GREED
(Erich von Stroheim, 1924, 130 min.)
12:00 noon, Richmond Public Library, Main Branch, Basement Auditorium
Admission Free
(Also screening Thursday, April 16)

Von Stroheim’s silent version of novelist Frank Norris’ McTeague has achieved classic status despite its abridged form – less than one-fourth the running time of nine hours as originally delivered by the director to his Metro studio bosses, and cut ultimately to its present duration. Although much of Stroheim’s adaptation of Norris’ “naturalist” novel is lost forever, what remains is the wonderful deep focus cinematography by William Daniels, Stroheim’s mise-en-scene and location shooting in San Francisco and Death Valley, the acting of legend Zasu Pitts, and the universal nature of McTeague’s rise and fall. The film will be introduced by Jim Collier, RMIC board member and Radford professor of media and advertising.

HANDS ON ANIMATION WORKSHOP with CLAYMATION MASTER BRUCE BICKFORD
1:00-4:00 pm, VCU’s Pollak Building, Room 305
Admission $40; VCU students w/ID: $20
Limited to 15 people!

Claymation master Bruce Bickford will conduct three-hour, hands-on workshop, sharing the techniques he’s developed over a lifetime of work. Reserve your spot by emailing james@rmicweb.org. VCU students must register at the VCU Photo and Film Department office, Pollak Building (325 N. Harrison St., 2nd floor). Payment of $20 to be paid at workshop in cash or check. Workshop is limited to 15 people!
See the Bruce Bickford website.

STUDENT FILMS from the MAGGIE L. WALKER GOVERNOR’S SCHOOL FOR GOVERNMENT & INTERNATIONAL STUDIES
4:00 pm, The Firehouse Theatre
Admission Free

Introduced by instructor Todd Raviotta, this free program is a selection of films by the past two years of students in his Senior Seminar in Digital Filmmaking at Maggie Walker, where the focus is not so much on the technology as it is on the storytelling and personal expression. The screening will be followed by a Q&A session with the student filmmakers!

VIRGINA FILM OFFICE RECEPTION
6:00-7:30 pm, The Firehouse Theatre
Free

Join us for hors d’oeuvres and drinks courtesy of the Virginia Film Office and meet this year’s guests! Open to the public. (Cash bar)

JRFF JURIED COMPETITON FINALISTS
(Approx. 90 min.)
Co-sponsored by the Virginia Film Office and the Virginia Production Alliance
7:30 pm, The Firehouse Theatre
Admission Free

Every year the James River Film Festival, the Virginia Film Office and the Virginia Production Alliance co-sponsor a national juried competition of short films in any genre – animation, drama, experimental, documentary. And every year we screen the jurors’ selections and award $2,000 in prizes, including the People’s Choice Award. This year’s competition is juried by Robert “Ebert” Ellis, our resident JRFF critic; Jim Collier, professor of media at Radford University; Patrick Gregory, filmmaker and professional cinematographer; Jere Kittle, filmmaker and web designer; Trent Nicholas, adjunct professor of film studies in VCU’s Department of Art History; and Janet Scagnelli, for many years a professional animator in New York and Richmond. Since 1994, the James River Film Festival has awarded more than $26,000 to independent filmmakers in Virginia and states nationwide. This year's winners from the following the finalists are:

• $750 Winner
  Montres Henderson, i played for her, 6 mins.,Roanoke, VA
• $500 Winner
  Joshua Nicholson, Hazelnut, 8 mins., Va. Beach, VA
• $300 Winner
  Dan Currier, Labeled, 10 mins., Richmond, VA
• $200 Virginia Filmmaker Award
  Joseph Rohrs, Snowed, 13:30 mins.,  Va. Beach, VA
• $250 People's Choice Award
  Tom Dziedzic, Redemption Stone, 30 mins., Falls Church, VA
• Jennida Chase,  Strange Fits of Passion We Have Known, 2 mins., Richmond, VA
• Jacob Dodd,  Tide, 10 mins., Richmond, VA
• Derek Meyer, Carry On, 8 mins.,  FL
• Dan Nelson,  Mother There, 2 mins.,  Richmond, VA
• Okamoto Yasuhiro,  Monster, 13:30 mins.,  JAPAN

MY WINNIPEG
(Guy Maddin, 2008, 78 min.)
10:30 pm, The Firehouse Theatre
Admission $6
(Also screening Thursday, April 16)

From the director of Tales of Gimli Hospital, Archangel, Careful, and The Saddest Music in the World, comes My Winnipeg, a city-symphony film that’s part essay, part diary, and hands down, flat out one of the best films of 2008. Maddin’s “docu-fantasia” (his term) about his hometown is as personal as it is fanciful – tidbits from the Maddin family closet are woven seamlessly with wild yarns of Winnipeg’s frontiering, using archival and staged footage and layered with the filmmaker’s own voice-over in perhaps the most surreal documentary since Luis Buñuel’s Las Hurdes, aka Land Without Bread. My Winnipeg is a brilliant, sad, and funny film, starring the late cult actress Ann Savage (Detour) as the director’s mother.
See New York Times review.

MY BLUE STAR: THE LIFE AND HUNCHIN’ TIMES OF HASIL “HAZE” ADKINS
(2009, 75 min.)
with director Ron Smith
12:00 midnight, The Byrd Theatre
Admission $6
(Also screening Saturday, April 18)

According to Richmond filmmaker Ron Smith, “Hasil Adkins is the Godfather of Psychobilly, the King of Appalachian Punk, a Hillbilly Blues Savant and the World’s Greatest One-man Band.” Smith says he never planned on making a documentary about legendary bad boy Hasil Adkins, “but after Hasil passed (in 2005) I had all this footage and friends said, ‘Ron, you got to do something with it’, so I put together what I had.” Smith had earlier sent Adkins a painting he’d done of him and when the singer called up to order more, a friendship sprouted. “Sometimes he’d call me up at 3 a.m. and play a song he’d just written, and I visited him lots of times in the hollow where he lived in West Virginia.” Screening as a work-in-progress, Smith’s film utilizes talking heads and performance footage as well as plenty of on-camera time for the show’s star. Smith will be available for a Q&A session after the screening.