Mountainfilm in Telluride wants Denverites to join 45th annual documentary festival

Telluride’s Mountainfilm festival will celebrate a milestone 45th anniversary this Memorial Day weekend, showcasing more than 100 documentary features and short films alongside talks and workshops led by their creators and stars.

According to festival director Suzan Beraza, programming has finally rebounded after transitioning to a virtual festival experience in 2020 and managing a limited capacity due to COVID-19 restrictions in 2021. But even as the festival’s offerings have returned to pre-pandemic levels, ticket sales so far have not.

“We’ve been sold out in recent years prior to COVID, but not this year,” she said. “I’ve been so curious about that.”

This trend is hardly unique to the festival. Movie-going tanked in 2020 due the COVID-19 pandemic and is recently on the rise, but box office revenues are still well below 2019, according to Variety.

Beraza suspects the cost of travel to and lodging in Telluride may be deterring some regulars from flying in, but she hopes folks from the Front Range will make the drive to experience a more intimate Mountainfilm this year – and she’s making some notable changes in hopes of enticing attendees.

Historically, seating at film screenings was first-come, first-served, which often meant moviegoers lined up for hours ahead of time to catch the biggest titles. In 2023, Mountainfilm is rolling out a reservation system, so attendees can better plan their schedules and enjoy more of the movies they want to as well as more time out on the town in Telluride.

Mountainfilm is a large event, taking over eight local venues to show documentaries, many of them world premieres. But because Telluride is a small town, it’s not unlikely to run into “some of your heroes” on the street, Beraza said.

This year’s speaker lineup includes adventure photographer Jimmy Chin and filmmaker Elizabeth Chai Vasarhelyi, who produced “Wild Life” about conservationist Kris Tompkins; and Pablo Durana, who served as creative director on the film “No Legs. All Heart,” which chronicles handcyclist André Kajlich’s quest to complete the Race Across America.

One film called “Sophia” spotlights inventor David Hanson’s journey to create an AI-powered robot colloquially called a “socially intelligent machine.” Both Hanson and the robot Sophia will be present on a panel about AI technology, Beraza said.

Mountainfilm will host a tribute to pioneering skier and Telluride resident Hilaree Nelson, who died in 2022 during an expedition on Nepal’s Mount Manaslu. That includes a free dance party down Colorado Avenue on Saturday, May 27. Other special events include a gallery walk throughout town, workshops for aspiring filmmakers, curated hikes, and the decades-old tradition of a free ice cream social.

Despite less robust ticket sales, Beraza said Mountainfilm plans to remain the oldest, continually-running documentary film festival in the country for many more years to come.

“We’ve seen a lot of festivals in the country folding in the last couple of years, but I feel like Mountainfilm is on solid footing,” Beraza said. “I don’t see it going anywhere.”

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