The Alexandria Commission for the Arts launched the Alexandria Film Festival in 2007 with a two-fold mission:
- To establish Alexandria as a venue for creating, exhibiting, and experiencing film by reaching out to local, national, and international filmmakers.
- To foster awareness of the cultural and educational value of cinema among Alexandria’s diverse and influential audience.
For the past four years, the festival has presented a diverse and imaginative array of feature films, documentaries, and shorts by U.S. and foreign filmmakers, including several works of Washington-area producers and directors.
2010:
Schedule at a Glance
FILMS – By Date
FILMS – By Title
2009: The festival opened with a black-and-white (the recommended attire) party featuring music, open galleries and studios, and silent flicks screened throughout the Torpedo Factory, an arts complex on the Old Town Alexandria waterfront. The rest of the four-day festival took place in The George Washington Masonic Memorial’s Memorial Theater, itself the setting for the opening scene of National Treasure 2: Book of Secrets, a 2007 Disney film starring Nicolas Cage and Helen Mirren.
The Jury Prize was awarded to Redemption Stone: The Life and Times of Tom Lewis, a documentary about a D.C. storyteller who launched the Fishing School as a neighborhood safe haven for needy children in his community. Both Lewis and director Tom Dziedzic appeared at the screening. The 2009 Audience Award was won by Sebastian’s Voodoo, an animated short about a voodoo doll who saves friends from being pinned to death, by Paraguay-born film student Joaquín Baldwin. Each filmmaker received a $500 cash award. Other filmmakers on hand for audience Q&As included Aviva Kempner (Yoo-Hoo, Mrs. Goldberg), Will Gorham (Clean Mic: Laughing Until It Hurts), Alex Scioscia (Game Over and A Frostbite), and James Lecesne (After the Storm).
2008. As a nod to the upcoming Presidential election, the second festival had a theme: “Reel Politics.” It kicked off, appropriately, with a free screening of Recount, the HBO film about the Bush-Gore election, in the City Council Chambers of Alexandria City Hall Other festival screenings took place in the Kaufman Auditorium at Lee Center.
The Film Selection Committee’s Special Jury Prize went to Come Walk in My Shoes, a documentary that accompanied Congressman John R. Lewis (D-GA) on a sentimental journey to landmark sites of the civil rights movement. Director Robin Smith presented the film, which was followed by a performance of civil rights–movement songs by the Ebenezer Baptist Church Women’s Ecumenical Choir.
The 2008 Excellence in Filmmaking prize went to Crawford, a documentary detailing happenings in the tiny town of Crawford, Texas, when George W. Bush moved in during the 2000 election campaign. For the Audience Aware, filmgoers elected Miss Betty’s American History Tours: Alexandria, George Washington’s Home Town, which was introduced by the documentary’s 75-year-old tour-guide star, Miss Betty Ward. Also that year, local filmmaker Eric Byler led a discussion of 9500 Liberty, a documentary about Prince William County’s controversial anti-immigration laws.
2007. An audience of more than 1,800 attended the first festival, which featured evening and matinee showings of 10 feature-length films and 11 shorts—with admission to all of them free. The four-day festival premiered with outdoor an showing at Market Square, outside Alexandria City Hall highlighted by a live concert of movie tunes by the Alexandria Singers and a selection of shorts, including films by students from two Alexandria elementary schools. The remaining screenings took place in the Madison Auditorium of the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office.
The festival’s first Grand Jury Award for features was given to War Dance, a documentary about children living in a Ugandan refugee camp that in 2008 received an Oscar nomination. Co-director Andrea Nix Fine presented the film and answered questions from the audience. Out of Obscurity, documentary on the 1939 sit-in at the Alexandria Public Library to protest racial segregation, received the Grand Jury Award for short films, with director Matt Spangler on hand for the screening. Other filmmakers presenting their films at the festival were Sandy Northrop (Vietnam: The Next Generation) and Ed Askinazi (The Last Greeks on Broome Street).
