Editor’s note: Tom Luddy, co-founder of the Telluride Film Festival, died last week at age 79. Here, filmmaker Alan Elliott, who directed the Aretha Franklin documentary Amazing Grace, remembers his kind spirit and moral compass.
He also pays tribute to one of Luddy’s signature projects: a collaboration with Agnès Varda on an influential 1968 film about the Black Panthers.
Tom Luddy, the benevolent wizard/curator of the Telluride Film Festival, who, in the post-’60s glow of generational change in the film world, created safe space to get high (at altitude) for his people: film lovers.
Tom was non-denominational about “film lovers.” As eager to talk film with a total stranger in line at one of the smaller theaters at the festival as he was with Werner Herzog or Martin Scorsese, the socialistic mores of Telluride were a reflection of Tom.
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