From the Archives: Va. Film Festival to feature politicians from Goldwater & LBJ to Nixon & Bush

Publisher's note: This article was originally published on Examiner.com on October 7, 2014. The Examiner.com publishing platform was discontinued July 1, 2016, and its web site was scheduled to go dark on or about July 10, 2016.  I am republishing this piece in an effort to preserve it and all my other contributions to Examiner.com since April 6, 2010. It is reposted here without most of the internal links that were in the original.

Va. Film Festival to feature politicians from Goldwater & LBJ to Nixon & Bush

Actors Jenna Elfman, Jasmine Guy, Hal Holbrook, Frank Langella, Richard Roundtree, and Patrick Wilson; novelists David Baldacci and Adriana Trigiani; directors Victor Levin, Barry Levinson, and Scott Teems; producers Katie Couric, Julie Lynn, and Paul Junger Witt; and political figures Andrew Card, Marlin Fitzwater, Barry Goldwater, Jr., and Skip Humphrey – these are among the filmmakers and celebrities who will appear at the 2014 Virginia Film Festival in Charlottesville to discuss their works and careers.

Festival director Jody Kielbasa announced this year's program at an October 7 press conference held at the historic Jefferson Theater. After the formal announcement, he spoke with the Charlottesville Libertarian Examiner about documentaries and other films that will be screened during the weekend of November 6-9 at a variety of venues in downtown Charlottesville and on the grounds of the University of Virginia.

Holbrook/Twain
Among the documentaries, Kielbasa singled out “Holbrook/Twain: An American Odyssey, which I think is an incredible documentary.” Hal Holbrook, who has been performing as Mark Twain for 60 years, will offer a special performance of his award-winning one-man show, Mark Twain Tonight, and also offer comments about the documentary film.

Kielbasa also mentioned that “41 on 41 is coming in as part of the Berlin Wall series in association with the Miller Center.” That film, he said, looks at “41 different people who comment on our 41st president, George H.W. Bush. Obviously,” he added, “some of that discussion will wrap around the Berlin Wall, as well.”

The Berlin Wall series – marking the 25th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall and the beginning of the collapse of the Soviet Empire – includes five films, a mix of fiction and non-fiction. The five are Dr. Strangelove, a 1964 Academy Award nominee directed by Stanley Kubrick; Red Army, a documentary about Soviet ice hockey players; Walesa: Man of Hope, Polish director Andrzej Wajda’s biopic about Nobel laureate Lech Wałęsa; German director Wim Wenders' fanciful Wings of Desire; as well as 41 on 41.

“For people out there who are not aware,” Kielbasa explained, “this year the University of Virginia was loaned four original panels of the Berlin Wall. They're encased in glass in front of the Alderman Library. I'm also responsible for a series of programs over an eight-day period leading up to the 25th anniversary” of the wall's destruction, “which actually happens on November 9, the last day of the Virginia Film Festival.”

Presidents and Elections
In conjunction with the UVA Center for Politics, the festival will present the premiere of Bombs Away: LBJ, Goldwater and the 1964 Campaign That Changed It All, followed by a panel discussion featuring former California Congressman Barry Goldwater, Jr., and former Minnesota Attorney General Skip Humphrey. The film, Kielbasa said, takes “a fascinating look at Goldwater and LBJ and that incredible election and everything that was going on leading up to 1964.”

The Miller Center for Public Affairs is sponsoring a screening of Frost/Nixon, Ron Howard's film of the award-winning play about the interviews of Richard Nixon conducted by British TV host David Frost. Afterward, Frank Langella, who played Nixon in the film, will talk about his experience with historian Ken Hughes.

Kielbasa, now in his sixth year as festival director, also pointed to two major films made in Virginia that will be shown at the festival.

Big Stone Gap
“Our world premiere, the opening night film,” he said, is “Big Stone Gap, which was filmed entirely on location in Big Stone Gap, Virginia, and is about that community.” That screening will include a panel discussion with writer/director Adriana Trigiani as well as several of the stars of the film.

The other high-profile made-in-Virginia film, he added, “is Wish You Well, based on the novel by David Baldacci.” Baldacci will be on hand to discuss the film, which is a coming-of-age story set in 1940s Virginia.

Kielbasa is also excited that director Barry Levinson will be at the Festival to discuss his latest film, The Humbling (starring Al Pacino) as well as his 1989 film, The Natural (starring Robert Redford).

“I know that film gets played a lot,” he explained, “but to able to listen to Barry Levinson talk about the making of that film should be extraordinary and, quite frankly, people consider it one of the best sports movies ever made.”

The 27th annual Virginia Film Festival will also screen a number of likely Oscar contenders, including The Imitation Game, Foxcatcher, Wild, and Mr. Turner.

“These are incredibly high-profile films,” Kielbasa said, “and in most cases we'll be screening them anywhere from two weeks to two months in advance of their general release.”

SUGGESTED LINKS

Porn king Larry Flynt defends free speech in Charlottesville
Library of Congress collects pornographic films, violent video games
Filmmaker Stanley Nelson on ‘Freedom Riders,’ the news media, and civil rights
Virginia Film Festival to include documentaries on Kennedy, Nixon, Santorum
Jody Kielbasa previews political movies in 2012's Virginia Film Festival

Original URL: http://www.examiner.com/article/va-film-festival-to-feature-politicians-from-goldwater-lbj-to-nixon-bush

From the Archives: Virginia Film Festival features classics, documentaries, and Larry Kramer

Publisher's note: This article was originally published on Examiner.com on September 29, 2015, about one month before the Virginia Film Festival opened in Charlottesville.  The Examiner.com publishing platform was discontinued July 1, 2016, and its web site is scheduled to go dark on or about July 10, 2016.  I am republishing this piece in an effort to preserve it and all my other contributions to Examiner.com since April 6, 2010. It is reposted here without most of the internal links that were in the original.

Virginia Film Festival features classics, documentaries, and Larry Kramer

America's civil rights movement is the focus of several documentary films that will be screened at the 2015 Virginia Film Festival, while festival director Jody Kielbasa is pleased to host “change agents” among the event's speakers and panelists.

Kielbasa spoke to the Charlottesville Libertarian Examiner on September 29, after announcing this year's festival program at the Jefferson Theater. The 28th Virginia Film Festival will take place over the weekend of November 5-8.

This year's documentaries make up “a really interesting mix,” Kielbasa said, ranging from Selma: The Bridge to the Ballot, presented in partnership with the UVA Center for Politics, to “films that are made by film makers here, like Monroe Hill,” which looks at local Charlottesville history, and Polyfaces, a documentary about Virginia farmer-activist Joel Salatin, “made by two Australian film makers – go figure!”

“The fascinating thing about the documentaries that we screen,” Kielbasa added, “are the opportunities to engage with the local populace on topics and subject matter that really resonate and are important to this community.”

Civil rights chronicle
Another film with a civil-rights theme is Stanley Nelson's recent release, The Black Panthers: Vanguard of the Revolution.

“When you look at the work that [Nelson has] done,” Kielbasa explained, including films like “Freedom Riders and then last year's Freedom Summer and now The Black Panthers,” one can see how Nelson has been “chronicling the history of the civil rights movement in our country. It's extraordinary to be able to screen these films.”

The Virginia Film Festival will also screen Bound: Africans versus African Americans, directed by Kenyan-born Peres Owino, and Aviva Kempner's Rosenwald, which will be presented as a tribute to civil-rights leader and former University of Virginia professor Julian Bond, who died this summer. Director Kempner, poet Rita Dove, and Bond's widow, Pamela Horowitz, will speak on a panel following the film's screening.

“We lost Julian Bond this past year,” Kielbasa noted, “and we have a film that focuses on his having gone through one of Julius Rosenwald's schools as a young man [and] the impact that that had on his life.”

The film also includes figures like Washington Post editor Eugene Robinson and other individuals who were educated in Rosenwald schools “and the impact that that's had on their lives,” he added.

“To me,” he said, “that's really significant.”

In addition to these documentary films, the Virginia Film Festival will include screenings of The Maltese Falcon and D.W. Griffith's Birth of a Nation, curated by special guest Leonard Maltin. There will also be appearances by actress/director Meg Ryan, director Oliver Stone, and novelist/playwright Larry Kramer.

'Change agents'
Kielbasa described Kramer as one of the “change agents” whose appearances on the Virginia Film Festival stage make the festival nearly unique.

Kramer, he said, is “a gentleman who started screaming at the top of his lungs in the early 80s when nobody would pay attention to the AIDS crisis. He wrote this phenomenal play [The Normal Heart] that suddenly made it, somehow, almost acceptable to care and accessible to an audience out there. Suddenly the dynamic began to change, entirely through his kind of activism, his 'angry man' kind of activism – but at that point somebody had to get the attention of our country and the world. And he was responsible for a lot of that.”

Kielbasa also pointed out how both the quality and quantity of films made in the Commonwealth or by Virginia film makers have improved over the past six years that he has been the festival's director.

He said “the number of high quality films that are coming to us all the time that were made here or made by Virginians is extraordinary.”

Featuring over 100 films, the 2015 Virginia Film Festival will include screenings at several new venues, including the Violet Crown cinemas on the downtown mall and the former Vinegar Hill theater. Tickets go on sale through the film festival's web site on Friday, October 2.

SUGGESTED LINKS

Gov. Terry McAuliffe touts Virginia film industry at Charlottesville movie fest
Library of Congress collects pornographic films, violent video games
Porn king Larry Flynt defends free speech in Charlottesville
Filmmaker Stanley Nelson on ‘Freedom Riders,’ the news media, and civil rights
Va. Film Festival to feature politicians from Goldwater & LBJ to Nixon & Bush

Original URL: http://www.examiner.com/article/virginia-film-festival-features-classics-documentaries-and-larry-kramer