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Middleburg Film Festival

Festivals 

Middleburg FF 2024 Female Focus Wrap – Leslie Combemale reports

Leslie Combemale , , , , , , , , ,

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.

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Festivals Reviews 

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

Leslie Combemale , , , , , ,

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.

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Festivals Reviews 

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

Leslie Combemale , , , , , , ,

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.

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Festivals Reviews 

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

Leslie Combemale , , , , , , , , , ,

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.

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Festivals Member News 

AWFJ @ Middleburg Film Festival – Sandie Angulo Chen reports

Sandie Angulo Chen , , , , , , , , , ,

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.

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Festivals Reviews 

AMERICAN SYMPHONY (Middleburg FF 2023) – Review by Leslie Combemale

Leslie Combemale , , , , , ,

In the interest of full disclosure, I’ll start by saying I love Jon Batiste. I was rooting for him to win as many 2022 Grammys from his 11 nominations as possible, damn his fellow nominees. When his album We Are was released in March of 2021, it became the soundtrack of my life for months. He had already made a huge impression on me with his contributions to the score for Pixar’s Soul in 2020. So it was with excitement and interest that I went into the film about him, American Symphony. Oscar-nominated documentarian Matthew Heineman’s newest film, which he directed, shot, and edited, follows Batiste over several years. It shows some of the highest and lowest points of his life, and goes through the composer/performer’s creation and performance of his American Symphony in September of 2022. So. Wow. What a film. It is a celebration of humanity, the healing power of art, and the strength of love to offer resilience in the challenges of everyday life.

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Festivals Reviews 

THE LADY BIRD DIARIES (Middleburg FF 2023) – Review by Leslie Combemale

Leslie Combemale , , , , , ,

You may or may not know that when you’re driving the highways of America, you can thank Lady Bird Johnson for those pretty wildflowers in the median strip. What else, though, do we know about Lady Bird? Director/producer Dawn Porter wants to give us a fuller picture of President Johnson’s enigmatic First Lady. Based on the biography Lady Bird Johnson: Hiding in Plain Sight, the film utilizes the 123 hours of audio diaries Claudia “Lady Bird” Johnson left behind after her death. The film utilizes the 123 hours of audio diaries Claudia “Lady Bird” Johnson left behind after her death. Unbelievably, those recordings chronicle some of the most tumultuous times in US history, and Lady Bird Diaries plays them against footage and photographs of the time. Audiences hear the woman’s perspective on some truly momentous American events, in her own voice and with her own words.

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Festivals Reviews 

ALL OF US STRANGERS (Middleburg FF 2023) – Review by Leslie Combemale

Leslie Combemale , , , , , ,

Imagine a narrative that is the cinematic version of Brian Eno’s Ambient 1, and you might be able to grasp the emotional, atmospheric examination of grief that is All of Us Strangers. A dream cast featuring Andrew Scott, Paul Mescal, Jamie Bell and Claire Foy star in writer/director Andrew Haigh’s film is a living ghost story, based on the 1987 Japanese novel Strangers, by Taichi Yamada. Haunting and dreamlike, the cinematography, production design, performances and pacing all conspire to create a sort of out of body experience, even as it breaks your heart.

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Festivals Reviews 

SALTBURN (Middleburg FF 2023) – Review by Leslie Combemale

Leslie Combemale , , , , , , , , ,

From the moment the crimson red, Hammer horror-inspired opening titles show onscreen, the film warns it will not be your usual British uni coming of age story. It wouldn’t be, would it, given that it comes from Emerald Fennell, who brought us Promising Young Woman? That movie, Fennell’s feature debut as writer/director, won her a Oscar for Best Original Screenplay, and speaking of promise, made audiences and critics frothy to see what she’d do with her sophomore feature. Though not nearly as original as her first, Saltburn, a sexually transgressive tale of privilege and the desire to belong, allows its lead performer to shine brighter than a diamond encrusted dagger.

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Festivals Reviews 

THE HOLDOVERS (Middleburg FF 2023) – Review by Leslie Combemale

Leslie Combemale , , , , , ,

The Holdovers, aka Grumpy Professor has a Change of Heart (that’s not a spoiler. It’s telegraphed in the trailer) aka Sideways Part Deux is more charming, poignant and sweet than director Alexander Payne and lead Paul Giamatti have any right to be, but that’s no surprise for the duo that brought us Sideways. It may be the holiday movie you never knew you needed. None of the lead characters have family that make them feel safe and loved during the holidays. This is the story of them finding each other, as damaged and full of baggage as they all are.

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