A decade-spanning love story, a curmudgeonly prep school teacher’s Christmas break, a musical documentary—the 2023 Virginia Film Festival features a variety of moving, lyrical, and laugh-out-loud cinema across its 120-plus programs.
The festival takes place from October 25–29 at various theaters around Charlottesville, opening with Bradley Cooper’s highly-anticipated Maestro, which focuses on the relationship between Leonard Bernstein (Cooper) and his wife Felicia Montealegre (Carey Mulligan).
“Opening with Maestro is deeply meaningful,” says VAFF Director and UVA Vice Provost for the Arts Jody Kielbasa, who staged Bernstein’s Mass in 2018 as part of a UVA creative team that included Michael Slon and Bob Chapel.
Challenged by the strikes in Hollywood, the VAFF team faced limitations in terms of bringing in big name actors, but you’d never know it from the stellar lineup of speakers and performers, which includes director Ava DuVernay (Origin), actor and director Riley Keough (War Pony), and acclaimed poet Nikki Giovanni (Going to Mars: The Nikki Giovanni Project).
The Festival concludes with American Symphony, a documentary that follows musician Jon Batiste for a year, during which his longtime partner, bestselling author Suleika Jaouad, learns her leukemia has returned after ten years in remission.
Batiste, who Kielbasa describes as “an extraordinary artist on every level,” will briefly perform following a post-screening discussion.
Other documentary highlights include the world premiere of Argentine filmmaker Ricardo Preve’s Sometime, Somewhere, an exploration of the journeys and struggles of Latino immigrants in Charlottesville, and The Space Race, a deep dive into the untold experiences of the inaugural Black pilots, scientists, and engineers of NASA. Astronaut, UVA alum, and film subject Leland Melvin appears.
Tickets will go on sale to the public at noon on Friday, October 6. virginiafilmfestival.org