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September 1st, 2007

Fech in Telluride

From the pristine mountain tops of Telluride, Colo., I want to welcome you to my official blog for the 2007 Telluride Film Festival!
Every year, hundreds of cinema buffs, filmmakers, and celebrities file in to this picturesque mountain town to celebrate the magic of movies, and I’ve been selected as a volunteer for this, the 34th annual gathering. I give the event my backbreaking labor, they let me watch movies for free. What a steal, I say.
Without going into too much detail at this very late hour, the Telluride Film Festival is drenched in tradition, billing itself as one of the most diverse film events in the world. Spotlighting several forthcoming contemporary pictures (both “Brokeback Mountain” and “The Last King of Scotland” played here in recent years), the festival also prides itself on bringing back to life often-forgotten classics of the art, and holds additional seminars and retrospectives on selected issues, films, or legends of the film industry.

The slogan for the festival simply reads “SHOW,” and the quaint shopping streets are peppered with decorations this time of year, enveloping the town in a feverish frenzy of movie-going mayhem.

Celebrities, of course, are hard to miss at a time like this (I literally bumped into Laura Linney at last year’s festival), and I am giddy to report that Sean Penn, Daniel Day-Lewis, Noah Baumbach, Jennifer Jason-Leigh, Ken Burns and many others are slated for appearances in the next few days. I’m a sucker for celebs.

I just returned from a special staff screening of “I’m Not There,” the unorthodox Todd Haynes picture exploring the many lives of Bob Dylan. “Disappointing” is a word that jumps to mind, and the general buzz from the crowd seemed to be mixed, at best. Too obscure, too tedious, and not enough emotion, I felt. Lovers of Dylan’s work may find it a valuable addition to their encyclopedic knowledge of the music giant, but it’s certainly not for everyone.

However, I have much to look forward to the rest of the weekend. Noah Baumbach’s “Margot at the Wedding” and a tribute to Academy-Award winning actor Daniel Day-Lewis are at the top of my list, but I’d watch whatever they put in front of me at this point; I just want to see some films.

So that’s all for now. My eyes are heavy, my body is sore, but my enthusiasm is piqued for the rest of the festival. I’ll report back tomorrow.

The “SHOW,” as they say here, is just getting started.

Bill Fech, 12:28 am, Friday, Aug 31
Telluride, Colorado

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