Telluride Film Festival co-founders (with Tom Luddy and the late James Card) Bill and Stella Pence have departed after 34 years. A ninth venue – The Backlot – has been added, joining the historic Sheridan Opera House, the Masonic Hall, et al., in order to accommodate the numerous submissions of cinema-themed documentaries. And the festival’s base of operations has moved to San Francisco from Portsmouth, New Hampshire.

No one seems too fazed. New co-director Gary Meyer calls the transition "incredibly smooth." "If it ain’t broke," said Luddy, "don’t fix it." And filmmaker Werner Herzog notes that "spiritually it will be the same. Telluride is a family reunion of those who really love films."

One thing that hasn’t changed is the quality and diversity of the selections. Some likely candidates for prizes during the coming award season: Noam Baumbach’s Margot at the Wedding, the follow-up to his brilliant, wrenching The Squid and the Whale; Into the Wild, Sean Penn’s adaptation of Jon Krakauer’s 1996 account of an ill-fated Alaskan wilderness trip; and I’m Not There, directed by Todd Haynes and starring Cate Blanchett, Heath Ledger, Richard Gere and others, all playing Bob Dylan.