Virginia Film Festival

Forman vs. Forman

Through a collection of archival footage, early interviews, and material from private archives, this nostalgic documentary…

Those Who Remained

In post-World War II Budapest, 16-year old Klara reluctantly lives with her great-aunt, desperately hoping her…

Big Fur

World champion Canadian taxidermist Ken Walker undertakes the biggest challenge of his career in this funny…

Default

Default turns the fallout of the 1997 Asian financial crisis in Korea into riveting entertainment. The film follows three storylines: Si-hyun’s shows…

Queer Love on Screen

The VAFF will present an episode from season three of Netflix’s Dear White People that follows a…

Sibyl

Tired of mundane sessions with her clientele, therapist Sibyl drops multiple patients and pursues her dream…

Ghostwriter

Screens before the feature film In Fabric Ghostwriter is a sweet short comedy about a writer who,…

Flop

Screens before the feature film Postal.  In this hilarious short film, a shy young man attempts to…

Crisis: Behind a Presidential Commitment

In June 1963, director Robert Drew’s camera crew followed President John F. Kennedy and his staff…

Western Stars

This music-fueled documentary offers audiences the opportunity to see Bruce Springsteen perform all 13 songs from…

Zombi Child

Beginning in 1962, this film focuses on the true story of Haitian man Clairvius Narcisse, who…

Rafiki

Tomboy and daughter of local politician, Kena, has always been “one of the guys.” Defying Kenya’s…

Oliver Sacks: His Own Life

A month after receiving a rare, terminal cancer diagnosis, acclaimed writer and neurologist Oliver Sacks sat…

The Kingmaker

Centering on the controversial political career of Imelda Marcos, The Kingmaker explores the Marcos family's improbable…

I Lost My Body

In a desperate attempt to get back to its body, an amputated hand escapes from its…

The Humorist

Set in the waning days of the Soviet Union, The Humorist is a portrait of a…

Grass

A young woman, Areum (Kim Min-hee, The Handmaiden) sits in the corner of a small café…

Ghost Town Anthology

The frigid, small Québécois village of Irénée-les-Neiges is ominously disrupted by the unexpected death of local…

Beanpole

In 1924 two women, Iya, a nurse, and Masha, a recently returned soldier, struggle to reassemble…

Best of Film at UVA

Visibility Cloak: 2019. USA. 8 min. Director: Kristen Barrett Jazmin struggles to stay afloat as a…

Atlantics

In a suburb of Dakar, Senegal, many souls have been lost to the sea in an…

Waves

Waves centers around the Williams, an upper middle class African-American family in suburban Florida, as they…

Marriage Story

Charlie and Nicole’s already strained marriage is further tested when Nicole secures a coveted acting role…

Food Place

Screens before the feature film It Started as a Joke. In this ensemble comedy, the ragtag…

Wax Paul Now

Screens before the feature film Olympic Dreams Three New Yorkers will stop at nothing to get…

What If Black Boys Were Butterflies?

Screens before the feature film Always In Season While other boys can enjoy a childhood of freedoms,…

Easter Snap

Screens before the feature film Burning Cane With a baited handling of American symbolism, director RaMell Ross…

Kevin Everson Short Films

From internationally renowned filmmaker and recent 24th Heinz Award in the Arts and Humanities recipient Kevin Everson…

VCUarts Cinema | The Real and the Unreal

What defines realism? How does non-realism fit in narrative cinema? The VCUarts Cinema Program aims to…

Short Films: Potpourri

One Pill at a Time: 2018. USA. 2 min. Director: Andrew Wilson One Pill at a…

Short Films: Refugees

Azadi: 2019. USA, Greece. 25 min. Director: Scott Lunt, Hanna Stawicki Featuring: Sakina Hashemi, Farahnaz Ahmadi,…

Short Films: Feeling Dramatic

Nana (Lullaby): 2019. Spain. 17 min. Director: Roger Villarroya Featuring: Alba García, Aina Clotet, Yann Labaye,…

Short Films: Lessons Learned

Rear View: 2019. USA. 17 min. Director: Steve Kniss Featuring: Timmy H. Barron, Callie Johnson, Bela…

Short Films: Looking at Ourselves, Looking at Others

The Special Athlete 2019. USA. 4 min. Director: Christina Anton, Graham Barbour Featuring: Chris Raupp, Lloyd…

You Don’t Nomi

The release of Showgirls in 1995, Paul Verhoeven’s salacious NC-17 look at Vegas dancers, was met with extreme…

The Wild Goose Lake

Mob boss Zhou Zenong desperately tries to stay alive after he mistakenly kills a cop and…

When All is Ruin Once Again

Using a subtle black-and-white visual tone, native Irishman and filmmaker Keith Walsh provides a deeply personal…

We Believe in Dinosaurs

America houses countless viewpoints and the acceptable methods of expressing them are consistently called into question.…

Trixie Mattel: Moving Parts

Trixie Mattel: Moving Parts captures the momentous rise of RuPaul’s Drag Race breakout queen Trixie Mattel. As the charming drag persona…

The Traitor

The Traitor tells the true story of Tommaso Buscetta, a man who brought down La Cosa…

We Are the Radical Monarchs

Over the course of several years, director Linda Goldstein Knowlton has followed the unexpected rise of…

Varda by Agnès

Photographer, installation artist, and pioneer of the Nouvelle Vague Agnès Varda returns with a characteristically bittersweet…

The Two Popes

One of the most shocking twists in modern Catholic Church history occurred in 2013 with the…

To the Stars

In a small town in 1960s Oklahoma, reclusive teen Iris endures the booze-induced antics of her…

Tehran: City of Love

Three downhearted individuals— an ex-champion bodybuilder, an overweight beauty clinic secretary, and a dispirited religious singer—long…

Swallow

Preceded by the short film Burp Hunter lives an idyllic lifestyle, tucked away in a glass house…

Synonyms

When Israeli twenty-something Yoav moves to Paris, France,he intends to rid himself of his nationality and…

The Spy Behind Home Plate

Jewish baseball player Morris “Moe” Berg appeared as an enigmatic and brilliant player in the Major…

The Sower

Preceded by the short film Copan En Espera. Amongst the mountains of Chiapas in Mexico,a rural multi-grade…

Southern Journey (Revisited)

In 1959 the noted ethnomusicologist Alan Lomax embarked on a road trip through the Southern States,…

The Song of Names

An emotional detective story spread over two continents and half a century, this deeply moving saga…

Song Without a Name

In a Peruvian clinic, a young woman gives birth to a healthy baby girl, only to…

Slay the Dragon

Gerrymandering, the process of manipulating the boundaries of electoral districts to favor one party, has long…

Sing You a Brand New Song: The Words and Music of Coleman Mellett

On February 12, 2009, at 10:17 PM, Continental Flight 3407 fell from the sky near Buffalo,…

Sesame Street

In celebration of the 50th anniversary of Sesame Street, join VPM PBS and the Virginia Film…

Sea of Shadows

When Mexican drug cartels and Chinese traffickers join forces to poach the rare totoaba fish in…

Queen of the Capital

Bureaucrat by day, drag queen crusader by night, Muffy Blake Stephyns has high aspirations. Muffy and…

Parasite

The Park Family is the picture of aspirational wealth. The Kim family is rich in nothing…

Primary

It is April of 1960, and John F. Kennedy and Hubert H. Humphrey are gearing up…

Postal

Preceded by the short film Flop. Phillip Tress lives in Jacksonville, Florida,and has decided to finally confess…

Portrait of a Lady on Fire

In eighteenth century France, the elusive Héloïse has rejected her mother’s previous attempts to commission a…

Port of Destiny: Peace

Port of Destiny: Peace recounts Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos’ path to peace in a transformative documentary…

The Pollinators

This cinematic journey follows migratory beekeepers and their mobilized colonies of honeybees around the United States,…

Parwareshgah (The Orphanage)

In Soviet-era Afghanistan during the late 1980s, 15-year-old Qodrat makes his living on the streets of…

Pain and Glory

Renowned director Salvador Mallo is facing the decline of his career. As he looks back on…

Pahokee

Ivete Lucas and Patrick Bresnan paint a detailed and astonishingly nuanced portrait of Pahokee, a small…

Nichimal Son (Blooming Music)

Screens before the feature film Artemio Evlia relocates to Zinacantán out of love for her husband and…

Olympic Dreams

Preceded by the short film Wax Paul Now After a disappointing finish in her event at the…

The Muppet Movie

Motivated to make his big break in Hollywood, Kermit the Frog decides to travel across America,…

Midnight Family

In one of Mexico City’s wealthiest neighborhoods, the Ochoa family operates a for-profit ambulance, competing with…

Mickey and the Bear

Mickey is a young girl living in Anaconda, Montana, with her unstable, unemployed, and uninvolved ex-Marine…

Motherless Brooklyn

In 1950s New York City, four former orphans make up The Minna Men, a makeshift private…

Little Joe

Alice is a single mother and committed plant breeder at a corporation involved with developing new…

Light House Studio Shorts

A nonprofit filmmaking center dedicated to teaching students self-expression through filmmaking, Light House Studio’s work has…

Kifaru

The northern white rhino species has long been in danger of extinction due to intense poaching…

Kelebekler (Butterflies)

After a traumatic event in childhood, siblings Cemal, Kenan, and Suzan left their village of Hasanlar…

Just Mercy

Bryan Stevenson, a young lawyer in Monroeville, Alabama, has dedicated himself to a case involving Walter…

Jojo Rabbit

A lonely German boy has his world view turned completely upside down when he discovers his…

Jaddoland

Director Nadia Shihab returns to her home in Lubbock, Texas,to visit her mother, an artist from…

I’ve Got Issues

Self-loathing, loneliness, death, discrimination, injustice, oppression, and the atom bomb, I’ve Got Issues is a unique comic…