Virginia Film Society

Spring 2004

Jan. 22- 25
The Cremaster Cycle
Hailed as "the most important American artist of his generation" by New York Times art critic Michael Kimmelman, Matthew Barney infuses breathtaking cinematography with photographs, flags, bizarre sculptures and installations made out of Vaseline to capture a spectacular auto-erotic mythological world.



Sample This: The Art of Collage

Feb. 17
Christian Marclay, pioneer turntablist with multimedia artist with Marina Rosenfeld and Toshio Kajiwara.
“Christian Marclay is a visual artist and composer.. who is exploring the pattern languages connecting sound, photography, video, and film. Marclay uses records and turntables in musical performances, both solo and in collaboration with musicians” (Wikipedia)

Feb. 24
Rick Prelinger: Archeologist of archival media.
“Prelinger has a fascination with what he calls the ‘bastard genres,’ the thousands of promotional, educational, and industrial films created to whip up consumer frenzies, educate the school kiddies, and train employees to flog company products more properly.” (Joyce Slatton, Freezerbox)

March 23
Michele Smith: Film Collagist
“Michele Smith creates intense, hand-made collage films from a diverse assortment of film materials, mixing formats and contents with spontaneous regularity…This is original and challenging work, demanding of its audience, and rewarding in its illumination.” (Mark Webber, London Film Festival)

March 30
People Like Us: Audio and Video Collage
"Dadaist samplings and reshuffling of cultural oddities from discarded LPs is a recurrent theme, as is the use of intercepted radio broadcasts gutted and completely recontextualised. There is an air of both humour and impending doom within the work of PLU.” (Ben Watson, The Wire)


April 8
Black Maria Film and Video Festival with John Columbus
Annual exhibition of the best new documentary and experimental media, with a special emphasis this year on new works employing “found footage.”

April 20
Kevin and Jennifer McCoy: New Media Artists
"Together they have made a wide range of video, installation, new media and performance works dealing with the cultural manifestations of technology in the world. Formally these projects arise from an interest in the modular, language-like nature of digital information and its recombinant possibilities.” (P.S. 1)

May 4
Charlottesville Arts on Screen
Two documentaries celebrating the local arts! George Kuchar’s Film Festival tribute, The Guzzler of Grizzly Manor, and Virginia Film Festival Director Richard Herskowitz’s montage of the local millennial art exhibit Hindsight/ Fore-site.


Summer 2004



Summer Classic Film Series
Featuring Japanese master Yasujiro Ozu
June 15-16: The Flavor of Green Tea Over Rice
June 29-30: Ohayo (Good Morning)
July 13-14: Equinox Flower
July 27-28: Late Spring

Fall 2004

September 14
What America Needs with guest filmmaker Mark Wojahn
(Traveling by train from New York City to Los Angeles (with an extended stop in Charlottesville) filmmaker Wojahn interviews more than 500 people on the state of America.




September 21
Dear Frankie. Preview of new Miramax Release!
Shona Auerbach’s Dear Frankie is a heartwarming and often humorous tale of nine year old Frankie and his mom, Lizzie. Not wanting to tell her deaf son that they have run away from his father, Lizzie pretends Frankie’s dad is away at sea. When the lie is about to be revealed, Lizzie must find the perfect stranger to play the perfect dad.


October 5
L’Avventura with guest speaker Robert Kolker
Michelangelo Antonioni’s classic Italian film is a story of romance, betrayal and mystery between a group of wealthy Italian friends.


October 19
Reimagining Ireland with director Andrew Wyndham
Andrew Wyndham of the Virginia Foundation for Humanities brings the theatrical premiere of his documentary narrated by Frank McCourt and based on the groundbreaking Re-Imagining Ireland conference and festival held here in Charlottesville in 2003.

November 16
My Night At Maud’s with guest speaker Robert Kolker
(1969) Eric Rohmer’s film centers around a night spent at Maud's, which becomes a chaste yet ticklish probing of male emotions and convictions.

November 30
Panorama Ephemera
Rick Prelinger draws from a wide variety of ephemeral (industrial, advertising, educational and amateur) films, touring conflicted North American landscapes to peice together his narrative. The films' often-skewed visions reconstruct a history filled with horror and hope, unreeling in familiar and unexpected ways.