ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Saturday, October 5, 1996 TAG: 9610080032
SECTION: EXTRA PAGE: B-10 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: MIKE MAYO CORRESPONDENT
The honored guests at the ninth Virginia Film Festival will be two of the key participants in Alfred Hitchcock's most playful romantic thriller, "North By Northwest."
Star Eva Marie Saint and screenwriter Ernest Lehman are scheduled to be in Charlottesville for the opening night reception and a screening of the film on Oct. 31. The theme of this year's festival, which runs through Nov. 3, is "Wild Spaces Endangered Places," and the focus is on road movies.
Festival director Richard Herskowitz has scheduled some of the best, from "It Happened One Night," to the rarely seen 1970s cult hit "Two-Lane Blacktop" and "Thelma and Louise." Among the other highlights are Elia Kazan's "Wild River," starring Montgomery Clift; John Ford's "Wagon Master" with Ben Johnson; the "director's cut" of Michelangelo Antonioni's "The Passenger" (aka: ``Profession: Reporter'') with Jack Nicholson; Nicholson's other masterpiece, "Chinatown"; and a collection of Road Runner cartoons. Roger Ebert's three-day scene-by-scene workshop will examine "Bonnie and Clyde."
Newer films and premieres are part of the action, too. On the schedule are an Icelandic road movie, "Cold Fever" and the wonderfully titled "Colors of a Brisk and Leaping Day," already a hit with audiences at other festivals.
Those who pay attention to details will notice that the festival has changed its name. For eight years it was the Virginia Festival of American Film, but it has never been strictly limited to movies from this country, and everybody has always called it the Virginia Film Festival, anyway. More importantly, the program has been trimmed slightly and so the maddening scheduling conflicts that have bedeviled past festivals should be lessened.
For more information call 1-800-UVA-FEST or visit the webpage at http://www.virginia.eduvafilm
LENGTH: Short : 39 linesby CNB