10.29.08
The 2008 Virginia Film Festival
In today’s show, adapted from an article written by John Kelly, we will preview this year’s Virginia Film Festival, hosted by the University of Virginia.
This year’s Virginia Film Festival, hosted by the University of Virginia, will kick off tomorrow, Oct. 30, and will feature some 80 films and 100 guests exploring the fearful and alluring images of immigrants, outsiders and extraterrestrials alike.
One of the highlights will be a special 70th-anniversary rebroadcast of Orson Welles’ classic radio play, “The War of the Worlds, “ tomorrow at 7 p.m. in the McCormick Observatory. And at 10 p.m., the Culbreth Theatre will be screening George Pal’s film classic, “War of the Worlds.” Pal biographer and Charlottesville resident Justin Humphreys will introduce the film.
Richard Herskowitz, the festival’s artistic director said, “Not only is this the perfect way to open our festival this year, it is also a great way to honor one of the more bizarre evenings in Charlottesville’s history. On the night of Oct. 30, 1938, Welles’ ultimate hoax had the whole nation on edge and our city was no exception. Citizens were so nervous, in fact, that the McCormick Observatory had to open its doors just to prove with its telescopes that the skies were not in fact filled with alien spaceships.
The festival will also kick-off with a screening of Lake City at 7:00PM at the Culbreth Theatre. Starring Sissy Spacek, Troy Garity, Rebecca Romijn, and Dave Matthews, Lake City is a film with deep Virginia roots. It captures a slice of small-town Virginia life with underlying layers of Southern gothic tragedy. Lake City is produced by Mark Johnson and co-directed by Perry Moore, who met at the Film Festival in the 90’s and have since partnered on a number of projects, including producing the Narnia series. Moore co-wrote and co-directed the film with his partner, Hunter Hill, and brought on board a third UVa alumnus, leading independent film and talent publicist Weiman Seid, as executive producer.
Glen Williamson, executive producer of Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, also represents UVa as producer of Sunshine Cleaning. Based on a script that won the writer, Megan Holley, the Virginia Governor’s Screenwriting Award in 2003, Sunshine Cleaning premiered at Sundance and will be released by Overture Films this winter.
UVa grad, Julie Lynn, producer of 10 Items or Less, starring Morgan Freeman, is the producer of Passengers, an exploration of romance and intrigue under the shadow of death. Passengers is directed by Rodrigo García, the director of Nine Lives, which García presented at the 2007 Virginia Film Festival.
Charlottesville native and producer, Temple Fennell, will be the speaker at the Darden Producers Forum, held at the Darden School starting at 1:20 PM on October 30
Additionally, a free program of films by Charlottesville filmmakers Doug Bari, Elizabeth Howard and Light House students will screen at the Gravity Lounge at 3:30 p.m. on Sunday, Nov. 2, under the heading “Moviemaking in Charlottesville.”
To address images of human aliens who migrate across national borders, the festival and the UVa Media Studies Department welcomes their first Festival Fellow, Hamid Naficy, a film scholar and John Evans Professor of Communication at Northwestern University. His book, “An Accented Cinema,” explores the themes and styles of filmmakers who live and work away from their country of origin.
Keeping with this theme, the festival will also screen, Koryo Saram – The Unreliable People, a film executive-produced by the recently appointed UVa Dean of Arts & Sciences, Meredith Jung-En Woo. Honored as “Best Documentary” at the 2007 Toronto Reel Asian International Film Festival, the film tells the harrowing story of Stalin’s massive ethnic cleansing campaign in 1937 of forced deportation of Koreans living in the coastal provinces of Far East Russia to the unsettled steppe country of Central Asia.
Finally, there is one of the most popular events at the Virginia Film Festival, the Adrenaline Film Project. Mentored by filmmaker Jeff Wadlow and producer Beau Bauman, The Adrenaline Film Project welcomes 10 groups of film makers who will create a short film, concept to completion, from Wednesday evening to the showing scheduled for Saturday night, November 1st at 10 PM at the Culbreth Theater.
To learn more details about these films and all of the events at the Virginia Film Festival please visit www.vafilm.com.
You’ve been listening to the Oscar Show, I’m Jacob Canon. Join us next week when we will relive the events of this year’s Virginia film festival.