35th Telluride Film Festival

TFF Films Score Big at Indie Awards

The Telluride Film Festival salutes the success of TFF discoveries recognized by the 17th Annual Gotham Awards and nominated for the forthcoming 2008 Spirit Awards.

Inaugurating the film awards season, The Gotham Awards honored the TFF gem INTO THE WILD with Best Feature honors. The films fellow nominees in the best feature category, MARGOT AT THE WEDDING, I'M NOT THERE, and THE NAMESAKE (TFF 2006), have each graced Tellurides celluloid stages. Director Craig Zobel, whose film GREAT WORLD OF SOUND rounded out the nominee list for Best Feature, and landed him a win in the Breakthrough Director category, was a 1998 TFF Student Symposium attendee. Director Mira Nair, a TFF regular attendee, received a prestigious Gotham Tribute for her influential work in the film industry. In addition, DAY NIGHT DAY NIGHT, directed by Julia Loktev and featured in our 33rd Festival program, was nominated for Breakthrough Director and actress Luisa Williams received a Breakthrough Actor nomination for her work in the film.

The upcoming 2008 Spirit Awards, celebrating the best in independent film, features numerous TFF favorites as nominees, among them Julian Schnabel's THE DIVING BELL AND THE BUTTERFLY (Best Feature, Best Director, Best Screenplay, Best Cinematography), Tamara Jenkins' THE SAVAGES (Best Director, Best Screenplay, Best Cinematography, Best Male Lead for Philip Seymour Hoffman), Jason Reitman's JUNO (Best Feature, Best Director, Best First Screenplay, Best Female Lead for Ellen Page), Craig Zobel's GREAT WORLD OF SOUND (Best First Feature), and Todd Haynes' I'M NOT THERE (Best Feature, Best Director, Best Supporting Female for Cate Blanchett, Best Supporting Male for Marcus Carl Franklin). I'M NOT THERE will also receive the Robert Altman Award, given to one film's director, casting director and its ensemble cast. Jennifer Jason Leigh garnered a Best Supporting Female nomination for her work in MARGOT AT THE WEDDING, and Irrfan Khan's performance in THE NAMESAKE received a Best Supporting Male nomination. In the Best Foreign Film category, three of the five nominated films delighted film enthusiasts at Telluride: Cristian Mungius' 4 MONTHS, 3 WEEKS, AND 2 DAYS (Romania), Eran Kolirin's THE BAND'S VISIT (Israel) and Vincent Paronnaud & Marjane Satrapi's PERSEPOLIS (France).

The Telluride Film Festival staff congratulates each of these films and artists! Well-deserved!