A singular cloud of speculation hath descended upon Telluride, and no soul among the gathered critics could name the strange spectacle promised for the evening hour. Whispers there were, though certainty there was none. By the fall of night, the secret yielded itself, and the town’s breath was, for a moment, held fast.
The Puzzle at Dawn
At the earliest hour, 7.04AM PST, word emerged that an A24 production lay concealed within the festival’s schedule, though its nature remained obscure. Sources, tight of lip and dark of manner, disclosed only that the piece possessed a hybrid character — part documentary, part something else entirely — and ran near three hours. The impression given was that A24 had acquired this curious work recently, in a struggle among competing bidders, rather than having reared it from conception as its own.
Candidates Dismissed
Many names were proposed and each, in turn, extinguished. Ethan Hawke’s Merle Haggard chronicle, Highway 99: A Double Album — featuring the departed Dolly Parton and Bob Dylan — had already been shown at Telluride the prior year, unfit thus for genuine surprise.
Goblin, the comedy bearing Ken Branagh and Skyler Gisondo, has not yet commenced its filming, and thus impossible. Neither Zac Efron’s Famous nor Ruben Ostlund’s The Entertainment System Is Down — the latter destined, we are told, for Cannes — bears the hybrid character the mystery demands.
The Secret Disclosed
By 1.28 o’clock PST, rumor upon the social channels had gathered such force as to become near certainty: the work was a documentary from Nathan Fielder concerning Elizabeth Holmes, the imprisoned founder of Theranos, made with Lance Oppenheim. Fielder, known through his HBO series The Rehearsal and the dark comedy The Curse — the latter made with Emma Stone and Benny Safdie, its first three episodes having shown at NYFF in 2023 — proved indeed the maker of this Telluride puzzle. Neither the festival, A24, nor any representative would confirm the matter before the screening commenced at 6.30 o’clock local.
By 10.58 o’clock PST, the truth came whole.
The reaction from those within the Herzog theatre — Telluride’s largest chamber, where devices had been sealed away by the Yondr system until departure — was fervent and strong. A24 gave forth a teaser, the studio’s authorship having been named correctly from the start. Its appearance in theatres awaits October.
A Secret Well Kept
Few mysteries endure in an age so given to disclosure, yet Telluride managed the trick admirably, though not every critic, pressed for time amid a busy schedule, thanked the festival for it. Some muttered discontent. Most, in the end, forgave the delay for the sake of what was, at last, revealed.
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