Telluride by the Sea Films Announced

The secret is out: six diverse, original films with international casts of both seasoned actors and fresh new faces, directed by some of the world’s most acclaimed filmmakers, are coming to The Music Hall’s Telluride by the Sea festival in Portsmouth, New Hampshire—transforming the charming Seacoast town into a meccafor cinephiles for three exciting days, Friday September 14-Sunday September 16, 2012. In keeping with the tradition, individual film tickets go on sale, noon Friday August 31, 2012. Patron and Weekend passes are also on sale.

Probably the most highly anticipated is Bill Murray as Franklin Delano Roosevelt in Hyde Park on Hudson, and co-starring Laura Linney. A great tie-in with Music Hall live programming is the film Midnight's Children, adapted from the novel by Salman Rushdie who will be here for Writers on a New England Stage on October 10. Many who have been captivated by Gael Garcia Bernal in Y Tu Mama Tambien or The Motorcycle Diaries will be happy to see his return in the film No.

Tributes

Since its inception, the Telluride Film Festival in Colorado has featured three tributes each year. Typically, one has been devoted to an important figure in contemporary Hollywood, another to a major historical figure, and a third to someone who is either not well known to American audiences or who has been misunderstood by them. Each tributee is awarded the Telluride Film Festival Silver Medallion. Tributees have included Francis Ford Coppola, Gloria Swanson, Penélope Cruz, Daniel Day-Lewis, Catherine Deneuve, Gérard Depardieu, Clint Eastwood, Jodie Foster, Harvey Keitel, Ang Lee, David Lynch, Jack Nicholson, Peter O'Toole, Mickey Rooney, John Schlesinger, and Meryl Streep.

This year, for the first time, all three TFF Tributees are represented in this year's Telluride by the Sea films: Academy Award winner for Best Actress Marion Cotillard in Rust in Bone; Mads Mikkelsen (who was fantastically creepy in Casino Royale (2006)) in A Royal Affair; and finally, Roger Corman, the subject of Corman's World: Exploits of a Hollywood Rebel

Renovated Upper Lobby

We will be unveiling our new upper lobby in the Historic Theater – which will provide more room for our patrons to gather and mingle, an elegant transition between our Beaux Arts Founders Lobby and our 1878 Victorian auditorium and also offering upgraded amenities such as beer and wine and the new Music Hall chocolate bar.

Film Noir TFF Past Gems in The Loft!

The Telluride Film Festival in Colorado has long championed the style known as Film Noir. This year at Telluride by the Sea, we want to share with pass holders three hardboiled, dark, low budget, gritty classics, previously featured at TFF. And, in keeping with Noir's spirit of mystery and suspense, we are not going to tell you what the films are! Trust us, you won’t want to miss a single Gem. Each film will be introduced by our equally hardboiled and gritty host, the fedora-sporting Noir aficionado  Kent Stephens.  According to Bill Pence, “When we decided this year to sample some film noir at Telluride by the Sea we knew that Kent Stephens was the perfect person to present it.  Over the years we’ve observed Kent on many occasions opening his Stage Force plays and readings with a flamboyant theatrical style that immediately captures and holds the audience.  Who better to guide us in film noir’s dark, shadowy, world of gangsters, gun molls, double-crossers, stoolies, femme fatales and dicks?  And Kent looks terrific in a fedora!”

According to Chris Curtis, Programming Coordinator for The Music Hall, “We are again in store for a sensational weekend – a three day festival of film, food, and fun in a place that the Miami Herald recently named, ‘New England’s most appealing city.’ It’s such a great time of year - everybody on staff gets involved with the festival - a total team effort. And, it’s great to see the whole town energized. It’s clear - Portsmouth loves film!”

In recognition of the start of Rosh Hashana and the Jewish New Year at sundown on Sunday evening of Telluride by the Sea weekend, we are presenting an additional screening of our Sunday night movie for Sunday morning at the Historic Theater.  The Music Hall sends best wishes for shanah tova— a sweet and happy year ahead.

Film schedule:

Friday, Sept. 14

5:30pm: Queues on Chestnut St. / Live entertainment: Gary Sredzienski, Accordion

7:00pm: Midnight’s Children

Canada/Sri Lanka, subtitled, (148 mins – end at 9:30p)

Born at the hour and the date of India’s self-declared independence from British rule, Saleem is switched at birth from a life of illegitimacy and poverty into a family of wealth and prosperity. This mix-up, along with Saleem’s enigmatic telepathic powers, transforms his path, and he takes a symbolic adventure into the tensions, conflicts and blood-soaked tragedies of modern India. Deepa Mehta’s film version of the novel (self-adapted by Salman Rushdie) does impressive justice to an indisputable literary classic of the 20th century.

Patron Party at Radici after film

Saturday, Sept. 15

10:30am: TFF Past Gem: Noir Gem 1 (67 mins – end at 11:37a)

(At the Loft, for Pass Holders only, limited seating)

1:30pm: Rust and Bone

France, subtitled, (120 mins – end at 3:30p)

Jacques Audiard follows his essential crime drama A Prophet (TbtS 2009) with the stuff of romance: mismatched lovers facing extraordinary obstacles. Alain (rising star Matthias Shoenarts of the Oscar-nominated Bullhead) is an inarticulate thug competing in gladiatorial street fights who can barely keep his son fed, clothed and in school. Steph (TFF 2012 Tribute Honoree, Marion Cotillard) is a free-spirited, streetwise dolphin trainer who suffers a devastating injury.

3:45pm: TFF Past Gem: Noir Gem 2 (79 mins – end at 5:04p)

(At the Loft, for Pass Holders only, limited seating)

4-5pm: Cinemange at Radici, 142 Congress St., with special cine-menu (Reservations suggested, call 373-6464)

6:15pm: Hyde Park on Hudson

US, (95 mins – end at 7:50p)

In 1939, Franklin Delano Roosevelt (Bill Murray) and his family invite the timid new King of England to visit. Though desperate to convert the U.S. into an ally in the struggle against the Nazis, nothing could prepare the Royals for a trip to rural America, nor the harem of FDR’s caretakers and lovers jockeying for power and influence. Director Roger Michell and screenwriter Richard Nelson weave together a gentle comedy of manners with an inside glimpse of how political goals get achieved. Also featuring Laura Linney.

8:30pm: A Royal Affair

Denmark, subtitled, (137 mins – end at 10:47p)

The most scandalous chapter in Denmark’s history also provides romantic tragedy worthy of Ibsen or Tolstoy. Around 1770, as King Christian VII struggles with mental illness, Johann Struensee, his trusted physician, begins an adulterous love affair with Queen Caroline Mathilde. The impressive cast features Mads Mikkelsen (TFF 2012 Tribute Honoree), Alicia Vikander and Mikkel Boe Følsgaard as the tortured manic-depressive King, directed by Nikolaj Arcel (The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo).

intelligence, is matched by Alicia Vikander as the recklessly passionate Caroline. But Mikkel Boe Følsgaard, as the tortured manic-depressive King Christian VII nearly steals the film. He is first saved, and then betrayed. (CUT)

Sunday, Sept. 16

10:15am: Corman’s World: Exploits of a Hollywood Rebel

US, (90 mins – end at 11:45a)

Part of this year’s TFF tribute to Roger Corman, Hollywood's most prolific writer-director-producer, and seminal influencing force in modern moviemaking over the last 60 years. Featuring interviews with Hollywood icons and cinematic luminaries, some who launched their careers within Corman's unforgettable world of filmmaking, including Paul W.S. Anderson, Peter Bogdanovich, Robert DeNiro, Peter Fonda, Pam Grier, Ron Howard, Eli Roth, MartinScorcese, and many others, this documentary chronicles how Corman created his cult film empire, one low-budget success at a time, while pushing the boundaries of independent filmmaking.

12-1pm: Patron Pass Holder Brunch at The District

1:30pm: No

Chile, subtitled, (115 mins – end at 3:25p)

In 1988, Chilean voters prepare to head to the polls to vote on the future of the brutal dictator Augusto Pinochet. RenéSaavedra (Gael García Bernal), a guileless and successful ad exec, is approached to construct a media campaign to help defeat Pinochet. His strategy? Rouse voters from their apathy and fear with the same glitzy, pop-driven style he uses to sell cola. But René’s jingle-filled spots enrage both the left and the right, endangering him and his loved ones. Following his acclaimed Post Mortem and Tony Manero, director Pablo Larrain continues exploring the moral and spiritual costs of Pinochet’s rule with this prizewinner at Cannes.

4:00pm: TFF Past Gem: Noir Gem 3 (86 mins – end at 5:26p)

(At the Loft, for Pass Holders only, limited seating)

6:30pm: Corman’s World: Exploits of a Hollywood Rebel

US, (90 mins – end at 11:45a)

Part of this year’s TFF tribute to Roger Corman, Hollywood's most prolific writer-director-producer, and seminal influencing force in modern moviemaking over the last 60 years. Featuring interviews with Hollywood icons and cinematic luminaries, some who launched their careers within Corman's unforgettable world of filmmaking, including Paul W.S. Anderson, Peter Bogdanovich, Robert DeNiro, Peter Fonda, Pam Grier, Ron Howard, Eli Roth, MartinScorcese, and many others, this documentary chronicles how Corman created his cult film empire, one low-budget success at a time, while pushing the boundaries of independent filmmaking.

Post-film: Wrap Party at The Portsmouth Brewery for Pass Holders

About the Telluride Film Festival

The Telluride Film Festival has been, for the last 39 years, a celebration of the art of film: honoring the great masters of the cinema, discovering the rare and unknown, bringing new works by the world's greatest directors and the latest in American independent film to a small mountain town in Colorado. The New York Times called Telluride "the smallest, most original, and most stimulating of the major festivals," while Entertainment Tonight simply said it was "the world's best festival."

Submitted by Kathleen Soldati, director of marketing, The Music Hall, Portsmouth