Virginia Film Festival 2007 - Day One Photos

There's not a lot of time available at the moment to write about the first evening of the Virginia Film Festival. (It's coming on 4:00 a.m. and I am planning to see a screening of Luchino Visconti's Rocco and His Brothers at 10:00 a.m. -- just six hours from now.)

Fortunately, I did snap a few photographs on Thursday night, capturing images of the venue, the crowds, the celebrities, and the news media outside the Paramount Theatre in Charlottesville.

Here are a few pictures to whet your appetite for what a more extensive report to come later (probably after Election Day next week):

The marquee of the Paramount Theatre announces this year's Virginia Film Festival, which is competing for attention with Clint Black and a bus-and-truck company of Gypsy.

Festival patrons lined up for more than a block in the middle of the downtown mall to see Honeydripper, the new John Sayles film that was featured as the opening event.

Maggie Renzi (left), producer of Honeydripper, with her partner, John Sayles, who directed the film.

Richard Herskowitz (left), director of the Virginia Film Festival, with University of Virginia alumnus Sean Patrick Thomas, one of the many stars of Honeydripper.

WCAV-TV reporter Philip Stewart interviews Sean Patrick Thomas shortly before the screening of Honeydripper, outside the Paramount Theatre in Charlottesville.

Finally, here is a scene from Honeydripper, featuring Danny Glover as Tyrone "Pinetop" Purvis and Lisa Gay Hamilton as Delilah. (Photo courtesy Virginia Film Festival)

According to producer Maggie Renzi, Honeydripper opens in New York and Los Angeles on December 28. It will open in select cities (such as Atlanta and Chicago) for Martin Luther King weekend and go wide in February (on about 300 screens nationwide) in conjunction with Black History Month.