Although there won't be a football game this weekend, the streets of Charlottesville will be packed as ever. Hundreds of filmmakers, writers, directors and tourists from near and far are expected to arrive throughout the course of the weekend to celebrate their love for cinema. Moviegoers from all over will have the chance to experience the unique advantages and talents that the Charlottesville and University communities have brought together to make this year's 22nd Annual Virginia Film Festival the most memorable yet.
This year's festival, the theme for which is "Funny Business," will be filled with a variety of entertaining and comedic films from around the globe ranging from "contemporary to classic, from shorts to features and from documentaries to dramas, comedies and more," the festival's new director Jody Kielbasa said. In other words, no matter how limiting your cinematic tastes may be, there will still be something for you. Staying true to the "funny" theme, several films will feature comedic elements as they work to illustrate how humor can expose politics in a variety of ways. Mr. Smith Goes to Washington (1939), Election (1999) and the recent documentary Locked Out: Massive Resistance (2009) are just a few examples of the different types of films scheduled this weekend.
Discussions will follow a number of these flicks as filmmakers and professors gather to reflect on the political implications presented by the films to better understand America's current political affairs. For example, the Festival's keynote speaker, Maria Battista - who is also a professor of English and Comparative Literature at Princeton University - will discuss comedy and politics in great depth as she examines how vintage American comedy responded to the Great Depression as well as how our current political state could benefit from a little comedy.
Other highlights of this year's festival include special guests Matthew Broderick, Cherry Jones and Alan Ball. Broderick will be attending the premier of Wonderful World. The dark comedy stars Broderick as the pessimistic character Ben - a failed children's folk singer and a less than extraordinary dad who comes to realize that his cynicism may be all a matter of perspective. The film will be followed by a question-and-answer session with the film's director Joshua Goldin, its producer Glenn Williamson and Broderick himself.
Another Broderick film, the cult classic Election, which also stars Reese Witherspoon, also will play this weekend.
Tony and Emmy award-winning actress Jones will present the festival's centerpiece screening of Mother and Child (2009), a complex drama focused on three women: a 50-year-old mother, the daughter she gave up for adoption at 15 and a black woman looking to adopt a child of her own. Written and directed by Rodrigo Garcia, the film boasts an all-star cast of Annette Bening and Jones alongside Naomi Watts, Kerry Washington and Samuel Jackson.
Alan Ball, academy award winning screenwriter of American Beauty and director of the HBO series Six Feet Under, will hold a panel to discuss his work on the popular vampire TV series True Blood.\nIn addition to watching films, students have the chance to create their own films as well. The Adrenaline Film Project, which is presented by the Festival, offers students an outlet to exercise their cinematic skills on a more public and professional level. The project is a 72-hour filmmaking competition in which 10 to 12 teams of three filmmakers must cast, shoot, edit and screen a film during the Festival. The finished films will be screened at 10 p.m. Saturday in Culbreth Theatre.
People often think film festivals translate into movies that the average person won't typically want to see because the films are just "too weird, too unfamiliar and too experimental" for our expected Hollywood tastes. So, although you may be reluctant to attend from fear of your incapacity to appreciate the experimental camera shots and confusing plot twists that are deliberately employed to infer some grand life-lesson that you really just don't want to think about during a Friday or Saturday night, do not fear - the Festival offers a movie for everyone. The ever-popular Monty Python and the Holy Grail (1975), American Beauty (1999), Pulp Fiction (1994) and Disney's The Little Mermaid (1989) are just a few films showing this weekend that should attract even the most novice moviegoers, especially since they will be playing on the big screen. If a 5-year-old girl can enjoy this year's film festival, so can you.
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