Program and operations manager Wesley Harris has served on the staff of the Virginia Film Festival since 2005. He started as an intern (for this writer) and was promoted to program coordinator while increasingly taking on more of the programming responsibilities. Along the way he helped refine the creative direction as the festival’s goals shifted […]
In the 1930s and 40s, Universal Studios produced a series of horror films which remain some of the best and most popular examples of the genre. Tod Browning’s Dracula and James Whale’s Frankenstein became the iconic depictions of those characters in the popular imagination, from Dracula’s Hungarian accent, widow’s peak haircut, and cape to the neck-bolts, […]
On Friday, Buford Middle School held a dedication ceremony for four new permanent artworks installed at the school, made by students as part of the Mobile Arts Residency Program with visiting artist Kevin Reese. The sculptures are hanging mobiles, directly inspired by the work of Alexander Calder; three of them occupy the schools’ stairwells, while […]
Though her name might still be unfamiliar to many locals, Diane Cluck has a well-established career as a writer and performer, and a network of fans around the world. She’s the rare female singer-songwriter whose music cannot easily be compared to other artists. Cluck’s music seems to come not so much from a dialogue with […]
Formed in Montreal in the late ’90s, the band Godspeed You Black Emperor! took its name from a documentary about Japanese motorcycle gangs. The group added musicians and instruments as it grew, at one point totaling 15 members before whittling down to a nine-person line-up with two drummers, three guitarists, a bassist, and a three-piece […]
The Virginia Film Festival has announced the schedule for the 2013 Festival, which will take place from November 7-10. It’s the festival’s 26th year, and the fifth with Jody Kielbasa as the festival director; the past 4 years have all broken attendance records, and expectations are high. The festival will again showcase contemporary films making […]
For years, people around the country have been participating in Community Supported Agriculture (CSAs), programs where locavores and the green-minded can subscribe to weekly shares of local produce. Now The Bridge PAI is launching its own CSA: Community Supported Art. “You already eat local; it’s about time you ART local!” is the slogan. The program […]
In 1932, a group of 21 African-American artists and intellectuals, including Langston Hughes, traveled from Harlem to the Soviet Union. The trip was part of an outreach effort by the Meschrabom-Film studio, which hoped to produce a propagandistic feature film, Black and White, criticizing segregation and racism in the U.S. The intention was to forge solidarity […]
For two weekends beginning September 28, a traveling fair entitled the Carnival de Resistance will visit Charlottesville and set up a mobile village in the parking lot of the Sojourners United Church of Christ on Elliott Avenue. The carnival theme is centered on four performances featuring earth, air, water, or fire, and combines dance, music, […]
The term “indie rock” is so widely used that it has come to mean drastically different things to different people. It’s had a strange life over the past 25-odd years, one that weaves its way through significant changes in musical styles and cataclysmic shifts within the record industry. In many ways, the story of the […]