In an age when the movie moguls with the money run, hands covering eyes, from anything that could be considered controversial, Charlottesville is fortunate enough to boast several groups that succeed in bringing extraordinary films to the city's hungry eyes. In addition to the extensive video selection of Sneak Reviews, the seasonal events of the Virginia Film Festival Society and the yearly Virginia Film Festival's array of premieres, panels and screenings, Charlottesville can claim the University's OFFScreen as its own.
An entirely student-run organization, OFFScreen offers a slew of films each season that, while deemed commercially nonviable by major film distributors, remind audiences that there are indeed alternatives to "Kung Pow: Enter the Fist" and this week's big opener, "Crossroads." OFFScreen strives to bring to Charlottesville, via Newcomb Hall Theater every Tuesday, the films that are generally only screened in the super cities (Los Angeles, New York City) and the super festivals (Sundance, Cannes).
"OFFScreen brings us the range of film culture normally limited to major cities like New York and L.A.," said Richard Herskowitz, the director of the annual Virginia Film Festival and an OFFScreen enthusiast. "Students who love film would be crazy to pass these opportunities up."
OFFScreen was founded in 1998 and during its first few years of operation, the organization has brought us many and varied independent, foreign and classic films, like Jem Cohen's remarkable experimental documentary film, "Benjamin Smoke," as well as numerous visits by filmmakers, screenwriters and directors. The organization's selections help fill the hole left empty by Charlottesville's few multiplexes.
"OFFScreen is necessary because even though Charlottesville has a lot of great resources that most small cities don't have, a lot of smaller, independent films from the United States and foreign films end up slipping through the cracks," OFFScreen President Annie Wagner (pictured center) said. "The reason why those films don't come here is because of the way the film industry runs - smaller distribution companies don't have as much promotional power, so they can't get their films in as many theaters."
With such a large number of great films being made and not widely screened, OFFScreen has plenty to work with. This season's lineup is especially notable, showcasing high-caliber, largely unseen films spanning several languages, time periods and themes.
"OFFScreen is showing a lot of really fantastic films that you wouldn't have access to otherwise, films from a lot of different countries and sort of more experimental films," Wagner said.
In many of these films, controversial and disquieting themes surface. Catherine Breillat's "Fat Girl," for instance, portrays adolescent sexuality with the brutal honesty that most viewers are not used to. International documentary project "Trembling Before G-d," possibly OFFScreen's most anticipated film, explores the struggle of queer Orthodox and Hasidic Jews to reconcile their faith with their sexuality, and will be followed by a panel discussion with Religious Studies professors and local rabbis.
"This semester's selection is particularly edgy," Herskowitz said. "'Fat Girl' and 'Our Lady of the Assassins' and 'Happiness' are pretty disturbing films, not for the faint of heart."
Why are these films so disturbing? Because they aren't afraid to pick up viewers, take them for a ride and leave them somewhere else entirely - maybe on unfamiliar, shaky ground, maybe on no ground at all.
"Our Lady of the Assassins" is the Central American story of an aging homosexual writer falling for a hustler. The film combines absurdity and surrealism with unsettling elements of cinema verite.
Todd Solondz's "Happiness" creates a disturbing new world largely focusing on the dark side of human nature. It's human despair at its worst, painted with a tender palette of bizarre, vulnerable characters.
Other highlights of this semester's season include "Donnie Darko," which blew up at last year's Sundance Festival and whose filmmaker, Richard Kelly, will be in attendance; "Lumumba," a dramatic interpretation of a politically volatile true story; and "Together," a heartwarming, playful film about a Swedish commune in the '70s. Rounding out the lineup are Francois Ozon's fairy tale-inspired "Criminal Lovers;" the Charlottesville theatrical premiere of the 1957 Gillo Pontecorvo film "The Wide Blue Road;" and Todd Solondz's cult hit "Welcome to the Dollhouse." Each film is exciting, in and of itself. Together, the films form an impressive opportunity for viewers to expand their knowledge of film and of the world.
"Our organization seeks to educate people," Wagner said, "both culturally, in terms of gaining access to cultures and languages that they otherwise wouldn't have access to, and also through filmmaker visits, to actually learn about the mechanics of filmmaking and about the film industry in general."
The films in OFFScreen's spring series get little of the attention they deserve in the mass market. Few venues are provided for them, mostly due to anxiety of distributors too timid to venture off of safe ground, and consequently, few audiences are able to experience them.
"The film industry is trying to anticipate audience desires, and yet they're also creating them," Wagner said. "That's frustrating, because a film like 'Together' is going to be really accessible to an enormous audience, and it's just not going to get wide distribution because distributors are nervous about showing a subtitled film. That's the way it is, and that's really unfortunate. There are ways to get around that. Art-house theaters are one of them. Student film organizations like OFFScreen are another."
"Fat Girl" will be showing tonight in Newcomb Hall Theater at 7 p.m. and 9:30 p.m. Tickets are available for three dollars at the Newcomb ticketbooth.
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