To Mars and back
This year’s Virginia Film Festival features Going to Mars: The Nikki Giovanni Project, a new documentary that chronicles the life, work, and enduring legacy of the titular poet. Going to […]
The making of Taking
Danny Wagner knows he’s a baby in the modern movie biz. The young filmmaker has worked as a production assistant for major television studios on shows like “Young Sheldon” and […]
Watch party
A decade-spanning love story, a curmudgeonly prep school teacher’s Christmas break, a musical documentary—the 2023 Virginia Film Festival features a variety of moving, lyrical, and laugh-out-loud cinema across its 120-plus […]
Building bridges
Writer/director/producer Dustin Lance Black’s films and television work—including his Academy Award-winning Milk script—are frequently outspoken about LGBTQ+ issues. The Mormon Church also resurfaces throughout his work, as in the hit […]
Evoking the vision
You don’t forget Eugenio Caballero’s production designs. There’s the otherworldly Pan’s Labyrinth, for which he won an Academy Award. There’s the black-and-white Mexico City in Roma, for which he was […]
‘Damaged but special’
Justin Black grew up on the James River and didn’t realize some people thought it was “disgusting,” including two friends he met at the University of Virginia. Years later, the […]
Five documentaries that will stay with you
Descendant The United States outlawed international slave trade in 1808, but more than a half century later a ship called the Cotilda smuggled a group of enslaved Africans into Mobile, […]
A force in her field
Joyce Chopra, known for her documentary, television, and filmmaking career, recounts her experiences in a new no-holds-barred memoir,Lady Director: Adventures in Hollywood, Television and Beyond. But it wasn’t until she […]
‘Bloody Lowndes’
The first use of a black panther in the Black power movement didn’t start in Oakland, California. The symbol came from one of the poorest counties in Alabama, where 80 […]
Pill perspective
With a prime-time Virginia film fest screening at the Paramount Theater, the movie Stay Awake has made longtime Charlottesville resident Jamie Sisley an indie-festival darling again. Sisley first produced Stay […]