In only its second year of operation, the Middleburg Film Festival has already established itself as the "must-attend" festival in the DC/VA area. The first year got off to a strong start with a small but prominent slate of awards-caliber films, and now as the event gears up once again they have unveiled an even more impressive line-up. Today the Middleburg Film Festival has revealed the main slate of 20 movies, and it's a list that should have moviegoers extremely excited.
The opening night film on October 30th will be musical The Last Five Years, led by Pitch Perfect star Anna Kendrick and directed by Richard LaGravanese. It will be joined on November 1st by the centerpiece film, Morten Tyldum's Alan Turing biopic, The Imitation Game, which stars Benedict Cumberbatch and Keira Knightley. The TIFF award-winner has Cumberbatch eyed for a potential Best Actor nomination for his role as the cryptanalyst and WWII code-breaker.
Other major additions include Escobar: Paradise Lost, starring Benicio Del Toro and The Hunger Games' Josh Hutcherson in an offbeat look at the infamous drug kingpin. Kristen Stewart and Juliette Binoche star in Clouds of Sils Maria, teaming with acclaimed director Olivier Assayas; Mike Leigh's Mr. Turner, which earned Timothy Spall Cannes' Best Actor award this year, is also part of the slate; and so is the Tommy Lee Jones-directed western, The Homesman, starring Hilary Swank. The Dardenne Brothers are back with another tough human drama in Two Days, One Night starring Marion Cotillard; and the prized Irish historical drama '71 stars red-hot actor Jack O'Connell, who features in Angelina Jolie's upcoming film, Unbroken.
Along with the impressive gathering of narrative features there are also a wealth of high-profile documentaries, including Sundance Award-winner The Overnighters, Gabe Polsky's Red Army, and Ethan Hawke's Seymour: An Introduction. With the festival taking place over Halloween, there will also be special screenings of Wes Craven's classic, Scream, and Tim Burton's Edward Scissorhands.
The Middleburg Film Festival runs from Oct. 30th to Nov. 2nd. For more information or to get your tickets now (better do it quick!), please go here. The full slate of films is below.
MIDDLEBURG FILM FESTIVAL
Films & Descriptions
'71
Director: Yann Demange
2014, 99 minutes
Country: Ireland
Genre: Narrative
'71
takes place over a single night in the life of a young British soldier
(Jack O'Connell) accidentally abandoned by his unit following a riot on
the streets of Belfast in 1971. Unable to tell friend from foe, and
increasingly wary of his own comrades, he must survive the night alone
and find his way to safety through a disorientating, alien and deadly
landscape.
ALL FALL DOWN
Directors: Emily Topper and Mary Posatko
2014, 90 minutes
Country: USA
Genre: Documentary
ALL
FALL DOWN tells the story of one family's complex reaction to a violent
tragedy. Filmmaker Emily Topper's grandfather was the victim of a
murder in Baltimore in 1972 that no one understood - or talked about it.
Now, from behind a camera, she asks why. The answers in this timely
documentary by Topper and her co-director, Mary Posatko, reveal an
America still far from post-racial.
CLOUDS OF SILS MARIA
Director: Olivier Assayas
2014, 123 minutes
Country: France/Germany/Switzerland
Genre: Narrative
At
the peak of her career, Maria Enders (Juliette Binoche) is asked to
perform in a revival of the play that made her famous twenty years ago.
But back then she played the role of Sigrid, a young girl who disarms
and eventually drives her boss Helena to suicide. Now she is being asked
to play the older Helena. She departs with her assistant (Kristen
Stewart) to rehearse in Sils Maria, a remote region of the Alps.
DIOR AND I
Director: Frédéric Tcheng
2014, 90 minutes
Country: France
Genre: Documentary
DIOR
AND I brings the viewer inside the storied world of the Christian Dior
fashion house with a privileged, behind-the-scenes look at the creation
of Raf Simons' first haute couture collection as its new artistic
director. The film is a colorful homage to the seamstresses who serve
Simons' vision.
EDWARD SCISSORHANDS - Tribute to Costume Designer Honoree Colleen Atwood
Director: Tim Burton
1990, 105 minutes
Country: USA
Genre: Narrative
Funny,
satiric and sincere, gothic and modern, EDWARD SCISSORHANDS is a
timeless classic and wonderfully, brilliantly different. Johnny Depp
plays Edward, an "unfinished" creation who has scissors for hands. He is
taken in by a suburban family and falls in love with their
teenage daughter. This quintessential Tim Burton film put the director
on the map for his unique yet accessibly strange films, and also
garnered much recognition for Costume Designer Colleen Atwood, who has
since gone on to win Oscars for her costume designs in Alice in
Wonderland, Memoirs of a Geisha and Chicago.
ESCOBAR: PARADISE LOST
Director: Andrea Di Stefano
2014, 120 minutes
Country: USA
Genre: Narrative
For
Pablo Escobar (Benicio Del Toro), family is everything. When young
surfer Nick (Josh Hutcherson) falls for Escobar's niece, he finds his
life on the line when he's pulled into the dangerous world of the family
business.
FORCE MAJEURE
Director: Ruben Östlund
2014, 118 minutes
Country: Sweden
Genre: Narrative
FORCE MAJEURE tells
the story of a model Swedish family on a skiing holiday in the French
Alps. During a lunch at a mountainside restaurant, an avalanche suddenly
bears down on the diners. With people fleeing in all directions and his
wife and children in a state of panic, Tomas makes a decision that will
shake his marriage to its core and leave him struggling to reclaim his
role as family patriarch. Sweden's submission for the foreign language
film category at the Oscars.
THE HOMESMAN
Director: Tommy Lee Jones
2014, 120 minutes
Country: USA
Genre: Narrative
When
three women living on the edge of the American frontier are driven mad,
the task of saving them falls to the pious Mary Bee Cuddy (Hilary
Swank). Transporting the women by covered wagon to Iowa, she employs a
low-life drifter, George Briggs (Tommy Lee Jones), to join her. The
unlikely pair and the three women head east, where a waiting minister
and his wife (Meryl Streep) have offered to take the women in.
HUMAN CAPITAL
Director: Paolo Virzì
2014, 110 minutes
Country: Italy
Genre: Narrative
HUMAN
CAPITAL begins at the end, as a cyclist is run off the road by a
careening SUV the night before Christmas Eve. As details emerge of the
events leading up to the accident, the lives of the well-to-do Bernaschi
family will intertwine with the Rovellis, struggling to keep their
comfortable middle-class life, in ways neither could have expected.
Italy's submission for the foreign language film category at the Oscars.
THE IMITATION GAME
Director: Morten Tyldum
2014, 114 minutes
Country: USA
Genre: Narrative
During
the darkest days of World War II, British mathematician Alan Turing
(Benedict Cumberbatch) heads up a top-secret mission to break the
German's enigma code, helping to bring an end to the war and save
millions of live.
THE LAST FIVE YEARS
Director: Richard LaGravenese
2014, 94 minutes
Country: USA
Genre: Musical
THE
LAST FIVE YEARS is a musical chronicling a love affair and marriage
taking place over a five-year period. Jamie Wallerstein (Jeremy Jordan)
is a young, talented up and coming novelist who falls in love with Cathy
Hiatt (Anna Kendrick), a struggling actress. Their story is told almost
entirely through song.
LOW DOWN
Director: Jeff Preiss
2014, 114 minutes
Country: USA
Genre: Narrative
Based
on Amy-Jo Albany's powerful memoir of growing up in the care of her
gifted and absent musician father, jazz pianist Joe Albany. LOW DOWN
focuses on the years when Amy (Elle Fanning) had few resources other
than the love of her grandmother (Glenn Close) and a ragtag bunch of
Hollywood outcasts. While Joe struggles to find gigs, and stay out of
jail, Amy grows up quickly in a hotel on the fringes of Hollywood.
MR. TURNER
Director: Mike Leigh
2014, 149 minutes
Country: UK
Genre: Narrative
MR.
TURNER explores the last quarter century of the great if eccentric
British painter J.M.W. Turner (1775-1851). Profoundly affected by the
death of his father, he forms a close relationship with a seaside
landlady with whom he eventually lives incognito in Chelsea. Throughout
this, he travels, paints, visits brothels, and is both celebrated and
reviled by the public and by royalty.
THE OVERNIGHTERS
Director: Jesse Moss
2014, 90 minutes
Country: USA
Genre: Documentary
When
hydraulic fracturing unlocks a vast oil field in North Dakota's Bakken
shale, tens of thousands of unemployed men descend on the state with
dreams of six-figure salaries. In the tiny town of Williston, busloads
of newcomers step into the sad reality of slim work prospects and
nowhere to sleep. Over at Concordia Lutheran Church, Pastor Jay Reinke
is hell-bent on delivering the migrants some dignity.
RED ARMY
Director: Gabe Polsky
2014, 76 minutes
Country: Canada
Genre: Documentary
RED ARMY
is about the Soviet Union and the most successful dynasty in sports
history: the Red Army hockey team. Filmmaker Gabe Polsky tells an
extraordinary human story from the perspective of its captain Slava
Fetisov, the friendships, the betrayals, and the personal dramas, which
led to his transformation from national hero to political enemy.
LA SAPIENZA
Director: Eugène Green
2014, 100 minutes
Country: France/Italy
Genre: Narrative
Alexandre
is a successful French architect. In the midst of a marital and
creative crisis he leaves for Italy with his wife Alienor to work on a
project he'd interrupted years earlier. On reaching Stresa they happen
to meet two youngsters, Goffredo and Lavinia, who will end up changing
the course of their journey.
SCREAM - Tribute to Film Composer Honoree Marco Beltrami
Director: Wes Craven
1997, 112 minutes
Country: USA
Someone
with a twisted love for scary movies is victimizing the residents of a
small American town. As this masked predator continues to mimic horror
films with real life acts of terror, it becomes clear that solving this
mystery is going to be murder! An instant favorite with audiences world
wide for its unique style and humor, this chilling one-of-a-kind
thriller will make you laugh until you scream. Receiving much acclaim
and awards for the SCREAM score early in his career, Marco Beltrami has
since been nominated for Oscars for his film scores for The Hurt
Locker and 3:10 to Yuma.
SEYMOUR: AN INTRODUCTION
Director: Ethan Hawke
2014, 81 minutes
Country: USA
Genre: Documentary
Living
in a small Manhattan apartment at age eighty-five, Seymour Bernstein he
appears fully content with his choice to forgo a promising career as a
concert pianist in order to teach music. Now Ethan Hawke, one of his
greatest admirers, takes us into Bernstein's world with this delicately
crafted film, offering a wise and charismatic reflection on art and
life.
SOUL OF A BANQUET
Director: Wayne Wang
2014, 78 minutes
Country: USA
Genre: Documentary
SOUL
OF A BANQUET takes us into the world of Cecilia Chiang, the woman who
introduced America to authentic Chinese food. Chiang opened The Mandarin
in 1961 in San Francisco and went on to change the course of cuisine in
America. The film is a delectable showcase of gastronomy and a touching
portrait of Chiang's journey from a childhood in Beijing to accidental
restaurateur on the west coast of the United States.
TIMBUKTU
Director: Abderrahmane Sissako
2014, 97 minutes
Country: France
Genre: Narrative
Set
during the fundamentalist takeover of northern Mali in 2012, foreign
jihadists are enforcing bans against sports, music, loafing, and
bare-headed women. Mild-mannered herdsman Kidane runs afoul of the
rebels when his beloved cow, affectionately named "GPS," goes astray.
Forced to shoot the film in neighboring Mauritania due to unsafe
conditions in Mali, writer-director Sissako has made a vibrant, graceful
film depicting a fracturing community and fraying family which,
nevertheless, achieve moments of joy and fun under forced occupation.
Mauritania's submission for the foreign language film category at the
Oscars.
TWO DAYS, ONE NIGHT
Director: Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne
2014, 95 minutes
Country: France
Genre: Narrative
Sandra
(Marion Cotillard) has just returned to work after recovering from an
illness. Realizing that the company can operate with one less employee,
management tells Sandra she is to be let go. Over the course of a
weekend, Sandra races against time to convince each of her fellow
co-workers to sacrifice their much-needed bonuses in order for her to
keep her job. Belgium's submission for the foreign language film
category at the Oscars.
THE WAY HE LOOKS
Director: Daniel Ribeiro
2014, 96 minutes
Country: Brazil
Genre: Narrative
Leo
is a blind teenager who's fed up with his overprotective mother and the
bullies at school. Looking to assert his independence, he decides to
study abroad to the dismay of his best friend, Giovana. When Gabriel,
the new kid in town, teams with Leo on a school project, new feelings
blossom in him that make him reconsider his plans. Brazil's submission
for the foreign language film category at the Oscars.
