Author: SeanTubbs

Mark Remes is the director of the Virginia Production Alliance. He dropped by the filmmaker’s lounge at Escafe to talk about the services the organization provides to the state’s video and film production industry.

Andrew Bell is the senior historian at the University of Virginia’s Center for Politics.  During this year’s festival, he introduced Primary, Robert Drew’s documentary about the 1960 Democratic primary in Wisconsin. The ground-breaking film was screened as part of the festival’s Six from ’60 series.

Harry Chotiner is what you might call a friend of the Virginia Film Festival. For six years now, the NYU professor of film criticism has been traveling to Charlottesville to present lectures on key films being screened at the festival. Harry stopped by the filmmaker’s lounge at Escafe on the downtown mall to talk with Sean McCord.

One of the big hits of the documentary circuit this year is the Parking Lot Movie, which was shown at this year’s Virginia Film Festival. Director Meghan Eckman dropped by the filmmaker’s lounge at Escafe on the downtown mall to talk with Sean McCord about making the film, marketing the film, and what comes next.

The woman who voiced Belle in the Disney film Beauty and the Beast has come to Charlottesville as part of the 2010 Virginia Film Festival. The film is showing at 10:30 on Saturday at the Paramount Theater. Paige O’Hara dropped by the filmmaker’s lounge at Escafe on the downtown mall to speak with Sean McCord about the new re-release of the film.

For years, Randall Stith has been coming to Charlottesville to introduce screenings at the Virginia Film Festival. This year, the director of Visual & Broadcast Communications at Virginia Tech was in town to present two films. In this podcast, he discusses both Burning in the Sun and The Apartment.

Burning in the Sun is a documentary about the nascent industry of solar panel construction in Mali, where Stith served as a peace corps volunteer in the 70’s. The Apartment is a classic Billy Wilder film starring Fred MacMurray and Jack Lemmon. Stith talks about the two films, and what he hopes to see as the festival continues.

Academy Award winning producer Mark Johnson has brought two items to this year’s Virginia Film Festival.

Don’t Be Afraid of the Dark is a horror film starring Katie Holmes and Guy Pearce that was written and co-produced by Guillermo del Toro. It screens at 9:00 PM on Saturday at the Paramount Theater.

Johnson will also provide live commentary for an episode of AMC’s Breaking Bad, which will screen at 11:00 AM on Sunday at the Culbreth Theatre. He is one of two executive producers of the program, along with Richmond native Vince Gilligan.

Chris Farina, the director of World Peace and Other Fourth-Grade Achievements, dropped by the filmmaker’s lounge at Escafe to speak with Sean McCord about his film. It will screen Sunday at 3:15 PM at the Paramount Theater.

Director Stanley Nelson’s documentary Freedom Riders will be screened at the Culbreth Theatre at the University of Virginia tonight at 6:00 PM. Sean McCord spoke with Nelson about the film and his career as a documentary filmmaker.

For this 23rd annual Virginia Film Festival, an effort has been made to showcase the work of local filmmakers and students. Sean McCord has the story from the filmmaker’s lounge at Escafe on the downtown mall. He speaks with the gallery manager Yasminca Wilson and Elizabeth Webb, a third-year-student in film professor Kevin Emerson’s class at the University of Virginia.

The Digital Media Gallery is located on the downtown mall and is open through Sunday.

This is the fourth in a series of podcasts from the Virginia Film Festival. In this installment, we talk with the directors of two short films that are screening at 11:30 AM on Saturday at Newcomb Hall Theater as part of a block called “We Called, You Answered.” The interviews were conducted in the filmmaker’s lounge at Escafe on the downtown mall.

Sean McCord spoke with Josiah Bultema (Night Drive) and Kamal John Iskander (Jesus Comes to Town).

This is the third in a series of podcast interviews from the 2010 Virginia Film Festival. Over the next few days, Sean McCord will be speaking with actors, directors, screenwriters and others who have traveled to Charlottesville for the 23rd annual festival.

This year an emphasis has been placed on Virginia films, and Sean spoke with Andy Edmunds of the Virginia Film Office.