Telluride Documentary Lineup Features Plenty of Award Season Contenders, Including ‘Beyond Utopia’

Emily Longeretta Mark your calendars! Hallmark announced their 40-movie holiday slate on Tuesday — 31 to air on Hallmark Channel‘s Countdown to Christmas and nine to air on Hallmark Movies & Mysteries’ Miracles of Christmas. The annual TV movie event will begin on Oct. 20.

Sophia Scorziello editor Beyond Fest genre film festival returns for its 11th edition with a full slate of premieres and acclaimed classics from Palme d’Or winner “Anatomy of a Fall” to the Michael Mann hit “Manhunter.” James Cameron is set to make an appearance for a special edition screening of “The Abyss” followed by a special tribute to Roger Corman, along with appearances by Mann and Guillermo del Toro. “Our goal this year was to go bigger while also exposing audiences to new filmmakers who represent the future,” said Evrim Ersoy, Beyond’s head of programming.

The 2023 Beyond Fest lineup is set. America’s biggest genre-focused festival is returning this month with a 55-film slate that includes a Roger Corman career celebration, special screening of The Abyss with James Cameron, the world premiere of Legendary’s It’s a Wonderful Knife and much more.

The Gotham Awards said today that Rustin, director George C. Wolfe’s snapshot of the life of civil rights icon Bayard Rustin that stars Colman Domingo, will receive its Icon & Creator Tribute for Social Justice. The Netflix pic will be honored at the 33rd annual Gotham Awards on November 27 at Cipriani Wall Street in Manhattan.

Naman Ramachandran Environmental short documentary “Waorani: Guardians of the Amazon” is aiming to spread its message further with an awards season push beginning with FallDocs. For thousands of years, the Waorani women of the Ecuadorian Amazon have lived in the biodiverse Yasuni area and coexisted within a delicate ecosystem, which has allowed them to flourish while preserving their unique customs and traditions.

The A24 drama Past Lives has landed a SAG-AFTRA interim agreement, allowing actors to participate in upcoming events this award season. Premiering at this year’s Sundance Film Festival and bowing in theaters in June, the film finds itself a contender in several categories on the awards circuit including best actress, actor and supporting actor for stars Greta Lee, Teo Yoo and John Magaor.

Sophia Scorziello editor “Oppenheimer” cinematographer Hoyte van Hoytema will be honored with Variety’s Creative Impact in Cinematography award at the SCAD Savannah Film Festival. In addition to this summer’s Christopher Nolan blockbuster, the Dutch cinematographer has worked as Nolan’s DP on “Tenet,” “Interstellar” and Dunkirk” along with Jordan Peele for “Nope” and Spike Jonze for “Her.” “SCAD is proud to partner with Variety on this year’s Creative Impact Award, which will be presented to cinematographer Hoyte van Hoytema,” said SCAD Savannah Film Festival executive director Christina Routhier.

Dancing with the Stars will return to ABC this month with a lineup that includes a supermodel, an NFL all-star, an Oscar winner, and a member of the Brady Bunch.

In the UK, dog attacks are becoming more and more common, with one such case involving an XL bully making headlines over the weekend.

Clayton Davis Senior Awards Editor It’s back, baby. As summer winds down and fall festivals begin anew, it’s time to get ready for another awards season. Anticipation, hope and uncertainty are in the air as studios, streamers and the army of Oscar strategists they employ gear up for the long slog of getting their movies in front of voters — all in pursuit of those golden baubles.

Five former police officers have admitted sending grossly offensive racist messages, including one about the Duchess of Sussex Meghan Markle.

Human Rights Watch states the case very clearly: North Korea “remains one of the most repressive countries in the world.”

BBC Scotland has been urged to investigate its role in a murder trial which was abandoned when the key witness fled over the pressure of appearing in a documentary.

Oscar-winning filmmaker Errol Morris unveiled his new documentary The Pigeon Tunnel – about the spy-turned-novelist David Cornwell, aka John le Carré – at the Telluride Film Festival on Friday. Audience buzz afterwards ranked it among Morris’s best work, a canon that includes the classics The Thin Blue Line and Gates of Heaven.

While it was difficult for the world to discern at the time, and maybe even now, to the legendary, notorious absurdist comedian Andy Kaufman, comedy was an art, and the act of performance was an act worth living in beyond the stage. Infamous for his strange, bizarre comedic behavior and erratic and provocative, even goading, live appearances, Kaufman, the subject of the documentary “Thank You Very Much: Andy Kaufman,” was seemingly on a quest for truth.

Clayton Davis Senior Awards Editor How much longer will the Oscars wait? That is, wait to embrace the quality and sheer brilliance of documentary filmmaking in a significant way, meaning nominating one in the best picture category? Matthew Heineman’s deeply moving “American Symphony,” which follows Oscar and Grammy-winning composer Jon Batiste as he prepares for his performance at Carnegie Hall, is yet another home run for the filmmaker behind “Cartel Land” and “City of Ghosts,” not to mention a singular love story. Batiste’s larger-than-life personality was on full display following the Telluride screening of the documentary, when he led a band down to the main street of Telluride.

Chris Willman Senior Music Writer and Chief Music Critic “Be kind, because everyone you meet is fighting a great battle” — that popular maxim (or some variation thereof) is often brought up in the context of remembering to have some sympathy for jerks. But it could also be applied to people whose lives seem too charmed to be true.

EXCLUSIVE: The International Documentary Association announced the lineup for its prestigious FallDocs 2023 program, featuring a slew of Oscar contending nonfiction films as well as more than two dozen films that haven’t yet nailed down distribution.

Nick Vivarelli International Correspondent The Venice Film Festival has only continued to garner momentum under longtime festival director Alberto Barbera, who in recent years has managed to lure significant star power — from Lady Gaga to Joaquin Phoenix to Timothée Chalamet to Harry Styles — to the Lido. So imagine the heartbreak and fear last month when — just as Barbera was about to lock in one of his strongest lineups yet — he learned that, as a result of the SAG-AFTRA strike, many movie stars wouldn’t be able to make the trek to Italy this year.

Naman Ramachandran Indian cinema A-lister Allu Arjun is delighting in his best actor win at India’s National Film Awards for “Pushpa: The Rise – Part 1.” Directed by Sukumar and produced by Mythri Movie Makers and Muttamsetty Media, the film traces the rise of Molleti Pushpa Raj (Arjun), a labourer who rises through the ranks of a sandalwood smuggling syndicate and faces off against an egotistic police officer. The Telugu-language film was also dubbed into other Indian languages and went on to become the biggest box office hit of 2021 in the country. It is the first time an actor from the Telugu-language film industry has won the best actor accolade at the National Film Awards in India.