TELLURIDE '99: Female Directors Tops in Telluride

TELLURIDE '99: Female Directors Tops in Telluride

Anthony Kaufman

The positive buzz surrounding Adrienne Shelly's "I'll Take You There" (two additional screenings were added) hinted at it, while the world premieres of Allison Maclean's second feature "Jesus' Son" and Pip Karmel's debut Aussie film, "My Myself I" confirmed it. Women directors were the ones to watch at day three of the 26th Telluride Film Festival.

Sure, David Lynch charmed the local folk with "The Straight Story," his good-hearted tale of Americana and received a tribute hosted by Werner Herzog ("Finally a storyteller, finally a poet," Herzog said to Lynch). Sure, Woody Allen returned to form with his quaint, comic portrait of a 1930's jazz guitarist Emmet Ray, "Sweet and Lowdown." But it is these three women directors with their world premiere first and second features that have given an air of discovery up here at Telluride's nearly 10,000 feet.

At its first morning screening, Maclean's "Jesus' Son" floored audiences who howled with laughter at the film's dark humor and found pathos in its sensitive outcome. (Maclean's short film "Kitchen Sink" played at Telluride in 1990). Finished just a week before its world premiere at Telluride, Maclean said, "It was a ridiculously fast track, unbelievably intense