Virginia Film Festival

VAFF and Violet Crown Charlottesville Announce Next Three Titles for 2018 Year-Round Film Series

by Sarah Cain on July 18, 2018

VAFF and Violet Crown Charlottesville Announce Next Three Titles for 2018 Year-Round Film Series

Charlottesville, VA – July 18, 2018 – The Virginia Film Festival has announced three additional films for its 2018 VAFF at Violet Crown film series, presented in partnership with Violet Crown Charlottesville.

The Virginia Film Festival is a program of the University of Virginia, with support from the Office of the Provost and Vice Provost for the Arts.

The newly-announced titles for the VAFF at Violet Crown series include El Inca (August 21); Grace Jones: Bloodlight and Bami (September 18); and A Polar Year (October 16). All screenings in the series will start at 7:30 PM, and tickets will be available one month prior to the screening date at violetcrown.com.

El Inca is a tragic love story based on the life of the great Latin American boxer and undefeated two-time World Boxing Champion Edwin “El Inca” Valero. A charismatic boxer from the Venezuelan Andes, Valero fights around the globe, putting on larger-than-life shows and defeating his rivals with powerful knockouts. Yet as his professional star rises, Valero’s insecurities send his personal life spiraling out of control as infidelity and drug addiction ultimately make him the victim of his own excesses and countless fears.

Grace Jones: Bloodlight and Bami shines a spotlight on this larger-than-life entertainer, androgynous glam-pop diva, and unpredictable media presence. Director Sophie Fiennes’s film is an electrifying journey through the public and private worlds of the pop culture mega-icon, contrasting musical sequences with intimate personal footage, and all the while, brimming with Jones’s bold aesthetic. Going beyond the traditional music biography, the film offers a portrait as stylish and unconventional as its subject. It takes us home with Jones to explore her Jamaican roots through visits to the recording studio with long-time collaborators Sly & Robbie and glimpses backstage at gigs around the world, showing Jones as a lover, daughter, mother, and businesswoman. Yet the focus returns frequently to the stage, where Jones delivers eye-popping performances of her greatest hits and provides a treatment that is every bit as genre-bending as its subject.

A Polar Year is a documentary from French filmmaker Samuel Collardey about Anders, a novice primary school teacher who leaves his native Denmark for a teaching position in Greenland. As soon as he arrives in Tiniteqilaaq, a remote costal village of only 80 inhabitants, Anders finds himself at odds with tightly-knit Inuit locals. Only through a clumsy and playful trial of errors can Anders shake his Euro-centric assumptions and connect with the school children in a meaningful way. Collardey’s film combines striking images of the beautiful snow-covered landscape of Greenland alongside intimate scenes of everyday life in the small village.

The VAFF at Violet Crown series will take a break in November for the 31st Virginia Film Festival and then wrap up in December with a reprise screening of a Festival favorite, to be announced.

The Virginia Film Festival will celebrate its 31st year from November 1-4, 2018.  For more information, visit virginiafilmfestival.org.