Academy Grants $50,000 to Telluride Film Festival

Academy Grants $50,000 to Telluride Film Festival

Beverly Hills, CA – The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences has awarded a $50,000 grant to underwrite the 2010 Telluride Film Festival’s Guest Director program, this year featuring novelist and screenwriter of “The English Patient,” Michael Ondaatje.

This is the third consecutive year that the Academy has funded the program. In 2008 the festival’s guest director was Slavoj Zizek, the Slovenian political philosopher and cultural critic; in 2009, it was Alexander Payne, the director and Oscar®-winning screenwriter of “Sideways.”

For more than two decades, Telluride has welcomed numerous prominent filmmakers and personalities to help select and present each year’s films.

Previous guest directors include Academy Award®-nominated writer-director Peter Bogdanovich, director Jean-Pierre Gorin, film curator and archivist Edith Kramer, Oscar-winning documentarian Errol Morris, author Salman Rushdie, Oscar-winning composer and lyricist Stephen Sondheim, and filmmaker Bertrand Tavernier.

The Academy Foundation – the Academy’s cultural and educational wing – annually distributes more than $1 million to film scholars, cultural organizations and film festivals throughout the U.S. and abroad.  The Foundation also presents the Academy’s rich assortment of screenings and other public programs each year.

ABOUT THE ACADEMY

The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences is the world’s preeminent movie-related organization, with a membership of more than 6,000 of the most accomplished men and women working in cinema. In addition to the annual Academy Awards – in which the members vote to select the nominees and winners – the Academy presents a diverse year-round slate of public programs, exhibitions and events; provides financial support to a wide range of other movie-related organizations and endeavors; acts as a neutral advocate in the advancement of motion picture technology; and, through its Margaret Herrick Library and Academy Film Archive, collects, preserves, restores and provides access to movies and items related to their history. Through these and other activities the Academy serves students, historians, the entertainment industry and people everywhere who love movies.

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