September is Telluride time, when the Hopkins Center for the Arts offers a sneak peek at titles straight from the renowned Colorado film festival.
This year, audiences at the popular Telluride at Dartmouth festival can check out seven up-and-coming movies, including Memoir of a Snail, an animated feature about an unlikely friendship, and Saturday Night, a look at the opening night, 49 years ago, of NBC’s Saturday Night Live by writer-director Jason Reitman.
Johanna Evans ’10, the Hop’s senior program manager and head of film and media, says one of the best parts of her job is hearing from moviegoers.
“That was so incredible,” they’ll say, leaving the theater. Or even months later, people will tell her, “I saw this film and it really changed me.”
That power will be on display during the Dartmouth festival, which also includes Will & Harper, “a feel-good buddy road trip” documentary about comedian Will Ferrell and his longtime friend Harper Steele, who comes out as a trans woman at age 61, Evans says.
Throughout their cross-country journey, which takes them through states with pending anti-trans bills, they encounter transphobia as well as “love and acceptance.”
Plans are underway to organize a group of students to attend Will & Harper together, and tickets for the film will be raffled at the annual welcome back picnic at Triangle House, which is celebrating its 10-year anniversary, says Angélique Bouthot, assistant director of the Office of Pluralism and Leadership.
Nickel Boys, based on the Pulitzer Prize-winning novel by Colson Whitehead, tells the story of Elwood Curtis, a Black teenager in Jim Crow-era Florida who is sent to a barbaric reform school after being falsely accused of a crime. He forms a close friendship with another teenager, Turner, and together they try to survive the horrors of Nickel Academy. The film is directed by RaMell Ross, who came to Dartmouth in 2019 with his award-winning documentary Hale County This Morning, This Evening.
Seed of the Sacred Fig highlights the rifts that arise between an investigating judge in the Islamic Revolutionary Court and his daughters, who sympathize with the anti-hijab protests breaking out around Tehran. Before the film’s premiere, director Mohammad Rasoulof was sentenced by Iranian authorities to eight years in prison and fled from his homeland to Germany.
Sacred Fig, which garnered a special award at Cannes, is “ultimately about how totalitarian regimes tear apart families,” Evans says.
Like last year, the festival at Dartmouth will be held in the 237-seat Loew Auditorium in the Black Family Visual Arts Center, with multiple screenings of each film.
Friday, Sept. 20: Conclave, an elegant thriller about the secretive process of selecting a new pope, features Ralph Fiennes, Stanley Tucci, John Lithgow, and Isabella Rossellini. Directed by Edward Berger.
Saturday Sept. 21: Saturday Night, by writer-director Jason Reitman, reconstructs the nail-biting opening night of Saturday Night Live, from Oct. 1, 1975. The cast includes Rachel Sennott, Finn Wolfhard, and Willem Dafoe.
Sunday, Sept. 22: Nickel Boys tells the story of a friendship between two Black teenagers who are wards of a hellish reform school in Jim Crow-era Florida. The adaptation of Colson Whitehead’s Pulitzer Prize-winning book stars Ethan Cole Sharp, Sam Malone, Najah Bradley, and Aunjanue Ellis-Taylor.
Monday, Sept. 23: Don’t Let’s Go to the Dogs Tonight, based on the acclaimed memoir by Alexandra Fuller, is told from the perspective of a young white girl growing up on her family’s impoverished farm in apartheid Rhodesia, now Zimbabwe. Embeth Davidtz directs and co-stars alongside Andreas Damm, Tessa Jubber, and Zikhona Bali.
Wednesday, Sept. 25: The Seed of the Sacred Fig shows how a man’s promotion within the authoritarian Iranian government causes his family to unravel. Directed by Mohammad Rasoulof, Sacred Fig stars Mahsa Rostami, Setareh Maleki, Niousha Akhshi, and Missagh Zareh.
Thursday, Sept. 26: Will & Harper follows comedian Will Ferrell and his longtime friend and collaborator Harper Steele on a cross-country road trip after Steele comes out as a trans woman at age 61. Directed by Josh Greenbaum.
Friday, Sept. 27: Memoir of a Snail, a stop-motion animated film by Oscar-winning writer-director Adam Elliot, depicts a lonely misfit whose life changes when she befriends a cigar-smoking adventurer named Pinky. Features the voices of Sarah Snook, Jacki Weaver, and Eric Bana.
Tickets go on sale to Hop members on Sept. 4, and to the general public on Sept. 6.
