The Telluride Film Festival was co-founded in 1974 by Tom Luddy, a laid-back polymath who plotted projects with Francis Ford Coppola, Philip Kaufman, and almost every other director who matters. Luddy realized that, while spotlighting serious filmmaking, he could also create, in Telluride, an intellectual salon for the ages. Telluride has showcased one best-picture winner after another (six months ahead of the Oscars), while also nurturing such rising stars as Barry Jenkins and last year’s guest directors, the Russian Wunderkinder Kantemir Balagov and Kira Kovalenko. Luddy passed away this past February, and the festival’s co-founder Bill Pence died just 10 weeks earlier. So Telluride is now entirely in the hands of Julie Huntsinger, a onetime producer who worked alongside Luddy for 15 years. She’s well aware that part of the appeal of the event is its freedom from glitz and formality: now that Luddy has fashioned the template, Huntsinger seems perfectly placed to bring it to new generations by ensuring that it never becomes a thing of flashbulbs and mere small talk. This year, the festival celebrates its 50th anniversary. —Pico Iyer