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Telluride Fast Facts

Big Films that premiered at Telluride:

  • Battle of the sexes

  • Lady Bird

  • The shape of water

  • Sully

  • Moonlight (director worked at telluride for a decade)

  • Imitation Game

  • Brokeback mountain

“Telluride Film Festival has long been a platform for films from many different cultures and backgrounds that celebrate diversity,”

Education programs:

Student Symposium: college undergraduates and grad students; all majors are welcome. Fifty students, from around the globe, are chosen to participate in a rigorous five days of screenings and cloistered seminars.

City Lights: invites high schools to participate. Fifteen students and their teacher chaperones attend the event and gain exposure to great films and filmmakers in a life-changing experience similar to the Student Symposium.

The student programs function as scholarships to attend a mini-Telluride before the full festival opens on September 3rd. (Aug 30 - Sept 3)

Started in 1974, the Telluride Council for the Arts and Humanities is chaired by Bill and Stella Pence, Tom Luddy, and James Card.

The festival takes place inn Telluride, CO over Labor Day weekend in the beginning of September every year

Each year a new artist is selected to create a poster for the festival!

The Silver Medallions are a category presented each year which began in 1974. This award is typically presented to roles devoted to important figures in Hollywood, roles of a major historical figures, and lastly roles that depict a person that is not well known to the American public, or misunderstood by them. These are awarded to three featured tributes. People who have won this award include Christian Bale, Casey Affleck, Amy Adams, Daniel Day-Lewis, George Clooney, The Coen Brothers, David Fincher, and Meryl Streep, to name a few.

The Telluride Film Festival has had a collection in The Academy Film Archive since 2013. It consists of over 170 items dating back to 1978.

Since 1995 a special medallion has also been presented annually, usually to a non-filmmaker who has had a major impact on American or international film culture.

Telluride will screen over 60 feature films, short films, and revival programs representing 26 countries,

For over 20 years the Telluride Film Festival has presented students with the opportunity to experience the Festival as it was initially intended—a celebration of film as an art, a festival of discovery and rediscovery, and a place to share your love of film with others who feel just as passionately as you do.

You don't need to be a film student. All you need is a consuming passion for film. Seize the opportunity to immerse yourself in a direct and intimate dialogue with some of the greatest filmmakers out there, joined by peers that share your enthusiasm.

Telluride is significantly funded by donations.

This year is the 45th anniversary of the festival!

Shorts and students film submissions are from April 16th-July 2nd. No late or early submissions taken.

Nobody knows what is playing until the event starts. A secret to the press and members.

If you got here, you have a chance of being interviewed with Hollywood stars.

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