The 38th Telluride Film Festival gets under way today, with Caetano Veloso as its Guest Director. The legendary Brazilian singer-songwriter has been invited to select a series of films to present at the festival, which runs through Monday. The festival's program features diverse programming includes Guest Director programs selected by Veloso, 25 new feature films plus special artist tributes, classics and restorations, shorts, student films, seminars and conversations, each introduced or proceeded with a Q&A by its filmmaker, actors, writer, or producer. Illustrator Maira Kalman, whose work frequently appears on the cover of The New Yorker, has designed the poster for this year's festival, pictured at left.

Tom Luddy, Co-Founder of the Festival expressed his anticipation of this year's event, "In addition to an especially strong mixture of new surprises from around the world and archival finds, this year's Guest Director, Caetano Veloso will be presenting six films, both rare and established classics, with his unique enthusiasm about why they are movies worth seeing again or for the first time."

Veloso's six selections, which will be screened in archival 35mm prints, include Billy Wilder's classic 1960 film The Apartment; Jean-Luc Godard's Vivre Sa Vie from 1962 and Le Grandes Manoeuvres (1955) by fellow French director René Clair; and the Brazilian films Black God, White Devil (1964) by Glauber Rocha and Nordest: Cordel, Repente e Canção (1975) by Tânia Quaresma

Included among the festival's "Backlot" films, featuring behind-the-scenes movies and portraits of artists, musicians and filmmakers, is Tropicália, Marcelo Machado's new full-length documentary on the movement Caetano Veloso helped launch in Brazil in the 1960s. Also part of the weekend's festivities, Veloso will sign copies of his memoir, Tropical Truth: A Revolution in Music and Brazil.

With over 100 film and television credits, Veloso is no stranger to the big and small screen. Veloso followed his 1999 Grammy Award-winning Nonesuch Recorsd release, Livro, with a soundtrack for the Carlos Diegues film Orfeu. In spring 2001, Veloso’s Omaggio a Federico e Giulietta—a live recording made in 1997 in Rimini in honor of two masters of Italian cinema, Federico Fellini and Giulietta Masina—was released. In 2002, Veloso received worldwide recognition for his performance of “Cucurrucucú Paloma” in Pedro Almodóvar’s Academy Award-winning film Talk to Her, which can be heard on the 2003 Nonesuch release The Best of Caetano Veloso. For Veloso's complete Nonesuch discography, visit the Nonesuch Store.

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The festival's main program, the "Show," includes new films from David Cronenberg, Alexander Payne, Werner Herzog, Martin Scorsese, Wim Wenders, and other celebrated directors from around the globe. Additional Sneak Previews will play outside the main program and will be announced over the course of the four-day weekend.

Receiving this year's Silver Medallion awards, which recognize an artist’s significant contribution to the world of cinema, are George Clooney, who stars in Payne's film The Descendants; French filmmaker Pierre Étaix; and Tilda Swinton, who produced and starred in 2010's I Am Love, the score to which featured music by John Adams, and who stars in the new film We Need to Talk About Kevin, which features a score by Jonny Greenwood.

“This has proven to be a marvelous year for the Telluride Film Festival," says Festival Co-Director Gary Meyer. "We discovered many more fine movies than our four-day weekend could include. There were difficult decisions and the results make for an exciting and varied selection of new works by both established filmmakers, many returning to Telluride, and first-time directors."

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For more information on the 38th Telluride Film Festival, go to telluridefilmfestival.org. To read what Veloso has to say about it, read his recent interview with the Wall Street Journal at wsj.com.