Academy Grants $50,000 to Telluride Film Festival

The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences has awarded a $50,000 grant to underwrite the 2011 Telluride Film Festival's Guest Director program, this year featuring musician Caetano Veloso. Veloso has over 100 film and television credits, but may be best known to moviegoers for his performance of "Cucurrucucú Paloma" ("Cucurrucucu Dove") in Pedro Almodóvar's Academy Award®-winning film, "Talk to Her."

This is the fourth consecutive year that the Academy has funded the program. In 2010 the festival's guest director was writer Michael Ondaatje; in 2009, it was Alexander Payne, the director and Oscar®-winning screenwriter of "Sideways;" and in 2008, it was Slavoj Zizek, the Slovenian political philosopher and cultural critic.

"The Guest Director Program brings added depth and a rare variety of films to the Festival that we consider an integral part of our program's success," said Telluride Film Festival Co-Director Julie Huntsinger. "The generous support from The Academy and our ongoing partnership allows us to continue working with brilliant artists, whose film selections are sourced from film vaults across the globe, and put together a program our audience expects and deserves."

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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