`1997 Virginia Film Festival

Press Release
For further information: Victoria Joyce (804) 361-1259

TENTH ANNUAL VIRGINIA FILM FESTIVAL SALUTES VIRGINIA FILMMAKERS

Charlottesville, Virginia:- The tenth annual Virginia Film Festival (October 30 through November 2 in Charlottesville, Virginia) will commemorate its anniversary with a special salute to home-grown talent. In its first ten years, the festival, which has grown to be a nationally recognized event within the filmmaking industry, has both helped to attract film industry attention to Virginia locations and has also served as a springboard for talented Virginia filmmakers.

This year the festival will screen several films by area filmmakers including premieres produced by University of Virginia alumni Mark Johnson (Home Fries) and Marshall Persinger and Julie Lynn (Still Breathing); a sneak preview of Windhorse, a new feature film by Paul Wagner (director, Out of Ireland) and a regional premiere of Pousse Cafˇ, a recent hit on the festival circuit from local filmmaker Susan Winter. In addition there will be a special program on New Millennium Studios conducted by Daphne Reid, Rita McClenny from the Virginia Film Office, and Professor George Overstreet of the University of Virginia School of Commerce. The annual Saturday night gala, to be held at the Glenmore Country Club and entitled A New Decade, A New Millennium, is jointly in honor of the Petersburg-based studio and the Festival's tenth anniversary. Tim and Daphne Reid will attend the event.

According to Richard Herskowitz, festival director: "The burst of Virginia filmmaking talent demonstrated by this program will serve notice to the film industry that Virginia is rapidly becoming a major player in American film production."

Producer Mark Johnson will present a special work-in-progress screening of his new film Home Fries, starring Drew Barrymore as the focus of two brothers' love and hatred. Director Dean Parisot, and screenwriter Vince Gilligan will also attend. This film is slated for release from Warner Brothers in 1998. Gilligan, winner of the 1993 Governor's Screenwriting Award, will join Virginia Film Office director Rita McClenny in presenting the 1997 award to an emerging Virginia screenwriter at this screening. Another upcoming release getting an early preview is producer Marshall Persinger's Still Breathing, associate produced by Julie Lynn and directed by Virginia-born James F. Robinson. This offbeat, magical love story, which stars Brendan Fraser and Joanna Going, is set to be released by October Films in early 1998.

Paul Wagner's Windhorse, which was filmed clandestinely in Tibet and Nepal, will be previewed as a special benefit for the Tibetan Nuns Project, with a reception preceding the 7:30pm Culbreth Theatre screening at the Bayly Art Museum from 6 p.m. to 7:15 p.m. on Saturday, November 1, 1997. The film depicts the political awakening of a young Tibetan pop singer and an American tourist, played by Charlottesville-based actress Taije Silverman. Another Charlottesville resident, Susan Winter, has cast two talented local actors, Anthony Hamilton of Batesville and Beatrix Ost of Keene, along with Hamilton's son, performance artist Dominic Hamilton-Little, in her remarkable debut feature, Pousse Cafˇ. The father-son relationship in the film is particularly fascinating because of the actors' real life relationship, and because of Winter's smart and humorous dialogue. Pousse Cafˇ will screen on Friday, October 31 at 8pm in Regal Downtown Mall, and will be followed by a cocktail reception, in recognition of the many delicious cocktails mixed in the course of the film.

The Festival Guide, which includes details of all scheduled films and details of how to purchase tickets by mail, will be distributed within Charlottesville and surrounding areas later this week. The guide will also be sent to those on the Festival's mailing list. For further information, or to be added to the mailing list, please call 1-800-UVA-FEST.