Clooney, Scorsese, Close films head for Telluride

Reuters

NEW YORK (Reuters) - A Martin Scorsese documentary about late Beatle George Harrison, the George Clooney movie "The Descendants," and a film in which Glenn Close plays a woman pretending to be a male butler were all picked for this year's Telluride Film Festival.

Festival organizers on Thursday unveiled the lineup for the event that begins Friday, runs over the holiday weekend and is regarded as among the top U.S. movie gatherings of the year.

The festival in the ski resort town of Telluride, Colorado, is considered a key event for cineastes and annually features an eclectic group of foreign and U.S. movies. Last minute selections, as yet unannounced, often end up being Oscar contenders.

Among this year's highlights include director David Cronenberg's "A Dangerous Method," starring Michael Fassbender, Viggo Mortensen and Keira Knightley in a story about the turbulent relationships between fledging psychiatrist Carl Jung, his mentor Sigmund Freud and patient Sabina Spielrein.

"The Descendants," from Alexander Payne, the director of "Sideways," stars George Clooney as an indifferent husband and father forced to re-examine his life, while the Irish drama "Albert Nobbs," co-written by Glenn Close, has the actress playing a shy Butler who is hiding the fact that he is woman.

Other fictional films include British director Steve McQueen's "Shame," also starring Fassbender, as well as Tilda Swinton in "We Need to Talk About Kevin."

Martin Scorsese's documentary about George Harrison, "Living in the Material World," a project he developed with the former Beatle's widow, Olivia, also will screen and it promises unseen Harrison footage and songs.

Among other nonfiction films selected were German director Werner Herzog's "Into the Abyss: A Tale of Death, A Tale of Life" as well as Wim Wenders' "Pina."

Included in the foreign titles are prominent Polish director Agnieszka Holland's new film, "In Darkness," about a sewer worker who helps Jewish people escape a ghetto in Nazi-occupied Poland, as well as Hungarian director Bela Tarr's "The Turin Horse."

Also screening is "The Kid With a Bike," by Belgian brothers Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne that shared the runner-up prize earlier this year at the Cannes Film Festival and "The Artist" by French director Michel Hazanavicius. It won best actor for Jean Dujardin at Cannes.