Telluride ’25: The Theatre That Only Exists for Four Days

by Walter Chaw Even though it’s painted a bright, canary yellow, there’s a hole-in-the-wall Mexican joint in Gunnison called Anejo Bistro & Bar that you would miss unless you were right on top of it. I stopped there with my friend this year on our way to the Telluride Film Festival–a seven-hour trip I’ve traditionally made on my own but maybe wouldn’t have made at all this year if not for her. The drive has become harder. The build-up to it, the anticipation-into-fear. I carry trauma from a bad accident years ago while driving over Vail Pass in the dead of winter, exacerbated by a horror film of a ride back from Telluride in the first throes of a second, maybe third round of Covid in 2022. Both experiences have made extended drives over curved passes spanning stories-deep drops triggers for my anxious equivocation. Add how, as I age, I become less and less desirous of breaking routine, even if counting the days until my death has lately become a perverse fascination for me. I am trapped in this prison of my quotidian days. I know this is a first-world problem.

So my friend asked whether I would mind driving her to Telluride if she were to fly in to Denver this year, and I didn’t know how to tell her how much that would mean to me, so I just said, “Of course.” We listened to Gary Numan and Siouxsie and the Banshees on the way. It rained so hard I thought about pulling over, but we joked around until the clouds parted and we were 45 minutes closer. In Anejo Bistro & Bar, I ordered fish tacos, which I thought would be heavy, fried things in flaccid, store-bought flour discs, but they were grilled, thick pieces of whitefish on warm, homemade corn tortillas with tomatillo salsa so good there’s a sign that says they won’t tell you the recipe, so stop asking. We caught up on what we had missed in each other’s lives over the gulf of the last two years. I asked after her kids and wondered how everyone had gotten so old. We talked about our parents, who are gone now. We agreed that we wished this little restaurant we’d found were closer to where we lived, pretending we weren’t really wishing it was our families who lived closer together. At least, I was pretending.

When we reached Telluride, I was greeted by a warm hug–two. Then three. A kiss on the cheek. An “I’m so happy and excited to see you.” A few tears came, and I wondered if they could tell in the dark of the projection booth. Stories caught me up on local gossip. Stories of those who didn’t make it back this year. Of shaking Bruce Springsteen’s hand, of the students I teach who are here through a stunning mentorship program and texting me ecstatically about the calibre of artists leading their seminars. A parade of heroes for the next generation of heroes. My life is full of people who are glad to see me, and I don’t think about that enough. I think about loss and fear, and indulge in outrage that is impotent and hamstrings me. This is the outcome those in power are engineering, and it’s shocking how much they’re succeeding.

As I settled into my first film here, in the red-cushioned chairs of a theatre that only exists as a theatre for four days a year–as I walked through the mist and light rain on dirt tracks near a frigid river to the warmth of a dark cave full of others waiting to hear a story before flickering light–I realized I was home. That is to say, between teaching and coming back here, I have opened myself up to the possibility that it’s not just me and my wife against a swiftly-darkening world, but a remarkable coalition of kind and generous people–brilliant and dedicated, too–who are as glad to see me as I am to see them. There is not one hole-in-the-wall; there are thousands. It’s hardly a wall at all.

Okay. Let’s go.