21st Annual West Virginia International Film Festival
You would think that native West Virginians would be angry about the stupid stereotypes that most of us associate with their state. But most of the people I met at the recent International Film Festival held in Charleston just laughed about the hillbilly image and assured me that, yup, the official state flower really is a satellite dish, and right up there on the flag is the state motto: Eat More Possum.
But there was not a possum in sight in early November when my wife and I attended an Elderhostel that was linked to the 21st West Virginia International Film Festival. It was sophisticated, urbane, and it was just about as much fun as a film fan could possibly cram into one week. We saw 10 movies in five days and attended special film production classes given by faculty members from the Communications Department at West Virginia State College.
The festival films were uneven, of course. Some were interesting (“The Edukators”), some bizarre (“The Perfect Crime”) some incomprehensible (“2046”) and Ingmar Bergman’s most recent film (“Saraband”) was, of course, unrelentingly sorrowful. (I realize that such conjecture is blasphemy to Bergmanites, but could jolly old Ingmar’s films be the cause of Scandinavia’s astronomical suicide rate?)
But the most interesting and exciting work was engendered by the WVSC faculty members themselves. Dr. Marc Porter, Daniel Boyd, Dave Brock and Steve Gilliland all not only presented an introduction to various aspects of film production but are involved in ongoing film projects of their own.
From a new and chilling Stephen King adaptation to filming on the peaks of Mt. Kilimanjaro, these bright and energetic filmmakers shared the excitement and magic that makes world-wide cinema so fascinating. Perhaps the most interesting project was presented by Richard Ndunguru, a graduate student at WVSC. It’s called African Community-Based Film Making, whereby a film production team lives with a village in Africa for an extended period and creates a film using the villagers themselves enacting a story that deals directly with a local problem, be it social, political or economic.
There is much more to learn and much more to be said about both the West Virginia International Film Festival and the Communications Department at West Virginia State College. The websites are: www.wviff.org and www.wvsctc.edu.
But there was not a possum in sight in early November when my wife and I attended an Elderhostel that was linked to the 21st West Virginia International Film Festival. It was sophisticated, urbane, and it was just about as much fun as a film fan could possibly cram into one week. We saw 10 movies in five days and attended special film production classes given by faculty members from the Communications Department at West Virginia State College.
The festival films were uneven, of course. Some were interesting (“The Edukators”), some bizarre (“The Perfect Crime”) some incomprehensible (“2046”) and Ingmar Bergman’s most recent film (“Saraband”) was, of course, unrelentingly sorrowful. (I realize that such conjecture is blasphemy to Bergmanites, but could jolly old Ingmar’s films be the cause of Scandinavia’s astronomical suicide rate?)
But the most interesting and exciting work was engendered by the WVSC faculty members themselves. Dr. Marc Porter, Daniel Boyd, Dave Brock and Steve Gilliland all not only presented an introduction to various aspects of film production but are involved in ongoing film projects of their own.
From a new and chilling Stephen King adaptation to filming on the peaks of Mt. Kilimanjaro, these bright and energetic filmmakers shared the excitement and magic that makes world-wide cinema so fascinating. Perhaps the most interesting project was presented by Richard Ndunguru, a graduate student at WVSC. It’s called African Community-Based Film Making, whereby a film production team lives with a village in Africa for an extended period and creates a film using the villagers themselves enacting a story that deals directly with a local problem, be it social, political or economic.
There is much more to learn and much more to be said about both the West Virginia International Film Festival and the Communications Department at West Virginia State College. The websites are: www.wviff.org and www.wvsctc.edu.
posted by Carl Larsen at 8:32 AM
2 Comments:
Your website has a useful information for beginners like me.
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Hi. I'm on the WVIFF board and was googling to try to remember some titles from the past, and I came across this entry. Thank you for this review of our little festival. We love it, and we love when people come to it! So glad you enjoyed and that we were able to introduce you to West Virginians, too.
Jennifer, WVIFF
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