We have chosen a theme for the 21st Virginia Film Festival, taking place October 30 – November 2 and it is Aliens!, exploring “cinema’s fearful and alluring images of immigrants, outsiders, and extra-terrestrials” (you can read the full press release here). Sci-fi aliens will certainly be landing in our theaters, but the primary focus will be on the otherness of immigrants in countries, including ours, conflicted about their role as “host.”

A film like The Brother From Another Planet by last year’s VFF guest John Sayles makes the alien/immigrant connection clear and would be a perfect selection (although I’m also open to less explicit sci-fi allegories!).

I’m very interested in the kind of films our visiting Festival Fellow Hamid Naficy calls “accented” in that their filmmakers’ styles and subjects reflect a double consciousness of their native and host societies (among Naficy’s examples are Atom Egoyan, Mira Nair, and Luis Bunuel). And films about immigrants and outsiders will be welcome…including new work on the illegal immigrant debate, such as the work-in-progress by the Virginia-based filmmakers at the YouTube channel 9500 Liberty.

What other titles, guests, and events should I consider? Post your suggestions by sending a reply here, and help me program a great and timely festival.

KIN FLICKS is over. I’ve got some highlights of my own to mention, and photos by Festival photographer Jack Looney to share in this posting. But I’d love to know what events were highlights for you, and I encourage you to send comments to this blog. While you’re at it, let me know what themes you’d like us to consider for the 2008 Festival. {More}

We’ve just put out our final announcement, and slotted three more films in the 2007 Film Festival program. John Turturro will be our featured guest on November 3 at the Paramount with his rude and remarkable new musical on marriage and infidelity, Romance and Cigarettes. The following morning, he will screen his first impressive directorial effort, Mac, in which Turturro plays a working man whose ambition destroys his family ties. We’re also announcing the scheduling of Sony Classics’ extraordinary new animated feature, Persepolis, about an Iranian girl’s coming of age, and the addition of actor Sean Patrick Thomas as a special guest joining John Sayles and Maggie Renzi with Honeydripper.

You can click on the schedule tab above to see the full program. Over the next few days, we’ll be adding more substantial information on each film, including film trailers, so come back to find out more.

In the meantime, my recommendation is that you go to the News Release below or here for a guide to help you navigate through the deluge of films. The release explains the structure of the program, such as the seven “Focus On” filmmakers (including Tamara Jenkins) whose works are woven through it. It also highlights the major premieres and guests, including opening night guests John Sayles and Maggie Renzi with Honeydripper, Nick Broomfield with Ghosts, Charles Burnett with Killer of Sheep, and the world premiere of Hoop Reality (the title lost its plural form yesterday, according to producer Lee Caplin). {More}

The festival program will be unveiled here on Friday, and our online box office will open here as well. I promised to reveal some of our featured artists ahead of time, though, and I’ve been remiss. {More}

I promised to report back from the Toronto Film Festival. Actually, I’m still reeling from the 27 films I watched last week. {More}

On October 5, the full KIN FLICKS program will be unveiled (along with a new design) on this site. Between now and then, however, I’m planning to reveal the identities of featured artists every week on this blog. {More}

I ran off to the Tribeca Film Festival last Thursday night. Now here I am, 23 films later, ready to report for blogging duty. Those 23 films include seven shorts, plus three feature selections I watched on my laptop on the bus, after downloading them thanks to Tribeca’s partnership with the amazing new Jaman service. I’m not sure my fellow passengers were as thrilled by the flicker effects of Ken Jacobs’ RAZZLE DAZZLE as I was. {More}

A suggestion came in today that we show Su Friedrich’s film about her father, Sink or Swim and Alan Berliner’s film about his dad, Nobody’s Business. Friedrich also made a film I love about her relationship with her mother, The Ties That Bind. {More}

Thanks for all the tips. There are more suggestions pouring in than I received last year, and I’m relieved that the theme is going over so well.

Here are some reactions to your thoughts…… {More}

It’s 2am and I just got back from the Film Festival’s first annual Pre-Oscar Bash. I announced the 20th annual Film Festival’s new theme, KIN FLICKS, and dates, November 1-4, 2007. The press release should be up on our website shortly with more information about the kinds of family films and films about families (The Shining, Joshua) and film families (The Wilsons, The Fondas, the Rossellinis, etc.) we’re looking for.

This blog is now re-open for business, and I need suggestions, for titles, guests, and sidebar events (art exhibits, musical performances, etc.). Last year’s blog sparked a lot of great programming ideas I would not have had otherwise. {More}

The festival is over, and I have only a few more revelations to offer. {More}

We found God….or at least the guy who plays Him in the movies, and announced today that Morgan Freeman is coming to the festival on October 27. It has turned into quite a lineup of featured actors this year. {More}

Our new website is now up, along with the preliminary press release about the REVELATIONS program. What do you think? Thank you, Rick Montoya, for the divine poster design and Category 4 for the website improvements.
{More}

The pressure’s on to finish most of the programming. The Preview Guide copy has to go to the designer, Rick Montoya, on August 10. So I met yesterday with our writer, Sean McCord, to hand him a batch of titles to begin writing up. Usually, we drop in a lot of fake blurbs and give ourselves until early September to replace them with newer titles …but I’ve got this program mostly figured out. Some of the invited films have already announced their participation. Chris Hansen’s very pleased to have his Proper Care and Feeding of an American Messiah in the program, and I’m pleased we can present his hilarious and well-executed faux documentary. Avid readers of this blog will surely recognize Chris as a serial commenter here, but I swear his compliments didn’t sway me. {More}

I’ve watched a LOT of movies these past few weeks. Like last year, the new documentaries on our theme are really strong, and there are going to be a lot of them in the program. Others have noted that the inadequacy of the mainstream news media is inspiring a renaissance of independent documentaries addressing social issues. Among the documentaries that could show up in our program are Jesus Camp, Deliver Us From Evil, Jonestown, Keep Not Silent, A Flock of Dodos, God of a Second Chance, and Iraq in Fragments.
{More}

I’ve been picking up the pace on my programming lately, and have made two trips—to L.A. to consult with members of the Festival’s well-connected Advisory Board and, now, to Vassar College, where I’m participating in the Robert Flaherty Film Seminar. {More}

The program is coming together. A great Cecil B. DeMille silent with musical accompaniment at the Paramount….and a prominent Iranian video artist on display at a local gallery…and the recipient of the Virginia Film Award has accepted our invitation. Unfortunately, there’s a restraining order from our publicist preventing me from naming names prematurely. {More}

A couple of other films I caught in San Francisco have potential as REVELATIONS titles. Stanley Nelson’s new film Jonestown recounts the descent of a seemingly enlightened, integrated church and its minister into isolation and suicide. I can’t say that Jonestown helped me understand Jim Jones, although I understood more about the utopian vision that attracted his followers. Aleksandr Sokurov’s The Sun also showed an all-powerful leader, Emperor Hirohito, whose religious authority led many to their deaths. However, this Sun God had the sense, for his defeated country’s sake, to renounce his divinity; the multidimensional performance by Issei Ogata paints an unforgettable portrait of a pathetically oblivious and yet strangely admirable leader. This is the most accessible Sokurov film I’ve ever seen, and I hope it gets an American release. {More}

I’ve been here since Friday. Alongside fellow jurors Marian Masone and Ed Arentz, I’ve seen ten of the eleven films vying for the $10,000 SKYY prize, which we’ll hand out on Wednesday night at the Golden Gate Awards. The films are all directors’ first features, drawn from all over the world.
{More}

Ever attentive to your suggestions, I did snag a copy of THE ROOT OF ALL EVIL and will try to watch it next week, on my flight to the San Francisco Film Festival. The festival’s new Executive Director, Graham Leggat, who is impressing everyone out there, is an old friend, and he invited me to be a juror. I’m proud to say I gave him his first film job about fifteen or so years ago. I knew it would get me a free trip to SF if I waited long enough.
{More}

The programming suggestions that came in as comments to my first posting are terrific, and I want MORE. First, I’m going to comment on the comments. {More}

Today, we’re announcing the theme of the 2006 Film Festival—“REVELATIONS: Finding God at the Movies.�? Over the next few months, I’ll use this blog to solicit suggestions for films and guests and also share behind-the-scenes reports about the program’s creation. {More}