Drum roll, please. 23rd Telluride by the Sea Festival films announced, get tickets today

PORTSMOUTH — The secret is out: Six diverse, original films with international casts of both seasoned actors and fresh new faces, directed by some of the world’s most acclaimed filmmakers, are coming to The Music Hall’s Telluride by the Sea Film Festival in Portsmouth straight from the Telluride Film Festival in Colorado — transforming the city into a destination for cinephiles for three days, Friday, Sept. 16 to Sunday, Sept. 18.

This year, a seventh film, "Icarus: The Aftermath," is available to Telluride by the Sea Passholders only.

For its 23rd anniversary, the Telluride by the Sea 2022 films are filled with all-stars: Cate Blanchett; Florence Pugh; Grigory Rodchenkov; Rooney Mara; and Claire Foy; and new work from directors Todd Field (In The Bedroom, Little Children); Alejandro González Iñárritu (The Revenant, Birdman, Babel); Sebastián Lelio (Gloria, A Fantastic Woman); Jean-Pierre Dardenne and Luc Dardenne; and Bryan Fogel (Icarus).

Previously: NH Film Festival sets dates for 20th anniversary in-person festival

“To be able to bring one of the top North American film festivals to the Seacoast for another year is such a treat for cinema buffs and for occasional moviegoers,” Mark Pruett, The Music Hall’s cinema curator, said. “From Cate Blanchett and Florence Pugh to powerful documentaries set in jungles both physical and political, there is proof Telluride by the Sea has something for everyone!”

In keeping with the tradition, a limited number of individual film tickets go on sale online at themusichall.org at 10 a.m. Friday, Sept. 2 and at noon on Friday, Sept. 2 for walk-up and phone orders. Weekend passes and a limited number of Patron passes are already on sale.

The seven films are:

TAR from Focus Features

TÁR: USA, courtesy of Focus Features. Writer-director Todd Field (In The Bedroom, Little Children) returns with his first film in 16 years, focusing his lens on Lydia Tár (Cate Blanchett), the first chief female conductor of a major symphony orchestra and an essential interpreter of classical music in the 21st century.

Bardo from Netflix

Bardo: A False Chronicle of a Handful of Truths: Mexico-USA, courtesy of Netflix (subtitles).When Silverio (Daniel Giménez Cacho), a renowned journalist and documentary filmmaker, returns home to Mexico City after years away, he finds himself caught between worlds. Alejandro González Iñárritu (The Revenant, Birdman, Babel) taps his own experiences as he makes his first Mexican film in years, creating a work that’s alternately rapturously epic and stirringly intimate. Bardo is "a transcendent experience," grappling with the nature of time and place and exploring the turbulent landscapes of the mind.

Women Talking from United Artists

Women Talking: Canada, courtesy of United Artists Releasing. In a hayloft on a prairie far away, a group of Mennonite women gathers to conspire. They have choices, just like us: they could do nothing; they could stay and fight; or they can leave. The metaphor is as clear as the light, for they need to outlast the abuse they endure from men. Lit up by radiantly fierce performances (Rooney Mara, Claire Foy, Jessie Buckley, Sheila McCarthy, and Judith Ivey) this is, to quote the film, “an act of female imagination,” yet another Polley masterpiece, and, unequivocally, the film for now.

The Wonder from Netflix

The Wonder: UK-Ireland, courtesy of Netflix. In famine-ravaged Ireland, Lib (Florence Pugh), a young English nurse, is hired to uncover the mystery of a peasant girl named Anna (Kíla Lord Cassidy), who miraculously seems to survive without eating. Director Sebastián Lelio (Gloria, A Fantastic Woman) crafts a riveting Gothic suspense-thriller of often-shocking emotional power and complexity, questioning the reliability of faith, both religious and scientific.

Wildcat from Amazon

Wildcat: USA, courtesy of Amazon. Harry, a British Afghan war vet crippled by depression and PTSD, arrives at an animal rescue program deep in the Peruvian jungle and finds solace while nurturing an orphaned baby ocelot. He’s assisted by the project’s creator Samantha—a brilliant, academically trained conservationist with her own anguished family history. Along with supplying ravishing landscape and wildlife imagery and a taut story, producer-directors Trevor Beck Frost and Melissa Lesh have created a compelling and sometimes harrowing psychological documentary of two people who are living, in every conceivable sense, on the edge.

Tori and Lokita from Sideshow

Tori and Lokita: Belgium, courtesy of Sideshow (subtitles). The refugees Tori (Pablo Schils) and Lokita (Joely Mbundu), a little boy and adolescent girl, have fled religious violence in Africa. After pretending to Belgian authorities they are brother and sister, in the hope of increasing their odds for legal working papers, their lie becomes the truth, as they fiercely protect each other while navigating a host of dangers. Through careful direction, and the brilliant performances of Schils and Mbundu, viewers begin to believe that love can conquer all.

Icarus: The Aftermath from Independent

Icarus: The Aftermath: USA, courtesy of Independent. In his Oscar-winning documentary Icarus, Bryan Fogel helped the Russian scientist Grigory Rodchenkov blow the whistle on Russia’s unsavory and illegal use of performance-enhancing drugs in training Olympic athletes. Fogel’s follow-up provides a hair-raising mixture of Kafkaesque nightmare and Le Carré-type suspense as, over the course of three years, Rodchenkov is a nomad refugee because Vladimir Putin has publicly stated his determination to kill Rodchenkov, leading to a virtual fatwa supported by Russia’s entire political and cultural apparatus. He serves as a devastatingly complex tragicomic symbol of the Russian people’s anguished endurance under Putin’s vicious rule.

Telluride by the Sea schedule of events

The schedule for the weekend is:

Friday, Sept. 16: 6 p.m., doors open for Patron Passholders; 7 p.m., TÁR; Patron Passholder Party at The Music Hall Lounge following the film.

Saturday, Sept. 17: Noon, Bardo; 4 p.m., Women Talking; 7:30 p.m., The Wonder; Passholder Festival Party on Chestnut Street following the film.

Sunday, Sept. 18: 10 to 11:30 a.m., Patron Passholder Brunch at The Music Hall Lounge; noon, Wildcat; 3 p.m.. Tori and Lokita; 6 p.m., Icarus: The Aftermath (for passholders only).

For more information and tickets, visit themusichall.org.

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This article originally appeared on Portsmouth Herald: Telluride by the Sea Film Festival in Portsmouth NH announces films