The Virginia Film Festival

Spencer Tracy is a one-armed stranger come to a desert town to deliver an important package, only to find hostility, suspicion, and a deep secret. Director John Sturges makes great use of CinemaScope to tell an intimate story on a grand scale. Charlottesville High School tickets are generously sponsored by the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences.

Rainer Werner Fassbinder’s classic updates Sirkian melodrama to 1970s Germany. Elderly Emmi marries Ali, an Arab guest worker, and both face social ostracism. The film is both a biting social commentary and a deeply introspective piece of self-reflection.

Executive produced by new Arts and Sciences Dean Meredith Woo, this documentary examines the lives of some 180,000 individuals of Korean origin forcibly relocated by Joseph Stalin from the Eastern provinces of Russia to the unsettled steppe country of Central Asia.

The Academy’s choice for Best Picture in 1961, West Side Story transplants the classic tale of Romeo and Juliet to the streets and ethnic tensions of New York in the 1950s. While rival gangs battle for dominance, an unlikely and powerful romance ignites.

Lucia Gaja’s fiery documentary examines the incarceration and trial of Mexican immigrant Rosa Jimenez for a charge of murder that appears almost certainly false. Intertwining footage of Jimenez’s trial with interviews of inmates facing similar situations, Gaja takes a scathing look at the Texas judicial system.

Luis Buñuel’s feature, made at the tail end of his Mexican period, is a masterful, subversive meditation on the nature of Christianity. Beautifully lensed by frequent Buñuel collaborator Gabriel Figueroa, the film charts the inevitable hardships of a Mexican priest attempting to live the life of Christ.

Film Festival Fellow Hamid Naficy and Film Festival Executive Director and UVa Chair of Media Studies Andrea Press chair a discussion panel with guest speakers from the Festival program.

Director Alejandro González Iñárritu and screenwriter Guillermo Arriaga confound expectations with this fractured narrative connecting four stories from four different corners of the world. In the remote sands of the Moroccan desert, a rifle shot rings out - detonating a chain of events that will link an American tourist couple’s (Kate Blanchett and Brad Pitt) frantic struggle to survive, two Moroccan boys involved in an accidental crime, a nanny illegally crossing into Mexico with two American children, and a Japanese teen rebel whose father is sought by the police in Tokyo. Babel was nominated for Best Achievement in Directing, Best Screenplay, and Best Motion Picture of the Year at the 2007 Academy Awards.

Filmed across 12 countries and 9 languages, Parvez Sharma’s brave documentary approaches the Muslim faith through a most unlikely set of eyes: those of its gay and lesbian adherents.

Documentary filmmaker Renee Tajima-Peña scours America in search of answers regarding the media’s stereotypical Asian-American, and in the process finds a wide variety of individuals who break every mould. Followed by Tajima-Peña's short film, Skate Manzanar.

The Wrestler follows the path of over-the-hill professional wrestler Randy “The Ram” Robinson. The character is played by Mickey Rourke with unfathomable depth and power, as he wallows through a painful post-fame existence. Drawing from two decades of his own personal struggles, Rourke delivers a career-defining performance. Director Darren Aronofsky’s handling of actors has never been better, as evidenced not only by Rourke, but by Marisa Tomei and Evan Rachel Wood, who also deliver work on par with anything in their careers, respectively starring as Robinson’s stripper girlfriend and estranged daughter.

Filmed over the course of 23 years, acclaimed cinematographer Ellen Kuras and Thavisouk Phrasavath's film traces a family’s journey from war-torn Laos to the streets of New York.

Adrift, immersed, imagined, skeptical, mysterious, or matter of fact, this evening's constellation of fleeting films and videos is a jewel net of diverse approaches to the known and unknown forces that describe our world. Includes films by Joseph Cornell, James Whitney, Hollis Frampton, Jeanne Liotta and others. ART$ Dollars cannot be used for this event.

Director Rodrigo García, son of Latin American writer Gabriel García Márquez, returns to the big screen with this exploration of romance and intrigue under the shadow of death. After a plane crash, a young therapist, Claire (Anne Hathaway), is assigned by her mentor (Andre Braugher) to counsel the flight's five survivors, whose personalities have all undergone drastic changes. As they share their recollections of the incident Claire becomes intrigued by Eric (Patrick Wilson), the most secretive of the passengers. When the survivors suddenly go missing Claire suspects that Eric may hold the key to the truth about what happened.

Winner of the Cassavetes Award for best low-budget feature at this year’s Independent Spirit Awards, Chris Eska’s feature follows an aging undocumented farm worker named Jaime and his young, widowed daughter-in-law, Lupe, as their lives are thrown into upheaval.

Three idiosyncratic works from the Brothers Kuchar: Death Quest Of The Ju-Ju Cults by Mike, Blips and Ascension Of The Demonoids helmed by George. These mid-period underground films (ranging from 1976 to 1985) find the two defiantly producing ambitious sci-fi spectacles with no money or taste, but plenty of style. ART$ Dollars cannot be used for this event.

Dev Patel stars as Jamal, a young man who, using the knowledge of a life’s education in the school of hard knocks, strikes it big on the Indian version of Who Wants to be a Millionaire?, and is then subsequently arrested as a fraud. The film cuts between Jamal’s television appearance, his interrogation at the hands of Indian police who refuse to believe he didn’t cheat his way to a win on the show and, most crucially, scenes from his youth on the streets. Boyle presents a fully realized vision of slum life; alongside the unspeakable tragedies which occur daily are the genuine bonds of friendship and moments of humor which exist among those who must cope with the life they’ve been dealt.

Zoe Brock is a self-professed MySpace addict from Australia who embarks on a quest to physically encounter her virtual friends, and explore with them the nature of contemporary friendship. The result is a rich exploration of contemporary social networking, its sources and effects.

Ming Ding (Charles Jang), an illegal immigrant working for a Chinese take-out shop in Manhattan, encounters countless apartment dwellers who simply see him as an anonymous and faceless delivery boy. Employing a neo-realist style, the film follows Ming across the social and economic extremes of an upper Manhattan neighborhood.