Virginia Film Festival

Shepherds and Butchers

Nineteen-year-old Leon, a white prison guard in late 1980s South Africa, recklessly opens fire on a…

Liberty & Slavery: The Paradox of America’s Founding Fathers

This documentary explores the ultimate paradox of Revolutionary America: slavery. Delving into the hypocrisies of the…

Landfill Harmonic

Built in the shadow of a massive landfill, the Paraguayan community of Cateura survives by selling…

After Coal

Preceded by the short film Through (5 min.) What happens after fossil fuels run out? After…

After Spring

With the Syrian conflict now in its sixth year, millions of people have been displaced from…

All the Way

All the Way offers a riveting look at President Lyndon B. Johnson’s tumultuous first year in…

Farewell Ferris Wheel

Over the past two centuries, the carnival has become a central component of American culture. Each…

As I Open My Eyes

On the eve of the Jasmine Revolution in Tunisia, young Farah must decide whether to accept…

Bugs

Since the United Nations recommended edible insects as a resource to combat world hunger, insects as…

Care

Care delves deeply into the day-to-day routines of domiciliary care through the eyes of both paid…

Exile

A film about abandonment, Exile is an abstract telling of director Rithy Panh’s (The Missing Picture)…

Fire at Sea

Each year hundreds of thousands of African immigrants journey to the Sicilian island of Lampedusa in…

I Am Not Your Negro

Preceded by the short film W. W. Yen (7 min.) Based on the text of Remember This House,…

Land of Mine

As World War II comes to an end, a group of young German POWs in Denmark…

Lupe Under the Sun

Long estranged from his family in Mexico, migrant laborer Lupe feels stuck in the monotony of…

Maya Angelou: And Still I Rise

The first feature-length documentary focusing on Maya Angelou, this film peers into her many lives as…

Memories from Gehenna

J.D. loads his rifle and drives through Grande-Synthe, France, in search of people with an immigrant…

NOT The Last Butterfly

The Butterfly Project is a grassroots arts and education initiative that memorializes the 1.5 million children…

Putuparri and the Rainmakers

This powerful documentary explores the complex indigenous and colonial history of Australia through the story of…

Restoring Tomorrow

Throughout history, religious institutions have formed the bedrock of American communities, but today they are losing…

SEED: The Untold Story

Preceded by the short film Home is Where the Farm is (5 min.) Few things on…

She Started It

This documentary offers the first ever behind-the-scenes look at what it’s like to run a tech…

SPLit

Inanna, a young woman working as an actress by day and a stripper by night, enters…

The Anthropologist

Katie, a thirteen-year-old girl from Fairfax, Virginia, is carted around the globe by her mother, noted…

The Messengers

This documentary reveals the untold stories of the thousands of migrants who were unsuccessful in making…

The Promise

North American Premiere Marking the first American trial to be televised nationwide, the murder convictions of…

The War Room

Illustrating the monumental effort required to conduct a winning presidential campaign, Hegedus and Pennebaker reveal insider…

The Yellow Ticket

This silent film tells the story of Lea, a young girl living in the Jewish ghetto…

Unlocking the Cage

After 30 years of struggling with ineffective animal welfare laws, animal rights lawyer Steven Wise is…

Fundi: The Story of Ella Baker

Fundi: The Story of Ella Baker reveals the instrumental role that Ella Baker, a friend and…

Anywhere But Here + Seeking Asylum

These two documentaries by local filmmakers explore race and inequality on both the local and global…

A Face in the Crowd

A drifter named Larry "Lonesome" Rhodes is discovered by the producer of a small-market radio program…

A Road to Home

This documentary follows the journeys of six LGBT homeless young people over 18 months. Their lives…

Lydia Moyer: Experimental Short Films

The personal and the political are interwoven with the magical and the traumatic in this program…