégret, France, 1932), and CÉSAR (d. Marcel Pagnol, France, 1936); and VARIETY (d. Ewald André Dupont, Germany, 1925) with the Alloy Orchestra.Backlot
BEAUTIES OF THE NIGHT (d. María José Cuevas, Mexico, 2016)
BERNADETTE LAFONT, AND GOD CREATED THE FREE WOMAN (d. Esther Hoffenberg, France, 2016)
BRIGHT LIGHTS (d. Alexis Bloom, Fisher Stevens, U.S., 2016)
COOL CATS (d. Janus Køster-Rasmussen, Denmark, 2015)
THE FAMILY WHISTLE (d. Michele Salfi Russo, U.S./Italy, 2016)
A FANATIC HEART – BOB GELDOF ON WB YEATS (d. Gerry Hoban, Ireland, 2016)
GULAG (d. Angus Macqueen, U.K., 2000)
I CALLED HIM MORGAN (d. Kasper Collin, Sweden/U.S., 2016)
JERRY LEWIS: THE MAN BEHIND THE CLOWN (d. Gregory Monro, France, 2016)
MIFUNE: THE LAST SAURAI (d. Steven Okazaki, U.S., 2015)
Telluride 2016 kicks off tomorrow Friday, September 2 and runs through until Monday, September 5. Look for La La Land to slink into theaters nationwide on December 10.