Julie Huntsinger has spent two decades as the guardian of the Telluride Film Festival — a jewel box of off-duty movie stars and power players relaxing in the mountains and a consequential launchpad for the fall awards season. As festival director, Huntsinger has her hallmarks. She doesn’t reveal the lineup until the eve of opening day.
She has also punted competition categories and splashy red-carpet theatrics to keep the vibe mellow and the attention on what’s on-screen. This year, the fall festivals kick off on shifting ground. Venice has a decidedly less starry lineup than in recent editions.
The New York Film Festival is reasserting itself as a destination for top projects. But Telluride’s secret weapon is its treasured filmmaker and studio relationships. Stakeholders know that a Telluride debut means a carefully curated introduction to cinephiles.
Huntsinger sits down with Variety to discuss secret negotiations, the ones that got away and why she calls herself a “midwife.” In some ways it’s changed a lot, and in others I recognize it completely. We’re in this old, pretty dilapidated building — maybe I shouldn’t use that word — and we joke that we hold it together with bubble gum and rubber bands. Marlow Stern called us “small but mighty” some years ago, and that’s right.
We put it together with a huge amount of goodwill. That’s part of the miracle business. But the traditions — the secrecy of the program, the little rituals — are so beloved that when I came back I felt it was important to safeguard all of that.
People imagine we watch movies and go, “OK, we’ll take that one.” It starts out that way, and sometimes distributors and producers want a sense of what we think. I’ve had people say outright, “We’re not sure what we want to do with this movie, but we’d love your input.” Other times we really [want] something, and they say, “We know you like it, but we still want to go next year.” As the stakes have gotten higher for everyone to even make back their nut, they want to focus everything on each film. One I love that we didn’t get this year was James Gray’s “Paper Tiger.” Most of the people involved felt New York’s opening night was key, and I had to accept that’s true.
Extract — continue reading at the source.
