Telluride Culture and Nightlife

Since its first show in 1994, the Telluride AIDS Benefit (TAB) has raised $1.8 million for both local and global initiatives for HIV/AIDS education, patients and research.

The benefit began when two Telluride locals, Kandee DeGraw and Robert Presley, combined their respective talents of comedy and fashion design to help Presley with the costs of AIDS treatment. However, the selfless Presley insisted the proceeds from the first event go to the Western Colorado AIDS project instead of directly to him. The first year, the benefit raised $12,000, and each year has donated thousands of dollars to directly support AIDS research and patients.

This year’s benefit features almost two weeks of events, with all proceeds donated directly to TAB’s beneficiaries. This year’s beneficiaries include the Ethiopian Family Fund, West Colorado AIDS Project, Manzini Youth Care, Childrens’ Hospital Immunodeficiency Program, and Brother Jeff. The beneficiaries support local and global projects to support those affected by HIV and AIDS, their families, and furthering research and education on prevention and treatment of HIV and AIDS.

Telluride AIDS Benefit kicks off this week with the Sneak Peek Fashion Show on Thursday, February 28 at the Telluride Conference Center in Mountain Village. This event offers an additional opportunity to view the fashion show and donate to TAB.

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Telluride Film Festival, presented by the National Film Preserve, announces its 40th Anniversary set to run August 29 – September 2, 2013. An additional day of festivities has been added to the usual four-day Festival, making room for a five-day bounty of special programming and festivities. The National Film Preserve is a not-for-profit arts and educational organization that annually presents the Telluride Film Festival.

Telluride Film Festival, along with the Town of Telluride, is also pleased to announce it is creating a new venue in time for its 40th Anniversary celebration. The Werner Herzog Theatre will be situated in Telluride’s Town Park Pavilion and become the Festival’s most technologically advanced theatre accommodating 650 pass holders. Telluride Film Festival is committed to present not only the best quality films but in the most state of the art manner. TFF is also committed to maximizing pass holder enjoyment, valuing its intimate, relaxed atmosphere and will not be expanding its 2013 pass holder base.

In keeping with Festival tradition, Telluride Film Festival does not announce its program in advance, though the 40th promises to be a grand reunion highlighting all the elements of the last forty years. During this special edition of the SHOW, the Festival is thrilled it will be able to showcase its technical excellence and provide its pass holders and sponsors the highest level of service while presenting the world’s greatest films and filmmakers.

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Telluride has both a rich history and a rich culinary scene and now visitors and locals can experience both at once with Telluride Food Tours.

Telluride Food Tours offers a two-and-a-half hour eat-your-way walking tour of Telluride that includes food and drink tastings at seven of Telluride’s eclectic restaurants. During the tour, guides talk about Telluride’s history, from its earliest days as a mining town to the early days of it’s becoming a world class ski destination. “The restaurants have been blowing the tour away,” Havard says of the culinary hotspots that make up the Telluride Food Tours.

On a recent Thursday evening tour, guests were treated to a pork rillette tostada at There…(627 W. Pacific Ave.) along with a shaken gin and grapefruit cocktail. La Marmotte (150 W. San Juan Ave.) served up a small plate of grilled sea bass with lobster, tomato and Olathe sweet corn. Locally brewed beer and juicy ribs were on the menu at Smugglers Brewpub (225 S. Pine St.). An array of beautiful dishes including king crab legs and caprese salad made with rich buffalo mozzarella cheese was served on a kitchen-side table at Allred’s (top of the gondola, St. Sophia Station). There was a special spicy elk sausage at the Appaloosa Trading Co. (129 W. Colorado Ave.) and a gigantic diver scallop served on a carrot/ginger puree at Flavor Telluride (122 S. Oak St.) with a refreshing cantaloupe, basil, cucumber, lime, and vodka drink.

While food and drink may be the main attraction for some, Havard and her team of guides spice it up with Telluride’s storied history, with support from the Telluride Historical Museum. From the ethnic neighborhoods of Telluride’s mining days to the significance of the Roma Bar and from the country’s first alternating power source to how Telluride got its name, there is plenty of history dished out along the way, some of it unknown even to longtime Telluride locals.

A man adrift at sea. A woman adrift in space. And a young girl all by herself in the desert.  If there’s a theme at this weekend’s Telluride Film Festival, it’s that solo travel may have its benefits but also carries more than a few risks.

Colorado’s Labor Day weekend festival – which is starting Thursday, a day earlier than normal, to commemorate its 40th edition – is known for eclectic programming announced at the very last minute, and it’s often difficult to detect trends.

But the inclusion of three films – Alfonso Cuaron’s “Gravity,” which stars Sandra Bullock opposite George Clooney as astronauts detached from their space shuttle by a mission disaster, “All Is Lost,” director J.C. Chandor’s account of an unaccompanied sailor (Robert Redford) stuck in a sinking boat, and “Tracks” featuring Mia Wasikowska as a young explorer on a 1,700-mile trek – suggests this year’s festival will make some moviegoers appreciate the roofs over their heads just a bit more.

The Telluride Blues & Brews Festival just announced their webcast schedule for September 13-15. Included are LMB faves, Gary Clark Jr., The Black Crowes, The New Mastersounds, Jim James, Preservation Hall Jazz Band, Anders Osborne, and Karl Denson’s Tiny Universe. The intimate and natural surroundings of Telluride, Colorado make it one of the premiere venues that everyone should visit at least once. If you can’t be there, grab your favorite micro-brew and check out the full lineup. We’ll see you on couch tour.

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The metaphor that kept coming to mind at the 40th Telluride Film Festival in Colorado Aug. 29 to Sept. 2 was provided by Alfonso Cuarón‘s film Gravity. In this magically imagined, 3-D epic, astronauts Sandra Bullock and George Clooney are menaced by the Kessler effect, in which colliding satellites cause a kind of chain reaction, a cascade of shrapnel that grows bigger and bigger, out of control.

It’s a totally satisfying thrill ride — you’ve never seen a mise-en-scène like it. Like the 2011 Telluride hit Pina, about choreographer Pina Bausch, this film uses 3-D for more than just throwing objects in the viewer’s face. The actors are choreographed in space, and the IMAX-like 3-D makes you feel inside that space. Gravity‘s astronaut adrift is more physically palpable than 2001‘s, or that of any movie I’ve seen.

The brilliant, marvelously acted mystery The Past, Asghar Farhadi’s successor to his Oscar winner, A Separation, also puts you inside a Kessler cascade — a series of bad moves by good people in a scary space, a Paris apartment menaced by divorce. A woman (Bérénice Bejo) invites her estranged husband (Ali Mosaffa) to meet her lover (Tahar Rahim of A Prophet). But the new guy can’t marry her, because his wife is in a coma, caused by semi-selfish actions by everyone, and billiard ball–like coincidences that make absolute logical and emotional sense. It’s a great story with lifelike characters and veil after veil of revelations.

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Planet Bluegrass has announced that Steve Martin and the Steep Canyon Rangers featuring Edie Brickell will close opening night of the 40th Telluride Bluegrass Festival, on Thursday, June 20.

This change to the 40th Telluride Bluegrass lineup follows news released last Thursday festival stalwarts Mumford and Sons had to cancel both their performances at the Festival (main stage) and at the Sheridan Opera House.

Mumford and Sons bassist Ted Dwane underwent emergency brain surgery early last week, and doctors have advised the band to cancel the rest of its U.S. tour. The group will support Dwane, who returns to London, in his recovery.

The rest of the Thursday, June 20 main stage schedule remains unchanged.

Tickets to Mumford and Son’s now-cancelled Saturday-night Sheridan Opera House show will be refunded. Planet Bluegrass will announce a new Saturday-night Sheridan show from the Festival main stage on Thursday (including ticketing details).