The fall festival trifecta of Venice/Telluride/Toronto traditionally have been venues for the serious start of Oscar season. But that kind of awards-season mojo has been shifting, however slowly, with the most recent Best Picture winners, Oppenheimer and Ever…

EXCLUSIVE: Jacob Stefiuk from Montreal was part of the 2023 Telluride Film Festival student symposium intake — where Moonlight's Barry Jenkins sharpened his filmmaking chops 20 years ago — and the experience has been life-changing. The town of Telluride is tucked into a box canyon surrounded by…

EXCLUSIVE: Oscar-winning director Alfonso Cuarón is studying the possibility of creating a version of his acclaimed seven hour Apple TV+ production Disclaimer that can qualify for Academy Award consideration. The phenomenal work directed and adapted by Cuarón from Renée Knight's 2015 unputdownable…

The 2024 Telluride Film Festival kicked off August 30 and runs through September 2 in the Colorado mountains. Deadline is on the ground to watch all the key films.  Among the films appearing in the mountains for the first time anywhere are director Saturday Night, Jason Reitman's tale of the 1975…

Michael Gracey’s wildly inventive musical biopic of superstar British entertainer Robbie Williams rolls the dice on a unique star casting decision to play Williams that separates it from every showbiz biopic that has come before. A CGI monkey (actor Jonno Davies) plays the singer in what is otherwise a…

EXCLUSIVE: Pauletta Pearson Washington says that the film adaptation of August Wilson's acclaimed play The Piano Lesson has been a family affair. "All my babies are involved in this," the actor, musician and philanthropist declares.   "My son directed it," she says pointing to filmmaker Malcolm…

A top director once told me 90% of the success of his movies is casting. If you get that right, you are on your way. If that is the case then Saturday Night director and co-writer Jason Reitman nailed it — and then some. With a killer ensemble of more…

Filmmaker Ali Abbasi, director of controversial movie The Apprentice, has stressed that his drama about Donald Trump's rise to prominence in the 1970s and ’80s "is not a political hit job," instead describing it more as a "mirror" of the country. Abbasi initially appeared a tad nervous as he stepped…

Telluride has launched some terrific movies this weekend — Edward Berger's Conclave, Michael Gracey's Better Man, Pablo Larrain's Maria and Tim Fehlbaum's September 5 among them — but it would be hard to find more palpable energy evident in a movie theater than that generated by Saturday Night…

EXCLUSIVE: When it comes to The Apprentice film screening Saturday night at the Telluride Film Festival, Donald Trump has proved again to be all bluster, no bite. The former president's campaign may have sent out a vitriolic cease-and-desist letter earlier this year after its debut at the Cannes Film…

Musicals are really in vogue at the fall film festivals this year. At Venice the upcoming Joker: Folie à Deux will have stars Joaquin Phoenix and Lady Gaga singing and dancing to the standards. At Telluride, Emilia Pérez has the bug, as does the…

Continuing Denzel Washington’s stated quest to bring new film versions of iconic playwright August Wilson’s 10-play Century Cycle (aka Pittsburgh Cycle since nearly all take place in the writer’s hometown), he has now come in as producer (with Todd Black) of…