VIRGINIA FILM FESTIVAL WRAPS AN UNFORGETTABLE 38TH ANNUAL FESTIVAL WITH OVER 130 FILMS, 140 GUESTS

Hamnet Wins Audience Award for Best Narrative Feature
Come See Me In the Good Light Wins Best Documentary Feature

CHARLOTTESVILLE, VA – October 29, 2025 – The curtain has come down on the 38th Annual Virginia Film Festival that fascinated, entertained, and moved audiences for five remarkable days.

The 2025 Festival ran October 22-26, showcased 131 films, and welcomed over 140 industry guests, speakers, and discussants from around the world. The 2025 Festival saw 23,651 total attendances, with 47 events sold-out.

A palpable excitement was in the perfectly autumn-tinged air from the moment the Paramount Theater opened its doors Wednesday night for the hotly anticipated Springsteen: Deliver Me From Nowhere, starring Jeremy Allen White as the musical icon, and directed by Virginia native and VAFF Advisory Board member Scott Cooper.

Music also took center stage over the weekend, starting with special guest and Emmy Award-winning composer Nicholas Britell, who was on hand at the Paramount to accept the VAFF’s Achievement in Film Composition Award prior to a screening of Noah Baumbach’s Jay Kelly, starring George Clooney; and including an unforgettable appearance from Miles Caton, the 20-year-old breakout star of one of the year’s megahits, Ryan Coogler’s Sinners, which starred Michael B. Jordan.

Following the screening of Jay Kelly, Britell was interviewed onstage for a live taping of the acclaimed Awards Chatter Podcast, hosted by The Hollywood Reporter’s executive editor of awards coverage Scott Feinberg. Britell alternated between the interview chair and the piano to shed light on such unforgettable compositions as the theme to his Emmy Award-winning theme to the celebrated HBO series Succession, and his many collaborations with director Barry Jenkins, including Moonlight.

Caton accepted the VAFF’s Achievement in Film Music Award prior to a screening of Sinners on Saturday afternoon before taking the stage to talk about his unlikely and unexpected road from musician to film actor. Caton then put his star power on full display by electrifying the audience with a live performance of the film’s songs, “Travelling” and “I Lied To You,” which had a jam-packed audience of over 1,000 singing along.

The screening of Pep Banned, a documentary about the famed, and sometimes infamous UVA Pep Band, featured one of the Festival’s most enthusiastic crowds, filled with many former band members, who joined in an impromptu and emotional sing along when the film featured UVA’s unofficial anthem, “The Good Old Song.” Prior to the screening, Jody Kielbasa presented the Governor Gerald L. Baliles Founder’s Award to the film’s co-director and longtime Charlottesville-based filmmaker Chris Farina for his contributions to film in the Commonwealth.

VAFF Closing Night audiences were treated to a delightful evening featuring acclaimed filmmaker HIKARI, who received VAFF’s Breakthrough Director Award and charmed audiences from the moment she took The Paramount Theater stage. She later joined for a fascinating conversation about the origins of Rental Family, which stars Academy Award-winner Brendan Fraser as an American actor who lands an unexpected gig at a Japanese rental family agency that hires him to play stand-in roles in strangers’ lives.

This year’s Festival also featured the launch of a formal partnership with Turner Classic Movies, featuring special guest Ben Mankiewicz, prime-time host of TCM. Mankiewicz presented a pair of repertory screenings including The Sting, as well as The Ice Storm, which included a conversation with screenwriter James Schamus, who also accepted the VAFF’s Impresario Award for his accomplishments as the Co-Founder and CEO of Focus Features.

“This was a truly remarkable Virginia Film Festival in every way” said Jody Kielbasa, Executive Director of the Virginia Film Festival and Vice Provost for the Arts at the University of Virginia. “It was the immeasurable passion and excitement of our audiences that, for me, set this year apart. It was so clear that they responded to our remarkable program, so brilliantly curated by our outstanding Artistic Director Ilya Tovbis, and to the outstanding array of guests who offered an inside look at the true magic of cinema.”

Ilya Tovbis, Virginia Film Festival Artistic Director, added, “The 2025 Festival was everything we dreamed it would be, and so much more. We saw audiences dazzled by larger-than-life artistry of Frankenstein, overcome with emotion by Hamnet and Come See Me in the Good Light; and joyfully embrace one another at Rental Family. In between, they were riveted by conversations on cinematography with Evgenia Alexandrova after The Secret Agent, about the art of production design with Cara Brower after Hedda, and the screenwriting process with Jay Duplass and Michael Strassner of The Baltimorons.”

The winners of the 2025 VAFF Audience Awards are:

Narrative Feature: Hamnet
Documentary Feature: Come See Me In The Good Light
Narrative Short: Synthesize Me
Documentary Short: All the Empty Rooms

The winners of the 2025 VAFF Programmers Awards are:

Narrative Feature: Late Shift
Documentary Feature: Ghost Elephants
Narrative Short: Nervous Energy
Documentary Short: On Beyond Fences

Additional 2025 VAFF Award Winners included:

Achievement in Film Composition: Nicholas Britell (Jay Kelly)
Achievement in Film Music: Miles Caton (Sinners)
Achievement in Screenwriting: Jay Duplass (Writing for the Screen: The Baltimorons Way)
Achievement in Screenwriting: Michael Strassner (Writing for the Screen: The Baltimorons Way)
Breakthrough Director Award: HIKARI (Rental Family)
Chronicler Award: Jessica Hargrave (Come See Me In The Good Light)
Craft Award: Evgenia Alexandrova (The Secret Agent)
Craft Award: Cara Brower (Hedda)
Governor Gerald L. Baliles Founder’s Award: Chris Farina (Pep Banned)
Impresario Award: James Schamus (The Ice Storm)

Throughout the Festival, VAFF guests took time to interact with UVA students and community members through VAFF’s Connection Point program, which featured one-on-one meetings in the Festival’s Filmmakers & Sponsors Lounge. Several others participated in visits with UVA classes, including Evgenia Alexandrova, Cara Brower, Bill Platt, Rob Spera, and Scot Safon.

The Virginia Film Festival is a program of the University of Virginia.

The 2025 Virginia Film Festival is presented by The Joseph and Robert Cornell Memorial Foundation. The 2025 Virginia Film Festival is also generously supported by the following Premiere Sponsors: AV Company, Bank of America, The Doyle Hotel, Harvest Moon Catering, The Hollywood Reporter, Southern Environmental Law Center, UVA Arts & the Office of the Provost and Vice Provost for the Arts, Violet Crown Cinema, and Virginia Film Office. 

Press materials and images are available at virginiafilmfestival.org/news-press/media-inquiries.