2022 Telluride Film Festival Preview

Just over five months after “CODA” captured the heart of Hollywood and won the Academy Award for Best Picture, it’s hard to believe that Oscar Season is about to kick off once again with that yearly trifecta of film festivals knows as Venice, Telluride and Toronto.

But as any cinephile, journalist, critic, publicist or filmmaker will tell you, Telluride is the best of the bunch. The Venice Film Festival (the first of the three) may have all the glitz and the glamour, and the Toronto International Film Festival (the last to debut) may have more of the hustle and the bustle, but Telluride is – for lack of a better word – the most “special.”

For starters, Telluride is the hardest to get to (and it’s also expensive as hell), so only a true movie lover would go so far out of their way (and so far out of pocket) to be there. It’s also the most laid back of the bunch, since it’s the only film festival where the filmmakers are at their most relaxed, approachable and down to earth. Try to imagine Sundance without all the people, and there you have Telluride.

And of course, Telluride is a very important early stop on the long road to the Academy Awards. Eight of the last ten films to win the Oscar for Best Picture played at Telluride, including “Parasite,” “Moonlight” and “Spotlight.” And then there are the Oscar-winning performances that debuted at Telluride, such as Renee Zellweger (Best Actress for “Judy”) and Gary Oldman (Best Actor for “Darkest Hour”).

So as the faithful descend on this picturesque mountainside town for the festival’s 49th edition, which of these movies, directors and actors could be the ones that Oscar pundits will be talking about for the next seven months, until the 95th Academy Awards on March 12, 2023? 

Two-time Oscar-winner Cate Blanchett looks to be the most promising contender of the bunch as a major symphony conductor in “TAR,” which marks writer-director Todd Field’s first feature film in 16 years (since “Little Children”). And Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu – who won back-to-back Oscars for directing 2014’s “Birdman” and 2015’s “The Revenant” – steps back behind the camera for “BARDO, False Chronicle of a Handful of Truth,” based on his own personal experiences growing up in Mexico City. (That personal approach also did wonders for Inarritu’s pal Afonso Cuaron, whose “Roma” screened at Telluride in 2018.)

Twenty three years after his first feature “American Beauty” won Academy Awards for Best Picture and Best Director (among others), Sam Mendes also unveils his own personal drama with “Empire of Light,” starring Oscar-winners Olivia Coleman and Colin Firth, about a cinema in working class England in the 1980s. And 15 years after scoring her first Oscar nomination for Best Adapted Screenplay for “Away From Her” (which she also directed), Sarah Polley unveils her third feature as a director, “Women Talking,” about a group of women (including Rooney Mara, Claire Foy and three-time Oscar-winner Frances McDormand) reconciling with their faith in a religious community circa 2010. 

And those are just some of the films that come with Oscar pedigree attached to them. Who knows what surprises and discoveries are in store, such as “Moonlight,” which wasn’t on anyone’s radar prior to its Telluride debut and defied the odds to win Best Picture in 2017.