Virginia Film Festival

Fremont

Due to unforeseen circumstances, Anaita Wali Zadi, is no longer able to join us for this…

Scrapper

Grand Jury Prize Winner, World Cinema Dramatic | 2023 Sundance Film Festival  In this vibrant and…

Fashion Reimagined

Part of Fashion Revolution Week Screening followed by a panel discussion For Amy Powney, the creative…

Boots Riley Presents I’m a Virgo

Screening followed by a Q&A with Boots Riley, moderated by A.D. Carson, assistant professor of Hip-Hop…

The Sky is Very Pretty

Screens before the feature film MOM. Mothers and daughters flee their country of origin and pass…

Mom

Preceded by short film THE SKY IS VERY PRETTY US Premiere | Pre-Festival Event | Free…

Bad Axe

Audience Award Winner, SXSW  At the start of the 2020 pandemic, documentarian David Siev left his…

Hot off the Presses: New Books on Cinema from UVA Professors

Three UVA professors with newly published books on international cinema share short presentations about their scholarship.…

Mom

US Premiere Mom is a documentary exploring the emotionally turbulent conversation between a son and his estranged…

To the End

To the End follows four intersecting stories of courageous women of color—Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Varshini Prakash, Alexandra Rojas,…

Light House Studio Shorts

For over 20 years, Light House Studio has helped Charlottesville youth tell their stories through film. With…

A Suite of Short Films by Kevin Jerome Everson

Gospel Hill (co-directed Claudrena Harold, 2023) has two Black University of Virginia hospital employees talking about the…

The Lost King

For years archaeologists presumed the remains of King Richard III had been scattered over 500 years…

Corsage

Official Oscar© Selection—Austria 2022 Cannes Film Festival, Winner: Un Certain Regard, Best Performance, Vicky Krieps Empress…

Orlando

30th Anniversary Screening | 30th Anniversary Celebration of Sony Pictures Classics Sally Potter’s bold re-working of…

Making It – Film Industry Career Panel

Three early mid-career filmmakers with very different paths to success in the film industry share their…

The Power of Media, Storytelling, and The Muppets of Sesame Street

Featuring Sesame Workshop President Sherrie Westin in conversation with Marshall Persinger (VAFF Board) For more than…

From Page to Screen—Screenwriter’s Panel

Oscar-winning Screenwriter Dustin Lance Black (Milk) and Oscar-Nominated Screenwriter Meg LeFauve (Inside Out) discuss the art…

She Said

From Director Maria Schrader comes an ode to investigative journalism in one of the most well-reported…

Women Talking

After several newly uncovered counts of sexual abuse rock a tight-knit, isolated Mennonite community, a group…

The Smell of Money

The overwhelming stench of pork products is infiltrating the air of eastern North Carolina. The Smell…

The Lives Between the Lines

World Premiere This intimate, powerful film documents the inspiration for and construction of the Memorial to…

Klondike

Official Oscar© Selection—Ukraine | Best Director Award Winner, 2022 Sundance Film Festival Klondike tells the story…

Portraits From A Fire

Tyler, an eccentric and lonely teenager, spends his days Vlogging (video blogging) his Indigenous community and…

Lady Chatterley’s Lover

Lady Chatterley (Emma Corrin, The Crown), a wealthy young woman born into a life of immense…

Empire of Light

CLOSING FILM Academy Award-winning Director Sam Mendes (American Beauty, 1917) presents a love letter to the…

Devotion

Set in the Korean War, Devotion captures the tale of the U.S. Navy's first Black aviator, Jesse…

Good Night Oppy

In 2003, NASA sent Opportunity, a robotic rover, to Mars for a planned 90-day mission. Fifteen…

Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery

OPENING NIGHT FILM Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery is the thrilling, star-studded standalone sequel to…

Descendant

2022 Sundance Film Festival, US Documentary Special Jury Award Winner Three miles north of downtown Mobile,…

Bardo, False Chronicle of a Handful of Truths

Official Oscar© Selection—Mexico The latest film from five-time Academy Award-winner Alejandro González Iñárritu (Babel, Birdman, Amores…

2022 Opening Night Gala

21+ Event Join us for the start of the Virginia Film Festival at the Opening Night…

2022 Late Night Wrap Party

21+ Event Before the credits roll on the 35th annual Festival, join us at the Late…

Smooth Talk

Suspended between carefree youth and the harsh realities of the adult world, a teenage girl experiences…

Saint Omer

Grand Jury Prize Winner, 2022 Venice Film Festival The groundbreaking narrative debut from acclaimed documentarian Alice…

Pasang: In the Shadow of Everest

Director Nancy Svendsen captures the inspirational and ultimately tragic tale of Pasang Lhamu Sherpa’s journey to…

Tug of War

Official Oscar© Selection—Tanzania Denge is a revolutionary fighting for freedom from British colonial rule in his…

Short Films: Oh, The People You’ll Meet!

Program followed by Q&A with filmmakers from Runaway (director Eric Hurt, producer Jack Steinberg, producer Ty…

Short Films: It Only Takes Two

Program followed by Q&A with filmmakers from Home of the Brave (Ian Michael Welfley), Father Figure…

Powerlands

Ivey Camille Manybeads Tso is a young Navajo filmmaker investigating the displacement of her ancestors and…

Imagining the Indian: The Fight Against Native American Mascoting

Imagining the Indian: The Fight Against Native American Mascoting chronicles the movement to end the use…

Short Films: All You Need Is Love

Program followed by Q&A with filmmakers and subjects from Tuning René Marie (Polina Buchak, Rachel Kessler,…

Ten Months

Mirae seemingly has everything going for her. She is a game engineer for an ambitious start-up,…

Mama’s Boy with Dustin Lance Black

Adapted from Black's memoir Mama's Boy: A Story from our Americas, this retrospective documentary chronicles the…

Lowndes County and the Road to Black Power

Emmy Award-winning directors Sam Pollard and Geeta Gandbhir combine first-hand accounts with striking archival footage to…

The Inspection

Inspired by writer-director Elegance Bratton’s own true story, The Inspection follows the journey of a young…

Heaven: To the Land of Happiness

Nam Sik, a meek hospital worker, desperately needs a costly medicine to treat his terminal illness.…

The Five Devils

Joanne and Jimmy live in a small, foggy village in the French alps with Vicky, their…

Eternal Spring

Official Oscar© Selection—Canada In March 2002, the outlawed spiritual group Falun Gong hijacked a state TV…

Close

Official Oscar© Selection—Belgium | 2022 Cannes Film Festival, Grand Prize Winner Thirteen-year-old neighbors Léo and Rémi…

Broker

2022 Cannes Film Festival Best Actor Winner, Song Kang-ho Hirokazu Kore-eda presents a humanistic, humorous, and philosophical…

All that Breathes

As masses of birds fall from the smog-filled skies of New Delhi amid environmental distress and…

All the Beauty and the Bloodshed

Golden Lion Winner, 2022 Venice Film Festival Academy-Award winning documentarian Laura Poitras (Citizenfour) chronicles the internationally…

Alcarràs

Official Oscar© Selection—Spain | Golden Bear Winner, 2022 Berlin Film Festival For as long as the…

After Sherman

Filmmaker Jon Sesrie-Goff travels to his minister father’s birthplace in Coastal South Carolina in the aftermath…

Vaychiletik

Vaychiletik (Dreams) tells the story of José Pérez, who the gods have granted the gift of…

Utama

Official Oscar© Selection—Bolivia Virginio and Sisa, an indigenous elderly couple living in the Bolivian highlands, have…

Under the Fig Trees

Official Oscar© Selection—Tunisia A group of teenagers in rural northwest Tunisia spend a summer working in…

Turn Every Page: The Adventures of Robert Caro and Robert Gottlieb

The story of a friendship that spans five decades, this informative documentary explores Robert Caro and…

Straighten Up and Fly Right

Kristen (Kristen Abate) is a 20-something New Yorker, dreams of being a writer while making ends…

Stay Awake

Ethan and Derek are two brothers who are on the cusp of adulthood, yet leaving home…

Songs About Love

US Premiere A bittersweet black-and-white film about a young musician searching for his path in life,…

The Son

Hugh Jackman stars alongside Academy Award®-winners Laura Dern and Anthony Hopkins as a man whose life…

Scarlet

In a time of dramatic change, World War I veteran Raphaël returns to his village in…

Salvatore: Shoemaker of Dreams

In the early 20th century, a young, impoverished Italian cobbler sailed from Naples to the United…

Refuge

Deep in the American South, Clarkston, Georgia, is a small rural town reminiscent of a United…

Nosferatu

100th Anniversary Screening w/Live Music A genre-defining film for the ages, Nosferatu celebrates its 100th anniversary…

My Father’s Dragon

FAMILY CENTERPIECE SCREENING Based on the beloved 1948 Newberry Award-winning children’s book, My Father’s Dragon is…

Mama Boy

Xiao-hong, a painfully shy, almost thirty-year-old fish store employee, lives alongside his control-freak mother, Meiling, who…

Living

The year is 1953. London is still rebuilding from the devastation of World War II, and…

Liquor Store Dreams

Preceded by short film GOOD BOY. Liquor Store Dreams follows director So Yun Um and her…

The Levys of Monticello

After his death in 1826, Thomas Jefferson left behind a mountain of personal debt, forcing his…

Karaoke

Karaoke follows Meir and Tova, a middle-class couple in their 60s who are getting tired of…

Huesera

Best New Narrative and Nora Ephron Prize Winner, 2022 Tribeca Film Festival After years of trying…

The Hole in the Fence

A group of boys from a prestigious Mexican private school attends an exclusive summer camp designed…

Headwaters Down

Once considered the most polluted waterway in the United States, the James River is no stranger…

Hazing

Byron Hurt explores the history and culture of hazing, a widespread, far-reaching practice that has long…

Hard Shell, Soft Shell

Az is a hopelessly romantic (or just hopeless?) twenty-something oyster farmer, plying his trade in the…

Godland

San Sebastian Film Festival Winner, Zabaltegi-Tabakalera Jury Award Upon arrival to the Danish colony of Iceland…

From Sudan to Argentina

World Premiere When the construction of the Aswan High Dam threatened to destroy the Ancient Egyptian…