Nestled in Charlottesville during one of the most beautiful times of the year, in one of the state’s most scenic cities, the Virginia Film Festival offers a chance to sample the darlings of other festivals, mix with visiting artists and unearth undiscovered gems. I will be there for the festival’s 37th year, drinking coffee, weaving in and out of restaurants and bookstores and watching movies.
To give you and myself a head start, I perused the fest’s schedule for movies that I’d like to see, with a few thoughts on a handful of selections that I’ve already seen. Bear in mind that this list is in no way complete, and you can check full listings at the Virginia Film Festival’s home site. The festival runs from Oct. 30 through Nov. 3 at various venues.
Editor’s note: The festival guests include actor Matthew Modine, appearing at a 40th anniversary screening of “Birdy,” and actress Mikey Madison, rising star of festival opener, “Anora,” as well as Oscar-nominated director Joshua Oppenheimer (“The End”) and Richmond native and VCU-grad Steve West, longtime drummer for Pavement, who will be in discussion after a screening of the Alex Ross Perry film “Pavements.”
“Blitz” (Steve McQueen)
Part of me feels like I’ve already seen a movie about the bombing of London during World War II as directed by Steve McQueen. It sounds like one of those perfect and inevitable weddings of prestige and awards potential. I’m not the biggest McQueen admirer, but he is an ambitious and occasionally quite forceful director, and his lead here is the often stunningly vivid Saoirse Ronan.
“A Traveler’s Needs” (Hong Sang-soo)
Veterans of my yearly lists may recall my preoccupation with the films of South Korean director Hong Sang-soo, and so it’s nice to see a local festival spotlight his work. “A Traveler’s Needs” is not among Hong’s better recent efforts, but it still illustrates his empathy as well as his ability to juggle a variety of dramatic moods and tones.
“A Real Pain” (Jesse Eisenberg)
Eisenberg and Kieran Culkin play odd-couple cousins who visit Poland to honor their grandmother. At least one cheeky critic suggested that this film is “Sideways” with concentration camps in place of vineyards. That’s not fair but it’s not entirely inaccurate either. I’ve seen it, and it’s … fine. Culkin’s poignant and committedly insufferable performance—think Roman from “Succession” only even more obnoxious—is the centerpiece that will make or break “A Real Pain” for you.
“Presence” (Steven Soderbergh)
This one has a fun gimmick, telling the story of a haunted house with the camera assuming the point of view of the ghost. Soderbergh has been a slump for a few years now, as his low-budget high-concept doodles are all starting to feel the same, except for “Magic Mike’s Last Dance,” which is among the worst movies of his career. Will “Presence” be the beginning of Soderbergh’s third or fourth renaissance as a director? Probably not, it sounds like another doodle, but one should never count him out.
“The Seed of the Sacred Fig” (Mohammad Rasoulof)
I’ve been hearing good things about this political thriller for a while now, which follows a man in Tehran who turns against his family when he suspects them of being responsible for the disappearance of his gun. Sounds like a volatile collapsing of the political and the personal, which is something in which Iranian imports often understandably tend to specialize.
“All We Imagine as Light” (Payal Kapadia)
This Cannes award-winner is also riding a sea of rapturous reviews. Sounds like a symphony of landscapes driven by the stories of two Mumbai sisters of contrasting personalities, and the people in their orbit. The trailer suggests an ineffable tone poem, which can either be interminable or profound. Time will soon tell.
“Pavements” (Alex Ross Perry)
With his intense and acerbic micro dramedies, Perry was setting himself up as the possible heir apparent to John Cassavetes. Then he went missing in action after releasing his greatest film to date, the staggering 2018 rock-n-roll addiction drama “Her Smell.” Well, now he’s back with what sounds like a meta docu-fiction whatsit about the band Pavement. Advance word is strong, and Perry will be on hand at the festival [Editor’s note: Three members of Pavement went to University of Virginia, and two are native Virginians, Bob Nastanovich and Steve West; the latter will join a discussion following the screening].
“Wilfred Buck” (Lisa Jackson)
In this case, I was struck by the festival synopsis: “Wilfred Buck – a beloved spiritual guide and effervescent Elder from the Cree nation – is known best for his extensive ancestral knowledge of the sky and the stars. A science facilitator for the Manitoba First Nations Education Resource Centre, his life’s work has been translating science into the language and lore of Indigenous astronomy that has endured for generations.” Sounds like a potentially promising immersion into a topic about which I know nothing.
“Eephus” (Carson Lund)
A recreational baseball game for aging adult men stretches into the night as the guys put off reckoning with the field’s encroaching demolition. I’ve seen this film, which is directed by a former colleague at Slant Magazine, and it is a singular blend of wryness and poignancy, of docudrama and absurdist comedy. Imagine if Richard Linklater and Frederick Wiseman (who has a voice cameo) had collaborated on an adaptation of a story by Raymond Carver. Don’t sleep on this one: Lund is a major new voice.
“Christmas Eve in Miller’s Point” (Tyler Taormina)
A traditional-sounding holiday-themed movie, concerning what may be the last Christmas in a storied house for a Long Island family in the early aughts, has been imbued by its filmmakers with unusual poignancy. “Christmas Eve in Miller’s Point” is a movie of many extremes and contrasts. At times, it is broad enough for “National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation,” while at other times it has the stylistic sizzle of a Martin Scorsese film. Elsewhere, it is so achingly beautiful as to suggest a cinematic snow globe. “Eephus” director Carson Lund edited this one. Again: watch these guys.
“The Room Next Door” (Pedro Almodóvar)
As someone who considers recent death-obsessed melodramas like “Pain & Glory” and “Parallel Mothers” to be among Almodóvar’s best films, I am impatient to see what he does in his English-language feature debut, “The Room Next Door.” The film features Tilda Swinton and Julianne Moore as long-time friends brought together by what IMDb calls a “strange but extremely sweet situation.”
“The Last Showgirl” (Gia Coppola)
I am also curious to see what Pamela Anderson, who has been getting the retrospective icon treatment from the media the last few years, does with her most significant role since 1995’s disastrous “Barb Wire.” The logline says that the film follows “a showgirl who must plan for her future when her show closes after a 30-year run.” Sounds like a found object casting stunt, but those can bear resonant fruit, a la the casting of Mickey Rourke as a symbolic version of himself in the 2008 film “The Wrestler.”
The 37th Annual Virginia Film Festival runs from Oct. 30 to Nov. 3 in Charlottesville, Va. Visit the festival website for more information.
