Contact: Victoria Joyce (804)-361-1259
Independent Films Featured at 1998 Virginia Film Festival
Renowned and emerging independent filmmakers with new feature films, documentaries and experimental videos will descend on Charlottesville for the 11th annual Virginia Film Festival from October 29 - November 1. The 1998 Festival theme, Cool, will include a special focus on the topic Filming Rebel Women/Rebel Women Filming, with featured filmmakers Sadie Benning (Flat is Beautiful), Lynn Hershman (Conceiving Ada), Carolee Schneemann (Fuses) and Sherrie Rose and Melissa Behr (Me and Will). A panel discussion on this topic will be moderated by feminist critic B. Ruby Rich on Sunday, November 1, 11am at Newcomb Theatre. Additional indie filmmakers attending include Tom Musca with his new feature, Melting Pot, Spencer Nakasako with Kelly Loves Tony, and directors Adam Joyce and Larry Fishman accompanying short films on the program Hipsters, Slackers and Mad Artists.
Sadie Benning has been a star in the video art world since she emerged at 15 years old 10 years ago with her startlingly original autobiographical videos, made with the toy Pixelvision camera, on her emerging lesbian riot grrrl identity. Her latest, most ambitious video, Flat is Beautiful (Oct. 31, 10pm, Vinegar Hill), was the sensation of this year's New York Video Festival, and will screen on October 31.
Lynn Hershman returns for her second visit to the Virginia Festival with her new feature, Conceiving Ada, starring Tilda Swinton in a startling hybrid of documentary, science fiction fantasy and drama. Hershman will present a talk on October 31, 1:30pm at Clemons Library on Interactivity, Electronic Cinema and Infinite Time, cosponsored with the Digital Media Center and the Digital Directions Speakers Series.
Melissa Behr and Sherrie Rose are the co-directors of Me and Will (Oct. 31, 4pm, Regal). They are two actresses with credits in several low-budget movies who have grabbed the reins and directed a grittier Thelma and Louise, a road trip movie in which two women take to the American highway on a quest for the legendary chopper ridden by Peter Fonda in Easy Rider.
Carolee Schneemann is a renowned visual and performance artist whose 60s experimental films, including Fuses (Oct. 30, 7pm, Vinegar Hill), are inspirations to contemporary creators of erotic and feminist art.
Tom Musca, screenwriter of Stand and Deliver, arrives with his first independent feature, Melting Pot (Oct. 31, 7pm, Regal). Variety calls it a "frequently funny social satire (that) pokes holes in a U.S. electoral system already riven by race and class divisionŠ a surprisingly strong dramatic vehicle for comedian Paul Rodriguez Š" and his costars CCH Pounder and Cliff Robertson.
Spencer Nakasako presented his award-winning AKA Don Bonus three years ago, and returns to the Virginia Film Festival with a new, revelatory camcorder diary of an immigrant lu Mien couple, Kelly Saeteum and Tony Saelio, Kelly Loves Tony (Oct. 31, 1pm, Vinegar Hill).
Larry Fishman and Adam Joyce are two of the filmmakers whose works are included in the shorts program Hipsters, Slackers and Mad Artists (Oct. 29, 10pm, Regal). Fishman's Zchlom imagines an artist whose obscurity ends when masturbation leads him to discover a new art form, and Joyce's Tracking Signal Impulse Movie is a semi-documentary road movie about an obsessive slacker.
For Immediate Release