From Washington to Moscow screening this Friday!
This Friday, August 6, on the 65th anniversary of the bombing of Hiroshima, George and Sonia Cullinen’s 1981 film, From Washington to Moscow, will be screened at Burlington College. The short documentary chronicles an anti-nuclear weapons protest march, in which activists marched form Washington, Vermont to Moscow, Vermont on August 6, 1981. Many of the original filmmakers and activists from that day will be present at the screening.
From Washington to Moscow won the UNESCO prize at the 1983 Hiroshima International Film Festival in Japan, and George and Sonia Cullinen went on to help found the first Earth Peace Film Festival in 1985, which over the years became the Vermont International Film Festival.
Come see the film that started it all! The Facebook event page is here.
Note: this screening is being presented by a group of Vermonters who were associated with the original 1981 march. It’s not an official VTIFF event, but we are proud to ally ourselves with these courageous activists.
Posted by Bill Simmon | Permalink |
Wretches and Jabberers
VTIFF is pleased to announce that Geraldine Wurzburg’s film, Wretches and Jabberers will be at the 2010 festival. Watch the trailer…
Posted by Bill Simmon | Permalink |
2009 VTIFF Award Winners!
We’re pleased to announce this year’s winners of our three cash prize awards for films submitted to the Vermont Showcase!
This year’s winner of the Margaret and Harold Blank Award for Best Feature goes to Orgasm, Inc by director Liz Canner.
The Margaret and Harold Blank Award for Best Short goes to Tin Man, from director Justin Bunnell.
And the James Goldstone Award goes to Meredith Holch for her animated film Neighbors.
To learn more about these awards click here.
We’d like to congratulate all of this year’s filmmakers for all their wonderful submissions, there was an obvious wealth of talent on display at this year’s festival! We look forward to see all the great submissions we receive next year.
The Horror...
Maybe it’s because VIFF happens so close to Halloween, but in the last couple of years the festival has developed a penchant for getting really compelling horror fare in the line up of films. Last year the unexpected Scandinavian vampire film, Let the Right One In, got a lot of buzz at the festival, which helped generate a larger audience for the film when it came to the Palace for a general theatrical run a few months later.
This year, we have the Best Worst Movie/Troll 2 double feature, of course, as well as Ti West’s satanic thriller, The House of the Devil, all on Halloween night, but the surprise for me (I’m not a festival programmer so there are several films that take me by complete surprise every year) was The Elcipse, which I caught on Saturday night.
This quiet, gentle Irish film (directed by playwright Conor McPherson) made me jump out of my seat and scream like an eight year-old child several times. Ciaran Hinds stars as a widower who starts seeing ghosts as he helps to launch a literary festival in a small coastal Irish town. As with Let the Right One In, the horror elements feel so out of place in the otherwise sedate European atmosphere that they become all the more real and horrific in contrast.
If you get a chance, try and catch this little, scary gem. It’s playing at the festival two more times: Thursday the 29th at 3:45PM and Friday the 30th at 9:15PM. Trust me.
Posted by Bill Simmon | Permalink | Comment [1]
Halloween at VIFF
Boo!
Halloween falls on a Saturday this year and VIFF is trying hard to compete with all of the other other fun events that will be going on in northern Vermont that night. You should seriously consider getting dressed up in costume and heading down to the Palace for your Halloween fun. Here’s why…
The House of the Devil will screen at 8:45PM.
From writer-director Ti West comes The House of the Devil, a satanic thriller set in the 1980s starring Jocelin Donahue (JT Petty’s forthcoming THE BURROWERS), indie ingénue Greta Gerwig (HANNAH TAKES THE STAIRS, BAGHEAD), Tom Noonan (SNOW ANGELS, MANHUNTER), Mary Woronov (EATING RAOUL, THE DEVIL’S REJECTS), AJ Bowen (THE SIGNAL) and Dee Wallace (E.T., Rob Zombie’s HALLOWEEN).
…and best of all, we’re having a Best Worst Movie/Troll 2 double feature with a costume contest. First prize in the contest will be a YEAR of free movies at the Palace for the winner and a friend. That by itself should be incentive enough, but seriously, check out the trailer for Best Worst Movie…
Looks awesome, right? Best Worst Movie starts at 9:15PM and will be followed by Troll 2 with an intermission between films for awarding the prizes for best costumes. And best of all, you can stay up late for Troll 2 because we get an extra hour that night as daylight savings comes to an end!
Posted by Bill Simmon | Permalink |
Older
Vermont International Film Festival
PO Box 483, Burlington, VT 05402–0483
E: info@vtiff.org | P: (802) 660–2600
: Join our Group! | 
: VTfilmfest
Website by S.R. Wild