One of our favorite events at Telluride is “Conversations.” Notable Festival guests talk to each other and the audience about anything and everything. Although the theme is undefined, today’s was loosely titled “Targets in the Eye of the Storm” featuring  Indian author Salman Rushdie. Since 1989, he has been under a $2.8m bounty by Iran because his novel, “The Satanic Verses” was condemned as blasphemous. 

Rushdie carefully explained how he wasn’t brought up to be a devout Muslim in London growing up, but, had a great curiosity about the Koran.  He wrote his book in an attempt to “unscramble the Koran,” and only two 40 page sections in his 650 page book are what caused all the controversy, which amazed Rushdie.   He’s never been able to figure out why they were angry enough to put a fatwa on him. “People get pissed off,” he said dryly.  

Afterwards, we headed for the City Park to check on our chairs for tonight’s film, only to see they had been confiscated by the authorities….

“American Violet” is one of the few U.S. films at Telluride this year. It’s a powerful story about a small Texas town that rounded up a substantial portion of their African American residents one night on trumped-up charges. The film was well-acted, but the highlight of the screening was seeing one of the stars – Michael O’Keefe (Danny Noonan from “Caddyshack”) in attendance. I had to stop myself from shouting “Noonan” when he stood up to the crowd’s applause. Bill Patton was also there, and he was supurb in the film as well.

The Student Shorts program had an excellent Swiss film called “On the Line” about a security guard and his infatuation with a book store clerk. Very well acted and a great story. We hope to be screening that one for Boulder audiences in February.

One often sees bumper stickers saying “Save the Whales.” The movie in the park Saturday night showed you how to do it. It was a powerful film called “Pirate for the Sea” about Paul Watson, a highly controversial person in the environmental movement. As Kitty, one of our companions said “it was painful to watch, but it’s something we all need to be aware of….” Might play well in Boulder.

After the park, we managed to crash the Starz party being held in the hotel right next door to our condo. Salman Rushdie was there, along with what seemed like hundreds of other people. We don’t know who they were, but we’re sure they were very important.

Looking forward to more films tomorrow!

BAKED IN TELLURIDE: DAY 2
Movies didn’t start until 5pm, so we grabbed our beer and fishing gear, and fly-fished for the first time in the San Miguel river just 30 yards from our  little condo.  BIFF board member Bill Viehlier said that the “Trout fishing was good, it was the catching that was slow.”
 
Chastened loser-anglers all, we spent the afternoon with the Festival Program to plot our festival strategy and make assignments. We noticed that there are very few films from the U.S. in the program this year. An article in Telluride’s “Daily Planet” mentioned that it might be because of the writer’s strike. A priority is to track down Jeff Goldblum, who’s in town to present his highly-praised black-comedy “Adam Resurrected” about a concentration camp survivor in a mental institution who befriends another patient who thinks he’s dog, and they help to heal each other. We’ve become quite familiar with the scatological, social and sexual behavior of dogs because they seem to outnumber the people here in Telluride by 2 to 1. From the mangy to the sleek, the friendly to the sociopathic, they all fit in here in this anti-leash-law doggie heaven.
 
Dogs and humans alike love hanging around “Baked in Telluride,” a huge, funky, sprawling, old-fashioned hippie bakery that serves big, gooey, melt-in-your-mouth cinnamon rolls, sandwiches and pastries. We were there three times yesterday, and were insanely delighted during the wee hours of this morning, when we discovered they were still open AFTER THE BARS CLOSED!!! (Most of the customers at that time were “baked” as well.)
 
Another beloved Telluride tradition is to shut down all of main street for the “Public Feed”, featuring a band. This spectacle that always reminds me of the old SNL comedy-sketch called “Trough and Brew” starring John Belushi,  which featured sticking your face in a trough of chili, and a trough of brew, and being hosed off as you leave…
 
The first film we saw was called “Kisses” up at the Chuck Jones Theater. You have to take a steep Gondola ride to the theater in Mountain Village, but on the way down strangers discuss and analyze the last film, and, with a sunset so glorious that it seemed like a wildly over-colored process shot from the “Ten Commandments,” we struck up a conversation with George, a stoner-mountain-biker who shared our gondola. After we mentioned that we were from the Boulder International Film Festival, George was quiet for a moment, then his face exploded into an “aha” moment. “You guys must be with the banner hanging on that balcony!”
 
“Kisses” is a lovely coming-of-age film from Ireland that featured two very sweet, unknown, amazing 11-year-old actors…After running into BIFF Selection Committee member Marty Mapes who loved  the film, we decided to try to get “Kisses” for BIFF 2009. (Not bad, one out of one so far.)
 
The free film in the park tonight was Youssou D’Nour. The film documents the making of Youssou’s ground-breaking 2004 album “Egypt,” a musical exploration of Islam, and examines the critical and public response to the album at home in Senegal, where it was initially met with resistance and ultimately welcomed (sort of). Abroad, it was highly acclaimed and got a Grammy Award. They said in the interview in the Program that Youssou could easily sell out Madison Square garden, so as you can imagine, Telluride’s little town park was rocking last night.

More films tomorrow, as well as a party or two we’ll try to crash!