Nearly every year for the past half century, Hollywood mega-stars, studio moguls, and normal people who love films have spent their Labor Day weekends crowding inside a resurrected opera house in a former Colorado mining town for a celebration of cinema unlike any other on the festival circuit. Since its inception, in 1974, the Telluride Film Festival has grown into one of the industry’s most coveted and acclaimed, hosting premieres for My Dinner with Andre (1981), Mulholland Drive (2001), Brokeback Mountain (2005), and Lady Bird (2017).
At the festival, forgotten auteurs have been resuscitated and, just as often, burgeoning filmmakers have been propelled into the Zeitgeist. Barry Jenkins first went in 2002 through a student program, returned in 2003 to scoop gunk from popcorn machines, and has volunteered nearly every year since—except in 2016, when he premiered Moonlight, which went on to win an Oscar for best picture.
