Libby Arts Residential Academic Program Ìęstudents say experience changed their lives
Like the town that bears its name, The Telluride Film Festival has taken only four decades to grow from relatively obscure mining community to frequent landing place of stars. Some of the biggest names in celluloid live part time in Telluride, and Oscar winners âJunoâ and âSlumdog Millionaireâ premiered at the Telluride Film Festival, which just made its 37thÌęČč±è±è±đČč°ùČčČÔłŠ±đ.
Dwarfed by the San Juan Mountains, which soar thousands of feet skyward on three sides of the Telluride Valley floor, the place is as much a visual feast as are the films lucky enough to be shown there. This fall, 20 University of Colorado students devoured both.
The students, many of them film majors, are members of the Libby Arts Residential Academic Program, a âliving and learning communityâ for students interested in visual and performing arts. The experience, many of them say, changed their lives.
âIn a weekend, we got lifelong experiences that we could not be taught in school,â says James Gilbert, a film-studies major.
That seems clear. The students spent Labor Day weekend previewing top-echelon films, listening to actors and directors discuss and debate their works and even having a private conversation with Director Peter Sellars and Actress Laura Linney.The excursion was the idea of Janet Robinson, Libbyâs associate director and an instructor. When she joined Libbyâs staff, she started making strides toward the field trip.
Last year, Robinson attended the festival by herself âto get the lay of the land.â She spoke with the festivalâs staff, which was encouraging. The festival even agreed to set up a two-hour Friday-afternoon session, arranged especially for the CU students, led by notable filmmakers or actors.
Robinson garnered the support of Deborah Haynes, professor of art and art history and director of the Libby program. Haynes agreed to dedicate the funds for the trip, and Robinson spent much of the next year preparing, starting with the basic issue of securing lodging. Michael Shernick, Libby program assistant, provided âinvaluableâ help.
It wasnât until a week before the event that students learned that Sellars and Linney were the featured speakers.
Such uncertainty is theÌęmodus operandiÌęof the Telluride Film Festival, which does not announce its program until the morning of opening dayâFriday of Labor Day weekendâand which also sneaks in some unannounced appearances. In 2007, âJunoâ was one of them. The next year, âSlumdog Millionaireâ was another.
This year, an unannounced âsneakâ appearance was Director Danny Boyleâs â127 Hours,â which, by all reports, vividly recreates the ordeal of Aaron Ralston. Ralstonâs arm was crushed and trapped by a falling rock in a Utah canyon in 2003.
He survived by cutting off his arm with a dull pocket knife, rappelling off a cliff wall with his one remaining hand, walking toward the trailhead and being rescued by helicopter.
Ralston attended the premiere showing, as did Boyle, who directed âSlumdog Millionaire.â Students heard both of them speak and even got to meet them and ask questions.
âYou donât get as much time (as with an hour-long meeting), but you still get a chance to talk to them,â Robinson says. âAnyone they wanted to meet, they could meet.â
Thatâs a rare opportunity for young film connoisseurs. The list of film personages in Telluride included eminent directors Werner Herzog, Ken Burns, Peter Weir, Darren Aronofsky and actors James Franco and Colin Firth.
The other âsneakâ preview was of âBlack Swan,â directed by Aronofsky, whose âRequiem for a Dreamâ was a critical though not commercial success.The New York Times, which also attended the Telluride Film Festival, described âBlack Swanâ as a âbackstage melodrama that often plays like a horror movie.â The film, which Robinson said many of her students listed as their favorite, will be released in December and is described as a thriller that âzeroes in on the relationship between a veteran ballet dancer and a rival.â
Robinson and the Libby students plan to see the film again when it is released. Film critics have been suggesting that âBlack Swanâ is an Oscar contender.
Students also saw Firthâs portrayal of King George VI, the British monarch during World War II. The kingâs struggle with a speech impediment is the subject of âThe Kingâs Speech,â which was another buzz-generating film in Telluride.
The Libby students returned to Boulder energized, and many created their own remembrances of the event. They produced short films, wrote several haikus and even immortalized the weekend with an original rap song.
Student Michaela Simon says it was a peak experience. âNot only did we get to meet all these famous directors, but we got to hear insight on most of the movies that we saw.â
Simon was especially impressed with Linney, an Academy-Award-nominated actress who discussed, among other things, the challenge of portraying Abigail Adams, who was married to John Adams.
While preparing for that role, Linney walked pigeon-toed, because Adams did. âIt tells me how far professionals go to get that embodimentâ of the character, Simon observes.
Louis Zeller, a film-studies major, says the experience reaffirmed what he wants to do in life. âItâs so easy to get lost in college, to be intimidated by how daunting the rest of your life is.â
But those thoughts melted a bit in Telluride, where Zeller was surrounded by people brought there by their passion for cinema.
And film-studies student Molly Enright found both inspiration and hope in Telluride, particularly with short films, which she says âwere so amazing and could have been movies in and of themselves.â
âWhen youâre a student, itâs not like youâre making feature films,â she adds. âSeeing all of those short films really showed me that it is possible.â
As he accepted the festivalâs Silver Medallion, Firth showed a similar sense of wonder and appreciation. He said: âThe last time I was in Colorado, I was 12 years old, and I was with my family. And the sight of this extraordinary part of the world produced something which, I suppose for the first time, amounted to what felt like a spiritual experience.Ìę ⊠I came away feelingÌęreligious, and itâs taken me years to shake that off.
âThree days here have put me right back where I started. And to be here in a place like this, feeling giddy with appreciation and delight and altitude, surrounded by some of the people I admire most in the world, fills me with a profoundly unspiritual sense of satisfaction and gratification.â
Libbyâs students might well say, âHear, hear.â
To learn more about the Libby Arts Residential Academic Program, see. To see the Libby studentsâ reflections on the Telluride Film Festival in haiku and other verse, clickÌę.Ìę