Denver Film has locked the program for its 49th edition, a 129-title event running Oct. 22-Nov. 1 across four venues. The festival will open with Peter Farrelly’s I Play Rocky, starring Anthony Ippolito as Sylvester Stallone, and close with James Gray’s Paper Tiger, led by Adam Driver, Scarlett Johansson and Miles Teller.
Centerpiece slots go to Danny Boyle’s Ink, with Jack O’Connell, Guy Pearce and Claire Foy, and Tony Gilroy’s Behemoth!, starring Pedro Pascal as a gifted cellist.
The lineup works as an awards-season map
For entertainment marketers, the special presentations section is the useful signal. It gathers titles already trading on the fall festival circuit: Siân Heder’s Being Heumann, Pedro Almodóvar’s Bitter Christmas, Jesse Eisenberg’s The Debut, Andrew Haigh’s A Long Winter, Brad Bird’s animated Ray Gunn and Martin McDonagh’s Wild Horse Nine, among others.
Two titles, Josephine and Take Me Home, are co-presented with the Sundance Film Festival. That is an early preview of Sundance’s 2027 move to Boulder, Colorado, Denver’s neighbor. International additions include Netflix’s TIFF People’s Choice winner La Bola Negra, Ryusuke Hamaguchi’s All of a Sudden and Andrey Zvyagintsev’s Cannes Grand Prix winner Minotaur.
Honorees attach names to titles early
Denver’s award list pairs talent with specific films, which can help media planners spot where awards conversations may form. Carrie Coon receives an excellence in acting award for The Liberation, playing a woman who joins a cult led by Lily James. John Cho takes an Outlaw Award for Your Mother Your Mother Your Mother opposite Mahershala Ali. Fred Hechinger receives a rising star prize after A Long Winter, while Liz Sargent is named breakthrough director for Take Me Home.
Other honors include Benedetta Porcaroli’s Maglione Italian Film Award, David Acord’s sound design prize for Behemoth! and a Stan Brakhage Award for Michael Gitlin.
Access is part of the business model
The festival is using sliding-scale admissions for three public screenings at the Ellie Caulkins Opera House, under a Denver Arts & Venues grant. That makes a select group of premieres available on a pay-what-you-can basis.
- The 129-title slate includes features, documentaries and shorts across four venues.
- Sundance co-presentations double as an early test before the festival moves to nearby Boulder in 2027.
- Talent awards attach campaign-relevant names to specific titles rather than generic career achievement.
Denver Film artistic director Matthew Campbell said the program is designed to be “as entertaining as it is thought-provoking.” CEO Kevin Smith framed the opening-night choice as fitting for the festival’s independent-film identity.
For media planners, the takeaway is to treat regional festival lineups as a low-cost early-warning system. Titles and names programmed in October often reappear in December campaign budgets and January acquisition announcements. Denver’s slate shows how a regional event can borrow momentum from Sundance and streamers while using pay-what-you-can screenings to build local demand.
Source: The Hollywood Reporter
