Telluride’s surprise movie was suddenly the hardest ticket in the room: a 174-minute A24 project widely rumored to be Nathan Fielder’s documentary about Elizabeth Holmes, set for a 6.30pm screening in the Herzog theatre and a Q&A afterward. The film was still being kept under wraps, but the length, the format and the company behind it turned the festival’s biggest venue into a sealed-off event.
The reason people were talking was the rumor itself. Deadline reported at 1.28pm PST that the project was being linked to Holmes, the imprisoned Theranos founder, while also noting there was still no confirmation from the festival, A24 or representatives. Earlier, at 7.04am PST, the same reporting said the surprise title was still a mystery but appeared to be an A24 project with part-documentary elements.
That fits the way Fielder has worked before. He is best known for HBO’s The Rehearsal and The Curse, and the latter’s first three episodes played at NYFF in 2023. This one, though, was being framed less like a standard festival title than a long-running project that had finally arrived close to three hours long. A24 had reportedly bought it in a competitive situation, which helps explain why the studio was willing to put it in front of Telluride audiences before the broader market had even pinned down what it was.
The screening itself was built around secrecy. Every electronic device — phones, smart watches, ear pods and smart glasses — was to be bagged and locked through the Yondr system before entry to the Herzog theatre, then unlocked only when attendees left. That kind of control is usually reserved for events where the experience matters as much as the title, and it leaves little room for leaks from inside the room.
What makes the whole setup unusual is the contradiction at the center of it: a film being talked about everywhere without being officially named anywhere. Telluride attendees were being asked to surrender their devices, sit through 174 minutes of screening and then stay for a Q&A, even as the festival, A24 and the people attached to the project declined to say whether the Holmes rumor was right. By the time the lights went down in the Herzog theatre, the only confirmed facts were the ones around the movie, not the movie itself.
