Oscar buzz abounds among the spotlight films screening at the 32nd Annual Virginia Film Festival, from the opening night feature, Just Mercy, starring Michael B. Jordan, to writer-director Noah Baumbach’s Marriage Story with Scarlett Johansson, Adam Driver, Laura Dern, Alan Alda and Ray Liotta. VAFF Director and UVA Vice Provost for the Arts Jody Kielbasa […]
Oscar buzz abounds among the spotlight films screening at the 32nd Annual Virginia Film Festival, from the opening night feature, Just Mercy, starring Michael B. Jordan, to writer-director Noah Baumbach’s Marriage Story with Scarlett Johansson, Adam Driver, Laura Dern, Alan Alda and Ray Liotta. VAFF Director and UVA Vice Provost for the Arts Jody Kielbasa […]
Mighty pen: Emilio Estevez didn’t take his father’s stage surname because he wanted to honor his Spanish heritage—and make his own way in the film business. Being the son of Martin Sheen, the brother of Charlie Sheen, the husband of pop star Paula Abdul (for two years), and labeled a member of the Brat Pack […]
By Adriana Wells arts@c-ville.com The Virginia Film Festival will screen an original documentary by four local young black men during its Light House Studio Shorts event. This past summer, Daniel Fairley II, the City of Charlottesville’s youth opportunity coordinator, sought to bring attention to the achievements of a number of black men in the Charlottesville […]
Samhita Sunya will go to great lengths to see a film on a big screen. The cinema scholar has attended 7am screenings in theaters. When the weather’s nice and the sky is dark, she’ll set up a screen and a projector in her yard and watch from a lawn chair. Two years ago, she traveled […]
At a festival that offers more than 150 films, highlighted by selections that have awards buzz and super-special guests, it can be difficult to choose wisely (and, with the way the VFF tickets sell, quickly). Here are five under-the-radar documentaries that rose to the top of our list, and are well worth your time. Key […]
By Justin Humphreys arts@c-ville.com Decades ago, actor/writer/director/film historian Peter Bogdanovich promised his friend and colleague Orson Welles that, if Welles couldn’t finish his work-in-progress, The Other Side of the Wind, he would complete it for him. Now, Bogdanovich, at age 79, has beaten countless setbacks and fulfilled that promise. Academy Award-winning editor Bob Murawski and […]
The most frightening movie on this year’s Virginia Film Festival schedule doesn’t feature supernatural ghouls, but it had Larry Sabato shaken. Charlottesville is the real-life horror story that took place on UVA’s Grounds and in city streets when white supremacists and neo-Nazis came to town in August 2017. “We have people and film footage no […]
By Adriana Wells The Virginia Film Festival (VAFF) returns to Charlottesville this fall with a lengthy list of standout films and special guests for its 31st annual festival, to take place November 1 through 4. Highlights of the event will include a tribute to the late actor Orson Welles, led by Welles’ friend Peter Bogdanovich. […]
Filmed during the 2015-2016 season, The Paris Opera captures the highs of acclaimed premieres and revivals, as well as the lows, including several labor strikes, the terrorist attack that killed 89 at the Bataclan and the departure of dancer-choreographer Benjamin Millepied, also known as Mr. Natalie Portman, whom he coached for Black Swan and later […]
The Virginia Film Festival, which celebrates its 30th anniversary this year from November 9-12, chose a topic at the forefront of many people’s minds—both locally and nationally—with its Race in America series. A collaboration with James Madison’s Montpelier, the series features notable filmmaker Spike Lee, who will screen his documentary 4 Little Girls. And from […]