Middleburg FF 2024 – ALLIANCE OF WOMEN FILM JOURNALISTS

Middleburg FF 2024 Female Focus Wrap – Leslie Combemale reports

October 23, 2024January 23, 2025 Leslie Combemale B. Monét, Black Box Diaries, Bolanie Austen Peters, Danielle Deadwyler, gia coppola, Loren Hudson, Marielle Heller, Middleburg FF 2024, Middleburg Film Festival, zoe saldana

The Middleburg Film Festival is one fest that has leaned into its support for female filmmakers from its inception 12 years ago. It has always not only premiered and featured a wide variety of female-helmed documentaries and narrative features from all over the world, it has also made sure to invite those filmmakers to the fest for panels and Q&As, so that fans, film lovers, and press can learn what inspired them and their unique process for their projects. 2024 is no different in terms of highlighting female filmmakers and craftspeople, although this year there were more filmmakers and below the line artists in residence than ever before.

Festivals Reviews

BLACK GIRLS – (Middleburg FF 2024) – Review by Leslie Combemale

October 23, 2024October 22, 2024 Leslie Combemale Alex Elle, Allyson Felix, B. Monét, Black Girls, documentary, Jacqueline Alexander Sykes, Jon-Thomas Royston, Marley Dias, Middleburg FF 2024, Never Whisper Advocacy, Olympia Auset, Vanessa Rochelle-Lewis. Middleburg Film Festival

It’s always a good time to celebrate powerful Black women, but certainly now more than ever, as a Black woman is running for the presidency. The timing was perfect for Middleburg Film Festival’s screening of documentary Black Girls, which centers on six different intersectional Black women, working in a diversity of modalities or careers, making the world a better place. Black Girls is all about intersectionality, shining a spotlight on women who have been challenged by landing at the intersection of Blackness and other labels that make life more difficult in modern American society.

Festivals Reviews

BLITZ – (Middleburg FF 2024) – Review by Leslie Combemale

October 23, 2024October 24, 2024 Leslie Combemale Benjamin Clémentine, Blitz, elliott heffernan, Middleburg FF 2024, Middleburg Film Festival, saoirse ronan, steve mcqueen

We’ve seen old fashioned stories of World War II folks overcoming adversity and surviving the unthinkable trauma inherent to the era. Think movies like Mrs Miniver, and more recently, Hope and Glory. While those films involved women are part of their stories, they didn’t truly center on their challenges, nor did they focus on the many people of color in the UK dealing with wartime difficulties. Now award winning British filmmaker Steve McQueen is releasing Blitz, a film he wrote, directed, and produced, starring Saoirse Ronan and featuring pre-teen actor Harris Dickinson as mother and son facing the horrors of the 1940 London blitz.

Festivals Reviews

ELTON JOHN: NEVER TOO LATE – (Middleburg FF 2024) – Review by Leslie Combemale

October 23, 2024October 22, 2024 Leslie Combemale Bernie Taupin, David Furnish, documentary, elton john, Elton John: Never Too Late, Middleburg FF 2024, Middleburg Film Festival, Rocket man

Fans of the Rocket Man will be thrilled to know there’s a new documentary, co-directed by Elton’s life partner David Furnish no less, that follows Elton John’s last and final concert tour, while also traveling backwards to examine his long career. Given the sheer volume of hits Sir Elton (nee Reginal Dwight) created with his musical partner Bernie Taupin, it’s certainly true a docuseries could have been made, but that’s not what we have here. What we have is the story of Elton’s life and career, wrapped around his famous last tour, before retiring to spend time with his husband and the two sons he loves.

Festivals Reviews

NICKEL BOYS – (Middleburg FF 2024) – Review by Leslie Combemale

October 23, 2024October 22, 2024 Leslie Combemale aunjanue ellis-taylor, black lives matter, Brandon Wilson, Daveed Diggs, Dozier School, Ethan Herisse, Hamish Linklater, Middleburg FF 2024, Middleburg Film Festival, Nickel Academy, ramell ross

The narrative feature of the same name was shown at Middleburg Film Festival as the closing film, and what a way to go out. An Oscar nominee for his evocative and visually compelling 2018 documentary Hale County This Morning, This Evening, RaMell Ross uses the same subjective and artistic lens for this new film, his first narrative feature. Nickel Boys is shown entirely from the perspectives of Elwood (Ethan Herisse) and Turner (Brandon Wilson), which creates not only a very artistic vision of their experiences, but also demands the audience live their journeys with them, in all their hopeful or horrific detail.

Festivals Member News

AWFJ @ Middleburg Film Festival – Sandie Angulo Chen reports

October 23, 2024October 22, 2024 Sandie Angulo Chen cortland jacoby, jazz tangcay, lauren bradshaw, Lauren Veneziani, leslie combemale, mae abdulbaki, Middleburg FF 2024, Middleburg Film Festival, roxana hadadi, sandie angulo chen, Susan Koch

Eight members of the Alliance of Women Filmmakers members convened at Middleburg Film Festival 2024 for the festival’s program of high profile films and to interview and mingle with the celebrated artists who’d been invited to present their work. DC-based members Mae Abdulbaki, Lauren Bradshaw, Sandie Angulo Chen, Leslie Combemale, Roxana Hadadi, Cortland Jacoby, Lauren Veneziani and LA-based member Jazz Tangcay were invited to attend the festival’s annual Women in Film luncheon. AWFJ is honored to be part of the covering press corps and delighted to share some of the attending members’ highlight moments of this year’s festival.