ROANOKE TIMES 
                      Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times

DATE: Tuesday, November 5, 1996              TAG: 9611050129
SECTION: EXTRA                    PAGE: 1    EDITION: METRO 
                                             TYPE: COMMENTARY 
SOURCE: MIKE MAYO CORRESPONDENT

EMPHASIS WAS ON MOVIES, NOT ALL THE OTHER FRILLS

The ninth Virginia Film Festival was definitely a no-frills affair.

No T-shirts, no posters, no splashy opening ceremony with TV coverage where politicians could be photographed with celebrities. And where, in past years, a writer might have been driven out to conduct an interview with a visiting producer at the swanky Boar's Head Inn, this time the meetings took place in the festival press room or at a nearby restaurant undergoing renovation.

That said, film festivals aren't meant for politicians or writers; they're meant for movie fans. And this one delivered the goods.

More than 40 features and short films were screened between Thursday and Sunday, almost all of them to sold-out crowds. Though the stated theme, "Wild Spaces, Endangered Places," was broad and ambiguous, the selection of titles - both new and old - was inspired. With the opening of the new Regal Theaters on Charlottesville's downtown mall, the screenings were easier to get to, for both students and out-of-town visitors.

Roger Ebert's three-day workshop, a shot-by-shot examination of "Bonnie and Clyde," filled up early. And when a 10 p.m. screening of "The Sweet Smell of Success" attracted a full house, and people stayed for another 30 minutes to ask questions of writer Ernest Lehman, the festival was doing something right.

In the same vein, media archivist Rick Prelinger presented a program of three "ephemeral films" on Saturday morning to a remarkably large crowd at the Vinegar Hill Theater. "Ephemeral films" is his term for the industrial and educational films made mostly in the 1940s and '50s. They presented a fascinating and often wonderfully funny look at the way America viewed itself, but they also had a lot to teach today's audiences.

The discussion that followed the screening was feisty and mostly well-informed.

Technical problems prevented Prelinger from showing one important piece of ephemera, "Freedom Highway," but on a beautiful Saturday afternoon, another good-sized crowd trooped over to the university library to see the film in a demonstration of Prelinger's CD-ROM series, "Our Secret Century."

Official attendance figures weren't available at press time, but it appears that the Virginia Film Festival's immediate future is secure.

A normally reliable source says that the theme next year will be "Crime and Punishment," bringing back memories of the hugely popular 1993 "Film Noir" festival.

If the 1997 festival can match that, it'll be in fine shape.

Mike Mayo writes movie and video reviews for The Roanoke Times.

LENGTH: Medium:   56 lines
ILLUSTRATION: PHOTO:  Kathleen Turner and Suzanne Somers in "Serial Mom":  The
          selection of titles - both new and old - for the Virginia Film 
          Festival "was inspired." color.