The festival program will be unveiled here on Friday, and our online box office will open here as well. I promised to reveal some of our featured artists ahead of time, though, and I’ve been remiss. {More}
Archive for September, 2007
Five Festival Guests
Back from Toronto
I promised to report back from the Toronto Film Festival. Actually, I’m still reeling from the 27 films I watched last week. 
{More}
The Savages (2007)
with writer/director Tamara Jenkins and David Edelstein
Having wriggled their way out from beneath their father’s domineering thumb, the two Savage siblings are now firmly cocooned in their own complicated lives. Wendy (Laura Linney) is a struggling East Village playwright and. Jon (Philip Seymour Hoffman) is a neurotic college professor writing books on obscure subjects in Buffalo. Then comes the call that informs them that the father they have long feared and avoided, Lenny Savage (Philip Bosco), is slowly being consumed by dementia and they are the only ones that can help. Featuring nuanced performances from an extraordinary cast, The Savages marks the return of writer and director Tamara Jenkins who won acclaim for the humor and humanity of her previous film, The Slums of Beverly Hills.
Starting Out in the Evening (2007)
Starting Out in the Evening, critically acclaimed at the 2007 Sundance Film Festival, tells the story of 70-year-old novelist Leonard Schiller (Frank Langlella) and his unlikely meeting with a young graduate student (Lauren Ambrose) writing a thesis on his work. Leonard, whose books are out of print and whose “work-in-progress” has been languishing, quickly falls under the seductive promise of her admiration, much to the dismay of his 40-year-old daughter (Lili Taylor), who is in a difficult relationship with a lover who does not want children. Andrew Wagner’s film is not a stereotypical May-December romance, since the characters are richly drawn and surprising and played to perfection by Langella, Ambrose, and Taylor.
Slums of Beverly Hills (1998)
with writer/director Tamara Jenkins
Beverly Hills, known for Rodeo Drive, posh hotels, and celebrity mansions, also has a wrong side of the tracks, and there lives the nomadic Abramowitz family. Single father Murray (Alan Arkin) is determined to keep his kids in California’s most glamorous ZIP code, even if only on the fringes. “Furniture is temporary,” he counsels his peripatetic children, “but education is forever.” The focus of this coming-of-age comedy is daughter Vivian, the only girl in the otherwise all male family, who is mortified to discover that with maturity suddenly comes breasts and the attention of boys, both of which are too much for her to handle. Into their already unpredictable life comes sexually liberated Rita (Marisa Tomei), daughter of Murray’s brother Mickey (Carl Reiner), who, to the horror of Vivian’s father, becomes a role model for the budding teenager. Produced by Robert Redford, director Tamara Jenkins’s semi-autobiographical screenplay was developed and refined during Screenwriters and Filmmakers Labs sessions at the Sundance Institute.
The Battle for Haditha (2007)
with director Nick Broomfield
Nick Broomfield’s latest film is a highly realistic, fictional rendering of an incident that took place in the village of Haditha, Iraq, where much of the insurgency has taken place. In November 2005, a roadside explosive killed one US Marine and wounded two others. Enraged fellow Marines exacted revenge by killing twenty-four Iraqis: men, women and children. In Battle for Haditha, Broomfield sets out to recreate the incident, imagining the circumstances that provoked the violence and led to the massacre. The dialogue is largely improvised by a cast of non-professionals, many of whom had seen extensive combat in Iraq.
Ghosts (2006)
with director Nick Broomfield
Director Nick Broomfield has stepped out of his documentarian role to create a grippingly compelling film. Ai Qin, a young Chinese woman, borrows $25,000 to be smuggled into the UK illegally so she can support her son and family. Once in the UK she becomes one of 3 million migrant workers. She finds work cockling off the Lancashire coast, until tragedy strikes. Ai Qin and the other principal characters are played by Chinese former illegal immigrants who have drawn on their life experiences to give passionate and authentic performances.
Brand Upon the Brain (2006)
Canadian filmmaker and cinephile Guy Maddin once again deconstructs and reinvents the history of silent film in this quasi-autobiographical, expressionist dream set in a corrupt orphanage run by Maddin’s parents. A house painter, Guy, (Maddin’s fictional version of himself) travels home to visit his past and his family, constantly traveling between his childhood and the present. Combining silent-era intertitles and narration by Isabella Rossellini, the film uses frenzied editing and hauntingly flourished over-acting to create “a feverishly imaginative Freudian vampire film.” (Carrie Rickey, /Philadelphia Inquirer/).
Tickets for this OFFScreen event are $3.00 and available only at the door.
The Diving Bell and the Butterfly (2007)
Julian Schnabel won Best Director at the last Cannes Film Festival for his stunning success in bringing the memoirs of editor Jean-Dominque Bauby (Mathieu Amatric) to the screen. After a violent stroke, Bauby finds himself immobilized by “locked-in-syndrome” and forced to communicate with the outside world using the only muscles he maintains control over—his eyes. Schnabel strives to recreate the experience of paralysis using surreal picture morphs and dreamlike collages of memories and fantasies, distancing the viewer somewhat from Bauby’s consciousness even as he strives to dig deeper into the editor’s subjective experience.
Virginia Film Society Announces Fall 2007 Schedule
Season to kick off with exclusive preview screening of ‘The Jane Austen Book Club’ Wednesday, Sept. 19, 7 p.m., at Vinegar Hill Theatre. {More}
Stewart Stern’s ‘Rebel Without a Cause’ Shot-by-Shot Workshop
The iconic ‘Rebel Without a Cause’ is the subject of a Shot-by-Shot
Workshop, led by the film’s writer Stewart Stern.
(click thumbnail for full-size image)
‘Peter Pan’ [1924]
The 1924 silent version of ‘Peter Pan’ will be the culmination of VFF’s
first Family Day’
(click thumbnail for full-size image)
Adrenaline Film Project
The Highly successful Adrenaline Film Project returns under the guidance of
Jeff Wadlow and Beau Bauman.
(click thumbnail for full-size image)
Harry Chotiner
Harry Chotiner’s popular Festival Symposium will be returning for the 2007
Festival.
(click thumbnail for full-size image)
Stewart Stern
Stewart Stern will be introducing ‘Peter Pan’ and conducting the
Shot-by-Shot workshop on ‘Rebel Without a Cause’.
(click thumbnail for full-size image)
Virginia Film Festival Shares Some “Family” Secrets
Festival to Celebrate “Kin Flicks” Theme of 20th Annual Event with Inaugural VFF Family Day on Saturday, November 3
Kin Flicks Will Also Feature In-Depth Looks At Family-Focused Works of Several Leading Filmmakers
Kin Flicks Countdown
On October 5, the full KIN FLICKS program will be unveiled (along with a new design) on this site. Between now and then, however, I’m planning to reveal the identities of featured artists every week on this blog. {More}