Racimo con Brio: A Festival of Global Proportions, Right Here

By Victoria Racimo Thursday, February 11, 2010

It’s no secret. Berlin, Tribeca, SXSW, yes, even you, Sundance, look out!

From February 18 – 21, The College of William and Mary presents its third annual Global Film Festival at the Kimball Theatre. This year’s festival theme is “Global Film and Music” and will draw international filmmakers, musicians and scholars to Williamsburg to present and perform their work and join in a community-wide dialogue on the ways film and music work together. As in the two previous years, all events will be free-of-charge and open to the public.

I spoke at length with Festival Director Tim  Barnard. What he and the College along with the Reves Center and other outstanding community leaders are doing could very well, in time and with enough forbearance and continued vision, put Williamsburg on the map as a destination for film lovers and filmmakers across the country. And in turn, the dynamics to this burgeoning artistic film “convention” are continued insistence and awareness, pure and simple, of our community’s involvement both as doers and as audience. Here is an arts group already in our midst. Hail to entrepreneurship with an idea and a plan.

The first year the Festival celebrated the Kimball Theatre’s 75th Anniversary. The second year, the theme was Global Film and Migration. This year, it explores the impact music has on film.

The festival’s Thursday night opening will feature a live performance by Zikrayat, an international group of musicians and dancers accompanying classical Egyptian musicals of the 1950s, accordionist Jim Rice and Celtic musicians and performers.

Friday night will feature a screening of the popular Edith Piaf biopic La Vie en Rose preceded by a wine and cheese reception and live “Chanteuse” performance.

The festival’s Saturday night lineup includes Virginia premiers of “Ode to the Pineapple/Oda a la Piña” and “No One Knows About Persian Cats,” award-winning fiction films from Iran and Cuba exploring the dynamics of musical expression, national politics and identity (with both films to be presented by their directors) and a special screening of “Heima,” the award-winning music documentary on post-rock music group Sigur Ros and their 2006 homecoming Icelandic tour (also to be presented by the film’s director).

Matinee events for Saturday and Sunday will feature live musical accompaniment of silent-era films by the Minneapolis-based trio Dreamland Faces, who will perform original scores composed expressly for the festival. Saturday’s matinee will be a family show featuring the international origins of animated film and a surprise finale with an audience participation kazoo-along (with free kazoos provided to all audience members). For Sunday’s matinee, Dreamland Faces’ accompaniment of Yasujiro Ozu’s 1931 Tokyo Chorus will be preceded by local pianist Christine Niehaus’s originally scored accompaniment of a rare silent-era short by Frank Capra.

Late-night film screenings during the festival will feature a recent Bollywood musical and the international cult musical “Hedwig and the Angry Inch.”

On Sunday night, the festival will conclude with a performance by the world-renowned gospel group The Blind Boys of Alabama in conjunction with the Virginia premier screening of the current Oscar short-listed documentary “Soundtrack to a Revolution” about the music of the U.S. civil rights movement and a screening of the award-winning documentary “Amandla! A Revolution in Four-Part Harmony” about the music of South Africa’s anti-apartheid movement (with both films presented by their directors).

The Blind Boys show will be held in the College’s Commonwealth Auditorium in the Sadler Center and will be preceded by a community banquet featuring traditional African and American soul food.

Mr. Barnard said he looks forward to the festival creating “a dynamic mix of live music and film that will showcase the uniquely compelling ways that combination has moved audiences since the era of silent film. We will also look to the present and future,” explained Barnard, “including musical performances and recent films from around the world that create new ways of telling stories and bringing music to visual life.”

Barnard also emphasized the importance of the festival as a celebration of the local and global simultaneously.

“This year we are very excited about the ways the combination of music and film can bring the diverse members of our community together to celebrate and reflect on the ways these two mediums can enrich our lives here and around the world,” he said.

The weekend of live events, film screenings, banquets and receptions will also highlight filmmaking and global music as components of our local community. The festival’s opening on Thursday is a community event that will include a screening of the student-made documentary, “Worlds of Music in Williamsburg” and an international banquet of foods from around the world prepared by a range of student and community groups and restaurants. Presentations and awards ceremonies for other student filmmaking and film scorings contests will also be included in the festival.

This year’s festival was preceded by an on-going five-week, Wednesday-night international film series co-sponsored by William and Mary and the Williamsburg Regional Library. It began a run in the library’s theater January 20 and the last program and film showing will be next Wednesday, February 17 (screening at 7 p.m.) See the WRL Web site for details. A selection of international films highlighted music from China, Java, Ireland, India and Egypt and with each introduced by a William and Mary faculty member.

“The pre-festival film series was part of a special 1-credit course the College’s Film Studies Program offered in conjunction with the festival,” Barnard explained. “Our goal, however, is to generate an audience of both students and local residents who, through the series, will be prepared for an even richer appreciation of the films and live performances of the festival weekend.”

All screenings and events for the series and festival weekend are free and open to the public (events at the Kimball Theatre, however, do require tickets, available at the box office or by calling 1-800-HISTORY). A complete schedule of events is available online.

Other worthy arts events
On this Saturday, the 13th at 1 p.m., the College Bookstore in Merchants Square is hosting Rosemary Trible, the wife of former Senator Paul Trible (and current president of Christopher Newport University), signing her book, “From Fear to Freedom.” In the late 1970s, Rosemary Trible was a successful young talk-show host and the wife of a rising star in Virginia politics when she was savagely raped at gunpoint. Despite her eventual physical recovery, her emotional wounds went much deeper. "Fear to Freedom" is the moving account of her journey back to healing and forgiveness.

On the same day, starting at 3 p.m., the store will host the debut signing of a new romance novel written by a student at the William & Mary Law School. Nicole Green will sign her novel "Love Out of Order," which tells the story of an accomplished student, Denise Rich, who due to her intense drive and focus, has never had time for matters of the heart... until John Archer came along and turned her world upside-down.

And this Sunday, Valentine's Day, the 14th at noon, Dr. Bruce Coston, DVM, signing his memoir, "Ask the Animals." By turns humorous and heart-rending, "Ask the Animals" is a behind-the-scenes look at the life of a small town veterinarian and the many creatures, big and small, that he mends.

Have arts news or views? Share them with Victoria by emailing her at victoria@wydaily.com.