James River Film Society

James River Filmmakers Forum on June 9

The James River Film Society’s quarterly James River Filmmakers Forum returns for it’s late Spring/early Summer edition. Join local filmmakers as they screen and discuss their work.

This edition of the James River Filmmakers Forum features the work of:

Bryce Spivey – Earnest Pugh, Larry Bland and the VSU Gospel Chorale
Hunter Brumfield – Biosolid
Allyn Smith and Ariel Arakas – Flesh
Ted Salins and Company – Beatnik Party + outakes
Mike Buchbauer – Asleep In the Chapel
Joey Tran and Shawn Hambright – Singularium

The James River Filmmakers Forum is curated and moderated by JRFS volunteer coordinator Jeff Roll.

Free Admission, donations encouraged.

Get your 19th JRFF tickets HERE!

Get your advance 19th JRFF Tickets HERE or click on TICKETS in the menu at the top of the page. We will sell tickets at the door, 30 minutes prior to each show.

19th James River Film Festival At A Glance

Here’s the 19th James River Film Festival schedule at a glance. For a printable PDF click here: 19thJRFFAt-a-glance.

19th JRFF: VCUarts Student Films

Hold Still, Keep Moving: VCUarts Student Filmmakers. Close out the 19^th James River Film Festival with a program of short works from current students in the VCU School of the Arts Departments of Kinetic Imaging, Photography and Film, and Cinema.

19th JRFF: Melvin van Peebles’ Sweet Sweetback’s Baadasssss Song

Sweet Sweetback’s Baadasssss Song (Melvin van Peebles, 1971, 97 min.). The ‘60s were marked by explosive rhythms and here’s a film with a volcanic editing style to match. Elements of the French New Wave transplanted in Black Power America, along with a surreal nostalgia and a gritty realism make for a rollicking one-man revolution in the now classic Sweet Sweetback’s Baadasssss Song. Think Salvador Dali meets Huey Newton and let director Melvin van Peebles provide the exclamation point—this revolution’s still raging! Sweet Sweetback’s Baadasssss Song is an important link in black cinema, reaching back to Oscar Micheaux and forward to Spike Lee. Introduced by JRFF committee member and soul brother Robert Ellis.

PURCHASE TICKETS HERE.

19th JRFF: The Occupied Moment

The Occupied Moment with filmmaker/curator Mark Standquist! For many 2011 will be remembered as a year of rebellion, revolution and repression. It is in times like these that the role of filmmakers is of the utmost importance, not to be bullhorns for any side, but rather to immerse themselves in the moment, to occupy space and time and navigate the multitude of realities and truths the world presents. This program features four filmmakers or collectives who did not have the luxury of looking back on a moment but rather created and distributed work as quickly as possible, often while their respective protest movements were still in the streets. Program includes Gravity Hill Newsreels: Occupy Wall Street, Series Two, five short impressions of Occupy Wall Street, shot by 2010 JRFF guest Jem Cohen in New York during the Fall of 2011; Krisis, the Prism Film Collective’s documentary about the economic crisis in Greece; Occupy America, Richmond filmmaker Mark Strandquist’s look at the Occupy Movement’s challenge in articulating their messages to everyday Americans; and Field Statements: Pritemps Arabe in Cairo, featuring the works of 13 Egyptian photography and video artists documenting their first hand experiences of the Egyptian revolution. Filmmaker/curator Mark Strandquist will introduce the program and lead a post-screening Q&A. Suggested Donation: $3

19th JRFF: VCUarts Cinematheque

VCUarts Cinematheque: You All Are Captains (Oliver Laxe, Spain, 2011, 78 min.). Presented by VCUarts Cinema. Now in its second season, the VCUarts Cinematheque is an ongoing series established by the VCU School of the Arts Department of Cinema to showcase the best independent art films from around the world. In You All Are Captains, a European director sets out to make a film with children from a social center in Tangiers. Because of his methods, his relationships with the children during shooting degenerate and transform the evolution of project.

19th JRFF: Ross McElwee’s “Bright Leaves”

Bright Leaves (Ross McElwee, 2003, 105 min.) with filmmaker Ross McElwee! Co-sponsored by VCUarts Photography and Film. “Part mystery, part ethical inquiry, and part home movie, this brilliant and frequently hilarious documentary explores the cruel twist of fate that has led some to make their fortunes from tobacco, and others to die from it. McElwee returns home to the tobacco farming country of North Carolina to investigate a bit of family lore: that his great-grandfather, who developed the formula for Bull Durham tobacco, might have become very rich had James “Buck” Duke not stolen the formula from him – a saga that may have been the basis for Michael Curtiz’s Bright Leaf, a 1950 Gary Cooper melodrama.” – Museum of Modern Art. McElwee will introduce the film and lead a Q&A session afterward.

19th JRFF: The Kinetic World of Jodie Mack

The Future is Bright: The Kinetic World of Jodie Mack with filmmaker Jodie Mack!. Co-sponsored by VCUarts Kinetic Imaging. Combining the formal techniques and structures of abstract/absolute animation with those of cinematic genres, Jodie Mack’s handmade films use collage to explore the relationship between graphic cinema and storytelling, the tension between form and meaning. The following 16mm films will be screened: A Joy (2005, 3m, color, sound), Lilly (2007, 6m, color, sound), Yard Work is Hard Work (2008, 28m, color, sound), Posthaste Perennial Pattern (2010, 3m38s, color, sound), Rad Plaid (2010, 6m, color, silent or with live sound), Unsubscribe 1-4 (2010, 16m, color/bw, sound/silent), The Future is Bright (2011, 2m45s, color, live sound), Point de Gaze (2012, 4m30s, color, silent). Introduction by Pamela Turner, Chair of the VCUarts Department of Kinetic Imaging; post-screening Q&A with Jodie Mack.

19th JRFF: Ross McElwee’s “Photographic Memory”

Photographic Memory (Ross McElwee, 2011, 87 min.) with filmmaker Ross McElwee! Co-sponsored by VCUarts Photography and Film. The filmmaker finds himself in frequent conflict with his son, who is no longer the delightful child the father loved, but an argumentative young adult who inhabits virtual worlds available through the Internet. To the father, the son seems to be addicted to and permanently distracted by those worlds. The filmmaker undertakes a journey to St. Quay-Portrieux in Brittany where he worked for a spring as a wedding photographer’s assistant at age 24 – slightly older than his son is now. He has not been back to St. Quay since that visit, and hopes to gain some perspective on what his own life was like when he was his son’s age. He also hopes to track down his former employer, a fascinating Frenchman named Maurice, and Maud, a woman with whom he was romantically involved during that spring 38 years ago. Photographic Memory is a meditation on the passing of time, the praxis of photography and film, digital versus analog, and the fractured love of a father for his son. McElwee will introduce the film and lead a Q&A session afterward.

19th JRFF: Two by Federico Veiroj

From "A Useful Life."

La Vida Útil/A Useful Life (Federico Veiroj, Uruguay/Spain, 2010, 63 min.) with Bregman, el siguiente/As Follows (Federico Veiroj, Uruguay/Spain, 2004, 13 min.). Presented in Spanish, with English subtitles. Co-presented by the Global Film Initiative. After twenty-five years, Cinemateca Uruguaya’s most devoted employee, Jorge (real-life Uruguayan critic Jorge Jellinek), still finds his inspiration in caring for the films and audiences that grace the seats and screen of his beloved art house cinema. But when dwindling attendance and diminishing support force the theater to close its doors, Jorge is sent into a world he knows only through the lens of art—and suddenly forced to discover a new passion that transcends his once-celluloid reality. Stylishly framed in black-and-white with brilliantly understated performances, Federico Veiroj’s sly and loving homage to the soul of cinema is a universally appealing gem and knowing charmer about life after the movies. Uruguay’s official submission to the 2010 Academy Awards! Veiroj’s 13-minute short, As Follows, is a wry, charming story of a rich Latin American subculture and a boy set on the uncertain, ambiguous cusp of manhood. A Useful Life and As Follows are co-presented by the Global Film Initiative and are part of the Global Lens collection. For more information, visit www.globalfilm.org.

19th JRFF: Three Films by Joan Strommer

Three Films by Joan Strommer. Filmmaker Joan Strommer taught at VCU’s Photography and Film Department for two decades, co-founded the James River Film Festival and now resides in her native Minnesota. During her tenure at VCU she influenced hundreds of students, and in 2011 we screened several of her short, personal-yet-universal films. This year we’re pleased to present three additional works:  Lill (1973, 12 min.) – an afternoon with a favorite aunt fighting terminal leukemia, originally shot on super 8; Eva (1976, 25 min.) – from death to life, Strommer answers the call of a couple wanting someone to record the birth of their third child; LaCorona (1987, 29 min.) – explores man’s relationship with God through composer Ernst Krenek’s 1941 score LaCorona, based on a John Donne poem (1607) of the same title. Introduction by filmmaker and VCU Photography and Film professor David Williams.

19th JRFF: Marii Hasegawa: Gentle Woman of a Dangerous Kind

Marii Hasegawa: Gentle Woman of a Dangerous Kind (Perry, Scagnelli and Tashjian, 1996/2012, 27 min.). Produced by Richmonders Lynda Fleet Perry, Janet Scagnelli and Pat Tashjian, with music by Jamie K. Sims, Marii Hasegawa: Gentle Woman of a Dangerous Kind documents the life of peace activist Marii Hasegawa, who recounts her experiences during the internment of Japanese-Americans in WWII, and the subsequent Civil Rights and nuclear disarmament movements. Originally screened in 1996, we’re proud to host the reedited and remixed version of Gentle Woman of a Dangerous Kind, and not just because John Lennon told us so. The filmmakers will be available for a Q&A after the screening.

19th JRFF: Purple Passion

Purple Passion (Gregory, Jones, 2012, 45 min.) with filmmakers Michael Jones and Patrick Gregory! Nationally recognized purple martin fan and Virginia environmentalist Lance Wood is the subject of this documentary by Richmonders Patrick Gregory and Michael Jones. Wood goes against the apartment/house establishment on many issues, and reveals not only his expert tips for a successful purple martin colony but a reverence for, and insights on, all forms of nature. The filmmakers will be available for a Q&A after the screening.