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Millimeter30th Telluride Film Festival Announces Special Guests to Attend ‘Show’
May 22, 2003 12:00 PM
STEPHEN SONDHEIM to be Guest Director
TED TURNER to Receive the Silver Medallion
GARY LARSON to be Poster Artist
CANNES, FRANCE -- At a special 30th Anniversary party hosted by Variety in Cannes, Telluride Film Festival Co-Directors Bill Pence and Tom Luddy announced that an impressive trio will be honored and participate in the 2003 event: Gary Larson (The Far Side), festival poster artist; Ted Turner, Silver Medallion honoree; and Stephen Sondheim, Guest Director. All three are scheduled to be present over Labor Day weekend at the Colorado event that is presented by the National Film Preserve, Ltd. with Polo Ralph Lauren. Keeping with tradition, the program and also the full slate of attending filmmakers, tribute recipients, and presenters will not be revealed until the first day of the festival.
As Guest Director, Sondheim will collaborate with Luddy and Pence to curate and present some of the programs of the 2003 Festival. Ted Turner will be honored with the Silver Medallion in recognition of his unique contribution to film appreciation and preservation. Gary Larson (The Far Side) has been commissioned to create the 2003 festival poster.
"Following the retirement of William K. Everson as our longtime co-director, we began our policy of having a Guest Director work with us to select and present revivals of overlooked films, mini-retrospectives, and career tributes," said Luddy. "For our 30th Anniversary Festival, we are thrilled to have Stephen Sondheim as Telluride's Guest Director. He is of course universally celebrated as the greatest composer/lyricist of the American Musical Theatre. But he is also a 'film buff' extraordinaire whose first job in show business was 'clapper boy' on John Huston's 1954 Beat the Devil. In the Telluride tradition, Mr. Sondheim has curated a special retrospective with new 35mm prints of a major overlooked film artist. With this section and several other exciting and imaginative selections, Stephen will contribute immeasurably to the Festival's 30th year."
Previous Telluride Guest Directors have included Alberto Barbera (2002), Salman Rushdie (2001), Edgardo Cozarinsky (2000), Peter Sellars (1999), Peter Bogdanovich (1998), Peter von Bagh (1997), B. Ruby Rich (1996), Phillip Lopate (1995), John Simon (1994), John Boorman (1993), G. Cabrera Infante (1992), Laurie Anderson (1991), Bertrand Tavernier (1990), Errol Morris (1989), and Donald Richie (1988).
Stephen Sondheim earned his musical stripes alongside the best in the business: his first foray into creating a musical was as lyricist to Leonard Bernstein's composer for "West Side Story" (1957). After a second lyrical outing with Jules Styne's music for "Gypsy" (1959), Sondheim braved Broadway solo. Beginning with the saucy hit "A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum" (1962), his series of experimental, witty, and challenging musicals revitalized a sluggish box office and injected new life into what many believed was a dying art form.
Among Sondheim's other Broadway successes are: "Company" (1970), "A Little Night Music" (1973), "Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street" (1979), "Sunday in the Park with George," (1984), which won the composer a Pulitzer Prize; "Into the Woods" (1987), "Assassins" (1990) and "Passion" (1994). Two of his classic musicals were adapted from films by Ingmar Bergman and Ettore Scola. He wrote the scores for Alain Resnais' Stavisky and Warren Beatty's Reds; and won an Oscar for the song 'Sooner or Later" which he composed for Dick Tracy.
In presenting the Silver Medallion this year to Ted Turner, Telluride recognizes his leadership in the preservation and utilization of the American film.
"Ted Turner is a true visionary who has transformed the entire landscape of film appreciation and preservation. When he purchased MGM in 1986, then sold off all the assets with the exception of the film library, which contained all the pre-1948 Warner Bros. titles, he demonstrated a unique foresight. Ted anticipated the value of American's film heritage - the genre films and programs, as well as the prestige titles - for coming forms of distribution and exhibition in cable television and home entertainment. In so doing, he acted to ensure the safe keeping of the entire MGM, Warners and RKO library, and set the example for other studios, eventually, to follow," said Luddy. Adds Pence, "Since our first festival, and with the help of legendary archivists James Card and Henri Langlois, Telluride has championed film preservation. Now in our 30th year, we are proud to honor Ted Turner for his unparalleled feat in so forcefully influencing the preservation of the world's film heritage and in establishing its true worth."
R.E. "Ted" Turner is Vice Chairman of AOL Time Warner Inc. and a member of its board of directors. He is also a philanthropist, environmentalist, humanitarian, bison rancher and an avid outdoorsman.
In 1980 Turner inaugurated CNN, the world's first, live, in depth, round-the-clock new television networks. A second all-news service, Headline News, began operation in 1982, offering updated newscasts every half-hour. Turner has made his mark as one of the most influential philanthropists in the US. He directs most of his philanthropic activities through the Turner Foundation, which was founded in 1991, the United Nations Foundation, which was created in 1997, and the Nuclear Threat Initiative, which was launched in 2001.
Gary Larson returns to Telluride following the showing of his film Tales from the Far Side II, which premiered there in 1997. Each year, The Telluride Film Festival has been very fortunate to receive the benefit of the talents of some of the greatest living visual artists. For each year's Festival, a new artist is selected and a new piece of art is commissioned. Some of the previous poster artists have included David Salle, Ed Ruscha, Jim Dine, Francesco Clemente, and Julian Schnabel. The original work will be printed in poster form and will grace the cover of the program guide.
"We are delighted that Gary Larson is the Poster Artist for our 30th Anniversary. He is a genuine cultural icon, one that for many years has brought smiles to millions of faces throughout the world," said Pence. "In the tradition of another Telluride family member, the late Chuck Jones, Gary is a comic artist of universal appeal whose unique depiction of animals informs our own humanity."
Gary Larson never studied art other than in the classes required as a child. The now retired The Far Side thrived for 14 years in daily syndication and appeared in more than 1,900 daily and Sunday newspapers worldwide and was translated into 17 languages. The comic is still syndicated internationally in about 200 newspapers in 40 foreign countries. Larson has received numerous awards, including the Rueben Award for Outstanding Cartoonist of the Year from The National Cartoonist society in 1991 and 1994.
In 1994, Larson completed his first animated film Tales From the Far Side, which won the Grand Prix at the 1995 Annecy International Animated Film Festival in France. A 22-minute version of the film aired in the U.S. as a Halloween special on CBS in 1994. Larson's second animated film Tales From the Far Side II premiered in 1997 at the Telluride and Venice Film Festivals. Talk to Her, Bowling for Columbine, Lovely and Amazing, Amelie, Russian Ark, Lantana, The Fast Runner and Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon - among the most critically acclaimed films of the past couple years-all had their World or North American premieres at recent Telluride Film Festivals. Last Labor Day weekend, Peter O'Toole was honored with a career tribute six months prior to receiving his honorary Academy Award. The Festival program, which is kept secret until Opening Day, includes premieres, new features, remarkable rediscoveries, tributes, and documentaries, amidst unparalleled mountain scenery.
Sponsors of the 2003 Telluride Film Festival include Polo Ralph Lauren (Presenting Sponsor), Volkswagen, Vanity Fair, the town of Mountain Village, Bombay Sapphire, Virgin Atlantic Airways, Starz Encore Entertainment, Universal Operations Group, Sterling Vineyards, Turner Classic Movies, Neutrogena, Kodak, Polo Jeans, Dolby Digital, Kathy Kennedy and Frank Marshall, Ken Burns, Claudia Bloom and Tom Cruise. Special support is provided by the Academy Foundation of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.
For information on the 2003 Telluride Film Festival, taking place in Colorado over Labor Day Weekend, August 29 through September 1, 2003, visit www.telluridefilmfestival.org or call (603) 433-9202. Passes are on sale now. For travel and lodging, call Telluride Central Reservations at (800) 921-9463.
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