The Virginia Film Festival will be moved by the spirit of the old apostle himself, Robert Duvall, at this year’s God-centric festivities. Also slated to attend is actor- and Everything is Illuminated director- Liev Shrieber.
After tackling everything from “Speed” to “$$$” to “Cool” and “Caged,” it seems inevitable that the Virginia Film Festival would eventually find God. Indeed, festival organizers announced the theme for the 19th annual festival in early September: “Revelations: Finding God at the Movies.” And last Wednesday, from the historic altar of Mt. Zion Baptist Church, festival Director Richard Herskowitz announced that the event, to be held October 26-29, would be visited by a true apostle. O.K., a screen apostle, but still…
Actor/director Robert Duvall will grace the festival and receive this year’s Virginia Film Award. Duvall, an Academy Award-nominee and a star of such films as To Kill a Mockingbird, Apocalypse Now, and, yes, The Apostle, will join filmmakers Liev Schrieber, Michael Tolkin and Brad Silberling as headliners at the UVA-sponsored festival.
Herskowitz promised that the “program would be both reverent and irreverent.” And as an example of we’re not sure which, he said the Opening Night Gala, always a chic-y black tie event, would be held at Mt. Zion Baptist Church. The kick-off event will be “a gathering for world peace” at the Charlottesville Pavilion. World religions will get their due, too, with featured films including Jesus Camp, Schrieber’s Everything is Illuminated, Iraq in Fragments, Tibet: A Buddhist Trilogy, With God on Our Side: George W. Bush and the Rise of the Religious Right and The God of a Second Chance, a documentary by Charlottesville filmmaker Paul Wagner.
As usual, Herskowitz aims to make the festival’s programming a “springboard for discussion and debate.” He noted “the growing tensions between secular and religious cultures worldwide” as impetus for this year’s theme. To which we can only say, Amen.—Sara Tisdale
