Kin Flicks Wraps
KIN FLICKS is over. I’ve got some highlights of my own to mention, and photos by Festival photographer Jack Looney to share in this posting. But I’d love to know what events were highlights for you, and I encourage you to send comments to this blog. While you’re at it, let me know what themes you’d like us to consider for the 2008 Festival.
Highlights for me included the very lively and appreciative audience reaction to John Turturro’s ROMANCE AND CIGARETTES (especially the cheers when Gandolfini first broke out in song); 
David Edelstein’s great rapport with Tamara Jenkins in their post-film discussion of THE SAVAGES; the amazing musical performance by Brent Green, Howe Gelb, and Brendan Canty accompanying Green’s astonishing animations at the Gravity Lounge; the entire PETER PAN show at the Paramount, with its magnificent score by Donald Sosin and the Kid Pan Alley students;
the rapturous response to AUTISM: THE MUSICAL, and the appreciative comments by young Josh Tucker in the post-film discussion. Other pleasures included seeing home movies projected on the Regal Downtown screen (to the great delight of archivist Pam Wintle and film scholar Patty Zimmermann) and hearing people’s excited reactions to films I adore by Alan Berliner, Su Friedrich, Esther Robinson, Charles Burnett, and other guest artists.
Most of all, the heart and soul of this festival was Stewart Stern, who mesmerized children and adults with his memories of PETER PAN and conducted an unforgettable Shot-by-Shot Workshop on REBEL WITHOUT A CAUSE. 
Readers of my introductory essay in the Festival catalogue know that these two films, and the surprising synthesis of their visions in the mind of REBEL screenwriter Stern, inspired much of my programming. For a taste of what you missed, I suggest that you skip over to Rick Sincere’s blog, where he’s posted his video of Stern’s PETER PAN introduction.
P.S.
There’s a wonderful appreciation of filmmaker Alan Berliner’s visit to the Virginia Film Festival on Jonathan Chisdes’ film review website here. Also, David Edelstein has written two reports on his festival experience on his blog, The Projectionist, here and here.
November 13th, 2007 at 11:26 am
my suggestion would be
“21: Coming of Age”
Films could deal with
* rites of passage (can we show ‘Picnic at Hanging Rock’??) a rich vein for narrative and documentary film-making
* age of consent
* US’s dawning political responsibilities
* mature actors giving their finest performances in later years (imagine the possibilities for guest appearances)
* voting rights/conscription/civil liberties (if you can vote and be sent to fight, why can’t you buy a beer?)
Following on from the beer, as we are now 21, perhaps a subsection could be devoted to alcohol in the movies - it’s the 20th anniversary of “Cocktail”…
November 15th, 2007 at 9:18 am
Great festival, especially enjoyed The Killer Within and Macky Alston’s insights into violence. In light of our current national situation, how about an anti-war theme next year? “Stop the violins” with someone like Alan Alda? Music and war could be another angle. Historically, music was used to move men to war and to keep them on the battlefield, and there are some tremendous musical scores in war movies.
November 15th, 2007 at 2:51 pm
Thinking about ideas for next year. Would like to suggest 2 — POWER or WAR.
POWER in an election year… political power, power of the people, power as in energy and issues around that, alternative power, power of money and so on.
WAR - seems really like an almost unavoidable topic given the situation(s) we are in. There are so many amazing and moving docs around Iraq — looking at veterans, effects of war at home, how did we get there, etc. Not to mention the incredibly rich film history of WWII and Vietnam. Great media studies topic as well as a film topic.
November 16th, 2007 at 5:26 am
LOVE the previous poster’s idea for a Coming of Age theme for next year - consider this a seconding of that notion, please!
November 27th, 2007 at 7:26 pm
What about DATING? Good old fashioned romance. What the world needs now is love sweet love right?
March 30th, 2008 at 3:37 pm
Hello Richard, Just received this year’s theme…Very interesting! Of course a good sci-fi offering would be the Roeg film of Tevis’ novel THE MAN WHO FELL TO EARTH, but John Carpenter’s STARMAN was more audience-friendly and should have won an Oscar for Jeff Bridges. Lots of possibilities…THE INTRUDER with William Shatner? We’ll see you there, and thanks as always for the tremendous job you do!