39th Telluride Film Festival

Telluride Film Festival Co-Founder and Co-Director Tom Luddy recounts the early days of the Festival, and remembers some of the more fantastic moments and characters that make up our history.

Elsa Zylberstein discloses some of the methods used to create the emotional space between the characters she and Kristin Scott Thomas portray in Philippe Claudel's magnificent first feature.

Are Cutbacks in Film Distribution and Criticism Affecting Quality Filmmaking? Annette Insdorf moderates a highly charged panel of industry professionals gazing into the changing face of the Internet and its relationship to Cinema. Panel includes Sony Pictures Classics Co-President Michael Barker, LA Weekly Film Editor Scott Foundas, Variety's Anne Thompson, SLUMDOG MILLIONAIRE director Danny Boyle, IFC Entertainment President Jonathan Sehring, and ADAM RESURRECTED director Paul Schrader.

One of the new millennium's most influential and cherished bands, Radiohead, kindly provide the soundtrack to this wonderful time-lapse video from our 35th year.

In relation to the controversy surrounding Youssou Ndour's album Egypt, Salman Rushdie speaks about his original intention of writing the controversial book "Satanic Versus."

Chai Vasarhelyi, director of the Youssou Ndour documentary I BRING WHAT I LOVE, tells the divine tale of the spiritual genesis of the film. Then, Peter Sellars testifies to the humbling fate of Ndour's Grammy - which he won for the ravishing and joyous, albeit controversial, pan-African album Egypt.

Moderator Anne Thompson of Variety journeys into the minds of our filmmaker panelists to uncover the subconscious world their ideas initially inhabit, and the filmmaking mechanics that make them reality. Paul Schrader, Nandita Das, Danny Boyle, Jan Troell, and Ari Folman share their filmic visions and waking life challenges in the dream like setting of Elks Park.

Paul Watson is the most controversial figure in the environmental movement, taking the law into his own hands on the open seas. Using nonviolent tactics, he confronts hunters who indiscrimanately slaughter whales, seals and sharks, as well as complicit governments and soft-spined enviro orgs. Listen along with PIRATE FOR THE SEA director Ron Colby and TFF favorite Ken Burns as Watson tells his tale.

Presenting Sponsor Dell teamed up with Media Partner Variety to capture some quiet moments with some of our guests over the Labor Day Weekend. Variety's Mike Jones asks PIRATE FOR THE SEA director Ron Colby and its subject Paul Watson about their inspirations for the documentary.

Presenting Sponsor Dell teamed up with Media Partner Variety to capture some quiet moments with many of our guests over the Labor Day Weekend. Mike Jones asks Nandita Das to elaborate on the differences she found between acting and directing, and on Salman Rushdie's involvement with her latest film FIRAAQ.

Presenting Sponsor Dell captured some quiet moments with many of our guests over the Labor Day Weekend. In this part of their talk, first time filmmaker guest Nandita Das shares with Mike Jones her thoughts on the Telluride Film Festival experience.

Film critic (and past Festival Guest Director) Phillip Lopate examines the underlying themes of ADAM RESURRECTED with the book's author, Yoram Kaniuk, and the film's director, Paul Schrader. Revelations abound regarding death and rebirth, contradiction of character, and the book's controversial alternative title.

AMERICAN VIOLET captured the Festival audience's attention early on in the Labor Day Weekend - and never let it go. The appearance of the story's real life American Violet, Regina Kelly, kept the buzz high and the love pouring out for this wrongly accused and imprisoned mother who stood up to a corrupt District Attorney. Find yourself caught up in the stranger than fiction story, as the film's Director and Star recount their inspirational moments with this Extraordinary Woman as part of our traditional Courthouse series.

Presenting Sponsor Dell captured some quiet moments with many of our guests over the Labor Day Weekend. Variety's Mike Jones sits down with WALTZ WITH BASHIR director Ari Folman to discuss the autobiographical nature of his film, and why animation was the only option.

Presenting Sponsor Dell captured some quiet moments with many of our guests during the Labor Day Weekend. Director Paul Schrader summarizes the premise of his latest film ADAM RESURRECTED, his many trips to the Telluride Film Festival, and the future of film festivals in general. The star of ADAM RESURRECTED, Jeff Goldblum, and Variety's Anne Thompson listen on.

Presenting Sponsor Dell teamed up with Media Partner Variety to capture some quiet moments with many of our guests during the Labor Day Weekend. In this second part of their conversation with Variety's Anne Thompson, Jeff Goldblum and Paul Schrader talk about the intricacies of the main character in ADAM RESURRECTED.

Presenting Sponsor Dell teamed up with Media Partner Variety to capture some quiet moments with many of our guests during the Labor Day Weekend. Variety's Anne Thompson dialogues with first time feature director Steve McQueen on the inspirations behind, as well as the controversies surrounding, his award winning picture HUNGER.

Presenting Sponsor Dell captured some quiet moments with many of our guests during the Labor Day Weekend. Mike Leigh took the opportunity to explain the unexplainable process that conjured up the title of his latest film HAPPY-GO-LUCKY.

Presenting Sponsor Dell teamed up with Media Partner Variety to capture some quiet moments with many of our guests during the Labor Day Weekend. Variety's Anne Thompson talks with I'VE LOVED YOU SO LONG's Elsa Zylberstein and director Philippe Claudel about the film's reception in Telluride and its amazing ability to transcend cultures with its powerfully quiet message.

Jean Simmons was a mere 17 when she won the role of Estella in David Lean's ravishing 1946 film version of the Dicken's novel Great Expectations. All it took was one glimpse of that deceptively innocent beauty, coquettishly shaming her awestruck suitor, and we, like lovelorn young Pip, would have gladly followed her anywhere. And follow audiences did. Now, in Telluride, Jean Simmons once again charms her many admirers in the great Sheridan Opera House as she receives her Tribute Medallion from 2004 Tributee Laura Linney. Afterwards, she sits down with Film and Music critic Gary Giddins to reminisce about her decades-spanning career and the leading men she played with.

Presenting Sponsor Dell teamed up with Media Partner Variety to capture some quiet moments with many of our guests during the Labor Day Weekend. Variety's Anne Thompson listens as the stars of FLASH OF GENIUS share which elements initially drew them to the inspirational David-versus-Goliath tale.

Presenting Sponsor Dell teamed up with Media Partner Variety to capture some quiet moments with many of our guests. FLASH OF GENIUS stars Greg Kinnear and Lauren Graham give a brief synposis of their new picture, and Kinnear cannot help but marvel at the coincidence surrounding his second trip to the Telluride Film Festival.

After 40 years of outstanding filmmaking, Jan Troell represents, as well as any other filmmaker, the richness of Scandinavian film. Since the premiere, in 1966, of his coming-of-age tale HERE IS YOUR LIFE, Troell has remained rooted in the culture, landscapes and storytelling modalities of Sweden. Watch as our 35th TFF Tributee receives his Silver Medallion from Film critic Richard Schickel, and then talks inspiration with Festival friend, Milos Stehlik.

Presenting Sponsor Dell captured some quiet moments with many of our guests during the Labor Day weekend. Variety's Mike Jones reminisces with Sony Pictures Classic's Michael Barker and Tom Bernard as they share memories of their early adventures at the festival and what it still means to them today.

Presenting Sponsor Dell teamed up with Media Partner Variety to capture some quiet moments with many of our guests during the Labor Day Weekend. Variety's Mike Jones talks to Sony Pictures Classics' Michael Barker and Tom Bernard about the films they brought with them to Telluride, and the state of independent cinema on the world's stage.

Presenting Sponsor Dell captured some quiet moments with some of our guests over the Labor Day Weekend. O'HORTEN director Bent Hamer shares the lessons he learned from his main character, Odd Horten.

This enriching conversation between the director of FIRAAQ and the director of SLUMDOG MILLIONAIRE focuses on the genesis of each film, and how they play into India's cinematic legacy. Moderated by Film Festival Co-Founder and Co-Director Tom Luddy.

"Intellectual Rockstar" and this year's Festival Guest Director Slavoj Zizek, talks film psychology and philosophy with well loved TFF Resident Curator Peter Sellars. Guest Director Program sponsored by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences.

With George Lucas as a childhood neighbor, and the maverick film productions of San Francisco in his backyard, one would think David Fincher's path to success must have been easy - if not inevitable. The truth is, while he took advantage of the opportunities surrounding him, his success has been the direct result of his tenacious appetite for truth. By pushing the creative envelope further and further while having the courage to say "No" to those in Hollywood that would hold him back, our 35th Telluride Film Festival Tributee has the kind of independent spirit that deserves attention. Moderated by Variety's Todd McCarthy.

Moderator Annette Insdorf sits calmly in the middle of one of the most combative relationships to ever exist in modern history: the one between a film director and their actors! Mike Leigh and David Fincher share the director's chair as Jean Simmons, Elsa Zylberstein, Greg Kinnear, and Jeff Goldblum co-star in this wonderful Conversation in Elks Park.