Telluride: Angelina Jolie's 'First They Killed My Father' Takes Fest by Storm

[geovalin]

Jolie's fourth feature directorial effort appears to be eligible for the best foreign language film Oscar should Cambodia choose to submit it.

 

Watching a 136-minute foreign language film at 9:30 a.m. on the Saturday of Labor Day weekend may not sound appealing to everyone, but don't tell that to the massive number of people who lined up today outside of the Telluride Film Festival's Palm Theatre — some for as long as three-and-a-half hours — to see Angelina Jolie and her new film First They Killed My Father.

 

Jolie's fourth feature directorial effort, like her three prior — In the Land of Blood and Honey (2011), Unbroken (2014) and By the Sea (2015) — is very ambitious and very dark and could be very hard-to-market. Adapted by Loung Ung from her memoir of the same title, First They Killed My Father will be simultaneously released by Netflix in select theaters and on its streaming platform on Sept. 15 and is a Khmer-language period piece about a family torn apart by the Khmer Rouge. It primarily is told from the perspective — literally and figuratively — of seven-year-old Ung, who is played incredibly by young Cambodian Sareum Srey Moch.

 

What sets the film apart — at least according to the consensus of industry critics and tastemakers who caught its first screening — is that it engages its audience and is more than just a history lesson or genre exercise or tribute to its principal character. (Early reviews have mostly ranged from favorable — see THR's — to very favorable.) Those filmgoers who are open to giving it a chance won't be sorry they did so. And that bodes very well for its Oscar prospects, which lie, first and foremost, in the best foreign language film category.

 

read more http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/race/telluride-angelina-jolies-first-they-killed-my-father-takes-fest-by-storm-1034852

[TEFLKrabi]

It was an incredible book/story; hope the film is just as good.