In East Wyndam, Massachusetts, the enviable lives of young married couples intersect in the playgrounds, community pools, and streets of their small town in hidden and potentially dangerous ways. Sarah (Winslet) has a PhD in English literature and is still coming to terms with living in the suburbs and raising children. She hangs out with, but does not connect to, the other suburban moms (women who can declare a spa treatment “an intense spiritual experience”) and views her shallow neighbors as sociological specimens instead of peers.

Those moms, in turn, are more interested in Brad (Wilson), a stay-at-home dad and former athlete whom they refer to as “the Prom King”. Brad, married to Kathy (Connelly), a striking PBS documentary filmmaker, is unenthusiastically anticipating taking the bar exam for the third time. Partly out of intrigue, and partly just to shake up her neighborhood, Sarah begins a flirtation with Brad that unexpectedly leads to steamy sexual trysts during their children’s “nap time”.

The genuine peccadilloes happening in their neighborhood remain largely unnoticed by the community members more focused on the imagined deeds of a sexual predator who has been released from prison and now lives nearby with his mother. As the story unravels, so do the lives of these reckless characters, only to slowly intertwine again. Even Brad’s wife finds herself in a book club with Sarah, her husband’s secret lover, who feels compelled to defend the title character of Madame Bovary.

Strong performances from all the actors, crisp cinematography, and sure-handed direction create an involving and eccentric tale. Little Children is an intriguing study of morality, small town paranoia, and the hunger for passion and meaning in uncontrolled lives.

In 1996, with producer Lori McCreary, Freeman formed his own production company, Revelations Entertainment, with the express aim to “develop and produce projects that enlighten, express heart and glorify the human experience”. Not content with just producing Hollywood hits such as Along Came a Spider and Under Suspicion, Freeman recently formed a second production company, ClickStar, in partnership with high tech chip maker Intel, to offer original films for direct download. The first offering from that company, 10 Items or Less, starring Freeman and directed by Brad Silberling, will screen at this year’s Virginia Film Festival.

Angels, his first feature film shot in and around Charlottesville and featuring many local talents, previewed to great acclaim at the 2004 Virginia Film Festival.

The Stone Carvers, his 1984 portrait of the Italian American artisans who carved the gargoyles and statues of the Washington Cathedral, received both Emmy and Oscar awards; in 1998, he earned another Emmy for A Paralyzing Fear: the Story of Polio in America, a documentary he produced about America’s scientific and cultural conquest of polio; and Out of Ireland earned a Sundance Documentary Grand Jury Prize in 1995.

Since the 1980s, Wagner has directed documentary films for the Smithsonian Institution about old-time medicine shows, museum education, family traditions, fishmongers, Southern pottery, the U.S. Postal Service, the Columbian Quincentenary, and anthropological rituals around the world. He served as executive producer for films on the history of insane asylums and on the French novelist Marcel Proust, both broadcast nationally on PBS. He has co-authored two books, both companion volumes to his documentary films, Out of Ireland and A Paralyzing Fear: the Triumph Over Polio in America.

Paul Wagner has been awarded many grants from the National Endowment for the Arts, the National Endowment for the Humanities, the D.C. Humanities Council, the D.C. Commission on the Arts and from the Southeast and Mid-Atlantic Media Fellowship Programs. In addition to the Oscar and the Emmy, his films have won many regional Emmy Awards, CINE Golden Eagles, the Irish Silver Harp Award, Blue and Red Ribbons from the American Film Festival and the Grand Prize from the National Educational Film Festival.

The 2006 Virginia Film Festival is honored to welcome back Paul Wagner and to premier The God of a Second Chance, his latest feature documentary about religion, race, poverty, drugs and sensuality in an inner city neighborhood of Washington DC.

The indie wunderkind (with a reputation for playing off-beat characters) graduated to big-time studio releases as one of the kidnappers in Ron Howard’s Ransom (1996) and later that year, essayed the role of accused killer Cotton Weary whose mere look inspired fear in Wes Craven’s blockbuster Scream (a role he reprised twice in Scream 2 and 3). The end of that decade found the actor even more in demand as he took roles in higher profile features alongside such Hollywood heavyweights as Dustin Hoffman and Sharon Stone in Sphere; Gene Hackman, Susan Sarandon, and Paul Newman in Twilight; Alan Arkin and Robin Williams in Jakob the Liar, and Diane Lane and Viggo Mortensen in A Walk on the Moon.

The succeeding years have found the actor very much in demand both on screen and on stage. In 1998, he was again onstage in Central Park in the dual role of the god Jupiter and the villain Iachimo in Cymbeline, for which he received a 1999 Obie Award. while the following year saw him star as Hamlet at the New York Shakespeare Festival. In 1999, Schreiber’s deft performance in RKO 281 as Orson Welles, the similarly brilliant young actor and filmmaker who gave us Citizen Kane, earned him an Emmy nomination. In 2000, he made a compelling Laertes in Michael Almereyda’s modern-day film version of Hamlet and supported Oscar-winners Kevin Spacey and Helen Hunt in Pay It Forward.

Every year since then has seen the actor in a successful Hollywood feature or returning with acclaim to the stage. In 2005, Schreiber secured a Tony for his performance in Glengarry Glen Ross, Joe Mantello’s high-octane revival of David Mamet’s play. Later that year, the actor made his feature screenwriting and directing debut with Everything Is Illuminated (screening at this year’s Virginia Film Festival), adapted from the critically-acclaimed novel by Jonathan Safran Foer, about a young American Jew’s journey to Ukraine to find the woman who saved his grandfather during World War II.

With growing demand for his sonorous voice in documentaries, Schreiber continues to offer his talents to successful stage and screen productions. In the summer of 2006, he played the title role in Macbeth opposite Jennifer Ehle at the New York Central Park’s Delacorte Theater. A film version of W. Somerset Maugham’s The Painted Veil, in which Schreiber co-stars with his real-life romantic companion Naomi Watts (King Kong), is currently in production for release later this year.

“The Lord is good to all; and his tender mercies are over all his works” (Psalm 145:9)

Robert Duvall reunited with his old friend, screenwriter Horton Foote (To Kill A Mockingbird) to portray Mac Sledge, a has-been country singer who, at the start of this story, has hit rock bottom. He awakens from a drunken stupor, alone and without money, at a remote roadside Texas motel run by a young war widow, Rosa Lee (Tess Harper).

Australian Director Bruce Beresford (Breaker Morant) crafts the film with a clear appreciation for small town life and values. The story does not build so much as it unfolds; Mac and Rosa Lee marry, he becomes a surrogate father to her young son, he attempts to reconcile with his own daughter (a very young Ellen Barkin), and, in time, through the love of God and good people, the creative spirit inside of Mac re-awakens. There is nothing overt about Mac’s transformation; no Hollywood romance, no miraculous conversion, no storybook ending. The baptismal scene, when re-born lovers emerge fresh from the water, wide-eyed and optimistic about their future together, is one of the more quietly moving moments ever commited to film.

Tender Mercies is about redemption, restoration and hope. Duvall provides another fine portrait of a stoic yet complicated soul fighting the demons of his own making. His low-key and laconic performance is quietly echoed in the film’s unwinding narrative and long shots of bleak, open landscapes that lend a naked beauty to the screen. The skies lean heavily on the people and plains of east Texas. Mac Sledge appears to be the central character, but you may find yourself relating more closely with Rosa Lee as she slowly learns to understand, then care for, then respect this man who has altered her life.

The film was nominated for five academy awards and won two: Best Actor for Duvall and best Original Screenplay for Horton Foote.

Chris Hansen’s “unlikely documentary”Â? follows Brian (Dustin Olson), a balding, unemployed, thirty-something nebbish who believes that he is a messiah. Not the messiah, Brian persistently reminds the unseen documentary filmmaker (played by the director), but a regionally-selected messiah for a “100-mile radius.”

Brian’s delusions of grandeur are supported by his worshipful brother Aaron and concerned sister Miriam, who recognizes Brian’s problems but seeks to prevent him from harming himself. The story focuses on a brief interlude in Brian’s career as he arranges to announce himself and his “higher purpose”, which has something to do with dental hygiene and helping people, at his town’s civic center.

The film follows Brian as he seeks to raise money to rent the civic center and to pay for t-shirts with a humorously garbled message designed to promote his appearance. Brian’s attempts at fundraising include a fee-for-baptism service at a nearby beach and door-to-door spirit cleansings. Brian and his two “disciples” find themselves in the home of someone who needs a messiah’s services to drive out unwanted — and apparently invisible — guests, producing a remarkable scene in which Brian is forced to confront another soul with similar delusions.

At times hilarious and other times touching, this mockumentary follows a man who so wants to be special that he’s willing to put everything else in his life on hold in order to be so. This particular “Life of Brian” is a cheery and thoughtful mockumentary for the true believer, one who is ready to receive the good word that religious faith can be, well, as funny as hell.

“Everyone is entitled to their own opinion, but not to their own facts.” — Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan

Dr. Randy Olson, former evolutionary biologist turned filmmaker, returned to his home state of Kansas, Ground Zero in the “Intelligent Design vs. Evolution” debacle, to explore the origin of this particular species of specious argument. A Flock of Dodos (so named, presumably, because Battle for the Planet of the Apes was already taken) is a feature-length and partially animated documentary which fairly and judiciously examines both sides of the public argument.

Befitting his Harvard education under Stephen Jay Gould, Dr. Olson approaches the issue from the hall of science, not the temple of faith. He wishes to explore why “Intelligent Design” (ID), a thinly-vieled repackaging of Creationism recently described by a federal judge as “breathtaking inanity”Â?, appears to be gaining traction in the U.S.

In Olson’s view, it is not, as the ID proponents might have you believe, because there is any crisis of self confidence in the evolutionary field. Quite the opposite; evolutionary scientists are so profoundly certain of their reasoning that they become both dismissive and arrogant when confronted with opponents of their scientific principles.

ID advocates, by contrast, find their cause bankrolled by a massive and resourceful Seattle-based advocacy group called the Discovery Institute and fronted by affable and articulate spokepersons. Instead of arguing outright against evolution, these experienced media managers have tapped into the atmosphere of political correctness and carefully crafted public relations strategies to push their agenda, offering bumper-sticker phrases (”Teach the Controversy”) to imply that there are other valid theories out there besides evolution, and that evolution is an imperfect theory that cannot account for everything.

This disparity –the bombastic and overbearing scientists against the smiling and sincere supporters of ID –marks the academics as the imperiled Dodos of the title … flightless birds that became extinct after failing to adapt to a changing environment.

An “ambitious, topical satire”Â? (Variety), G.I. Jesus targets the exploitation of immigrant soldiers and the psychological costs of the Iraq war, among other social issues. Jesus Feliciano (Joe Arquette) is a Mexican immigrant who joins the U.S. military to become a legal citizen of the United States (an actual Bush administration recruitment policy). After returning from a tour of combat in Iraq, Jesus is shocked to find how much his Mexican wife and daughter have changed in his absence. He watches his American dream turn into a nightmare as he struggles to hold his family together in a country obsessed with materialism and conspicuous consumption.

Racked by flashbacks and visions, Jesus is haunted by an Iraqi soldier named Mohammed (naturally) that only he can see. “I killed a lot of people just to be legal”, laments Jesus, as he learns that the true cost of the war is to his own psyche.

Filmmaker Carl Colpaert chronicles an ethereal journey of one man’s struggle to let go of the pain and agony suffered during war in order to return to his promised life, while examining broader political issues of wartime propoganda, our twisted attitude toward immigration (you can’t become a citizen of this country unless you go kill people in another country), and the profound effects of war on our nation and the world.

Shot on High-Definition video, with actual Iraq battle footage cut in, the film offers a probing examination of soldiers trying to better themselves and their families, but shameful of what they’ve seen, done and have become in the process. Provocative, intelligent, and funny, G.I. Jesus makes a strong case for crossing the border in the opposite direction.

Terry Lindvall’s interactive presentation looks at the energy and spectacle of religious fervor in African-American church life as portrayed in film. Less of a lecture and more of a dialogue, Dr. Lindvall (C. S. Lewis Chair of Communication and Christian Thought at Virginia Wesleyan College) will present film clips while fielding questions from and interacting with the audience. How do these films tease out the particular practices of various Church traditions? How do they capture both the practice of true Christian faith and its hypocritical shadows in the communities of saints who are also sinners? How do these films stereotype religious rituals and embalm them in the understanding of audiences? Where do these films fail to represent vital aspects of various religious believers?

Stylistic moments of excess, passion, justice, and music lead to a rich portrayal of the abundant expression of African-American Christianity throughout film history. From King Vidor’s first all-black melodrama, Hallelujah (1931), through Tyler Perry’s hilarious but devout Medea series (Diary of a Mad Housewife, 2005), Dr. Lindvall leads us on a tour through the charismatic black spirituality of the “invisible Christianity” as portrayed on the silver screen.

Terry Lindvall, a great scholar of silent comedies, animated films, and religious cinema, has long been one of the VFF’s most popular and entertaining speakers. As C.S. Lewis Chair of Communication and Christian Thought at Virginia Wesleyan College, Dr. Lindvall is uniquely qualified to offer shrewd analysis of the treatment of Christianity in film and the interaction of film and religion generally. He may be best known for his studies of humor in both film and religion, and for his own lively sense of humor in his books and lectures.

Hollywood, Teach Us to Pray examines how Hollywood teaches the Cinematic Arts to fold hands and pray. Dr. Lindvall’s clip lecture provides both an overview of the portrayals of this sacred ritual as well as a romp through some favorite and obscure films that illustrate what Hollywood filmmakers have seen as both pious and hypocritical practices of a segment of their audience that they don’t completely understand. This interactive presentation encompasses a broad visual history of images of prayer in over 40 films, from the silent classics of Chaplin, Keaton, Pickford and Fairbanks to Bride of Frankenstein, Nightmare on Elm Street, Cold Mountain, and Million Dollar Baby. Cinematic representations of prayer, in drama, comedies, westerns, and horror films, have constructed their own ways and words of praying to a culture given to prayer.