By all accounts,
Cool was a tremendous success. The response from participants and spectators to the theme, as well as the films and discussions that elaborated it, was highly enthusiastic. Festival attendance continued to rise over previous years, reaching
10,636 attendees, a 5% increase over 1997.
Fifteen sell-out performances contributed to the excited atmosphere, and audiences responded to these programs, including premieres of
Thirteen, Melting Pot, Conceiving Ada, and
Me and Will, with ovations. Film Festival audiences demonstrated their adventurousness by also packing houses and responding enthusiastically to the works of legendary experimental media artists
Ken Jacobs,
Carolee Schneemann, and
Sadie Benning.
As usual, discussion ruled at the Virginia Film Festival, and the 73 speakers addressing the 66 films in the program tackled the Cool theme from a multitude of perspectives. The most fascinating discussions were the panels in the Expanded Festival. Many of these were organized by Festival cosponsors, including the Bayly Art Museum, the Carter G. Woodson Institute, the Curry School of Education, the University Library and the student-run Film and Media Society. A panel on Hip Irony gave Roger Ebert, Mark Edmundson, Thomas Frank, and Ray Carney an opportunity to unearth some of the more disturbing dimensions of movie "cool," and ideas from this panel circulated throughout other sessions. The panel of legendary Beat artists sharing their perspectives on the role of The Art of Spontaneity was rich and unforgettable, as was the stimulating range of perspectives among the filmmakers on the Filming Rebel Women panel. The thoughts of Festival guests will not be allowed to disappear, since the panels were recorded for a book due out next summer.
The most electrifying events were the film, music and poetry performances -- A Beat Generation Reunion and A Chaplin Evening. David Amram, Ed Sanders, and Diane di Prima blended their music and poetry beautifully, and Amram was particularly inspiring in espousing the Beat sensibility and dazzling the audience with his musicianship. Rick Benjamin and his Paragon Ragtime Orchestra gave the packed house at Culbreth a night to remember with their wonderful accompaniments to three Chaplin classics. The Film Festival was, more than ever, a multi-arts festival. Even the documentary/drama hybrid Thirteen spilled off the screen into a memorable live performance, as the film's composers (Cecil Hooker, Carlos Garza, and Shep Williams) entertained the audience at a post-film reception. They were, of course, joined by the irrepressible David Amram; he joined the musicians at the Sprint party at Edgehill on Saturday night as well. The live music, including the Charlottesville Swing Orchestra's performance at the Bayly Gala on opening night, helped make the Festival's parties the best in years.
Thirteen, made by Richmond filmmaker David Williams, was a revelation to many, including Roger Ebert, who devoted his nationally syndicated weekly column to the film. Ebert, whose return to the Film Festival after a year's hiatus was a great relief to devoted fans of his shot-by-shot workshops, brilliantly dissected Blowup with his students' help, and then devoted another newspaper column to the insights that emerged. Reports on this year's Film Festival reached an unusually wide range of international newspapers and magazines, including the International Herald Tribune and The Hollywood Reporter. The greatest amount of attention was given to the visits of Rip Torn and Arthur Penn, with wire service coverage picked up by many newspapers, as the Festival's tributes coincided with a broadening popular interest in their work.
The University of Virginia and the Student Arts$ program continue to perform a great service for the University community and the broader public through their partial subsidies of the Film Festival. Their contribution, however, is nearly matched by the combined gifts of corporate and private donors and government agencies. This year, both the City of Charlottesville and Albemarle County gave sizable grants to the Film Festival, rewarding it for contributions to tourism, economic development and community celebration. Primary sponsors Sprint, TNT, the Independent Film Channel, and Regal Cinemas (which, along with Metrotech Services and Vinegar Hill Theater, drew widespread praise from guests for their high quality of theatrical presentation) led the list of supporters on our honor roll.
Richard Herskowitz
Director, Virginia Film Festival
1998 Virginia Film Festival Wrap-Up