Contact: Victoria Joyce (804)-361-1259 1998 Virginia Film Festival Welcomes Eminent Authors and Critics Participating in Panels and Discussions September 22, 1998 Discussion reigns at the Virginia Film Festival, the only film festival where speakers outnumber films. The scholars and critics brought to the annual University of Virginia-sponsored event are public intellectuals who make their ideas accessible and relevant to the discussion of movies and the Festival theme, which this year is Cool. Among the eminent scholars attending this year are Robert Farris Thompson, the Yale art historian who is well known for his explorations of African art's "aesthetic of the cool." Thomas Frank is the editor of The Baffler and its anthology, Commodify Your Dissent! as well as the new study of Madison Avenue's appropriation of countercultures, The Conquest of Cool. B. Ruby Rich is a leading feminist film critic whose new collection of essays, Chick Flicks, is being published this fall by Duke University Press. Ray Carney is the pre-eminent authority on Beat cinema and the films of John Cassavetes, as well as the director of the Film Studies Program at Boston University. Robert Farris Thompson Carter G. Woodson Institute Lecture: An Aeshetic of the Cool (Oct. 30, 2pm, Minor Hall) Panel: Black Cool (Oct. 31, 9:30am, Newcomb Theatre) Robert Farris Thompson, a self-proclaimed "guerrilla scholar," is the author of several books including Flash of the Spirit: African and Afro-American Art and Philosophy and Black Gods and Kings. His legendary courses at Yale University affirm the centrality of African culture to the history of Western civilization. Mr. Thompson's lectures have been known to include drumming, dancing, and his signature "prayer meeting" style of delivery. Thomas Frank Curry School Forum on Media Literacy: Marketing 'Cool' to Kids (Oct. 30, 4pm, Curry School) Thomas Frank is editor of The Baffler, a cultural criticism journal, and of Commodify Your Dissent!, an anthology of articles from The Baffler. He is the author of The Conquest of Cool (1997, University of Chicago Press) and a contributing reporter and columnist to Harper's, Artforum, The Nation and other national media. B. Ruby Rich Theory Seminar Lecture: No more Nice Girls: Feminism, Film, Autobiography (Oct. 30, 4pm, Minor Hall) Panel: Filming Rebel Women/Rebel Women Filming (Nov. 1, 11am, Newcomb Theater) B. Ruby Rich is a cultural critic and journalist whose writing has appeared in both the popular and academic press for more than two decades. She publishes in the Village Voice, Elle, Sight and Sound, Time Out New York, OUT, the Advocate, and the San Francisco Bay Guardian, while her film commentary is carried on public radio. A former program officer at the New York State Council on the Arts, she is a member of the Sundance Selection Committee and is currently an Associate Professor adjunct at the University of California, Berkeley. Ray Carney Presenting two films by John Cassavetes: Shadows (Oct. 31, 4pm, Vinegar Hill Theater) and The Killing of a Chinese Bookie (Oct. 30, 10pm, Regal Downtown Mall) Ray Carney is author of The Films of John Cassavetes: Pragmatism, Modernism, and the Movies (Cambridge, 1994) and Director of the Film Studies Program and Professor of Film and American Studies at Boston University. He co-curated the exhibit devoted to "the Beat Generation" that opened at the Whitney Museum of American Art in 1995, and contributed extensively to Beat Culture and the New America, 1950-1965, the exhibit catalogue. Other Lectures and Panels Jose Munoz (New York University) and Jonathan Flatley (The University of Virginia) Presentation: Keanu Cool (Oct. 31, 4pm, Newcomb Theatre) Lynn Hershman Presentation: Electronic Cinema, Interactivity, and Infinite Time (Saturday, 1:30pm, Clemons Library) David Amram and Stu Gardner Panel: Composing Jazz Scores for the Media (Oct. 30, 1pm, Newcomb) Many additional speakers will address classic films in the Film Festival program during the post-film discussions that follow most screenings.

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