Buddhist Catholic Contemplative Evangelical General Christian Hindu Jewish Latter-day Saint Muslim New Visions Progressive Christian

Beliefs

Topics

Columnists

Resource Library

Research Tools

Video

Podcasts

Thought Readers

Faith In Media Tracker

Newsletters

Ad-Free & Subscriber Log-In Subscription Support

Follow Patheos

Home
Religious Music & Entertainment
Middleburg Film Festival Puts Spotlight on Church Scandal

Middleburg Film Festival Puts Spotlight on Church Scandal

Last updated on: October 30, 2015 at 5:55 am by Christian Hamaker

Middleburg Film Festival Puts Spotlight on Church Scandal 2015-10-30T05:55:09-06:00 Christian Hamaker

LOGO Patheos Explore the world's faith through different perspectives on religion and spirituality! Patheos has the views of the prevalent religions and spiritualities of the world.

By Christian Hamaker

The Middleburg Film Festival just wrapped its third year in Northern Virginia horse country, but it’s already on strong footing. The only nearby competing festival, the troubled FilmFest DC, is held in the spring, while the Virginia Film Festival in November is closer on the calendar but a longer drive for those in the populous Northern Virginia region.

The Middleburg festival’s late October timing also puts it close to the peak of fall foliage season, enhancing the drive into town as well as the local sights.

However, it’s what’s on screen that counts most for a film festival, and the Middleburg festival—chaired by Sheila Johnson, co-founder of BET—has, in its short history, consistently brought high-profile awards contenders (including Nebraska and The Butler last year), as well as a diverse slate of more obscure festival fare.

This year Johnson and her team, including Executive Director Susan Koch, programmed several Oscar-buzzed features—not only English-language titles like Truth and Spotlight, but official Oscar submissions in the Best Foreign Film race from several countries. Part of Johnson’s mission with the festival, she said, is to honor filmmakers who are too often overlooked—namely composers and cinematographers. So the festival this year honored composer Carter Burwell and cinematographer Dante Spinotti.

Whether you were itching to see Iceland’s official Oscar submission, Rams, Meg Ryan’s directorial debut (Ithaca, filmed in Virginia), or to honor the artists who have given a distinctive soundtrack to the work of the Coen Brothers or to the look Michael Mann’s films, the Middleburg Film Festival had something of interest.

Brief reviews of several films that screened over the festival’s four days—including a few with strong religious themes—follow.

Day One

The festival opened with two dramas that deal with belief and faith. Truth, a retelling of the Bush National Guard “scandal” late in the 2004 presidential campaign that turned out to be based on fake documents, is based on the memoir of Mary Mapes, the woman who produced the story and was subsequently fired by CBS, the network that aired it. The story also took down Dan Rather, anchor of the CBS Evening News, who is played in the film by Robert Redford.

It’s no surprise, considering its source material, that Truth tilts strongly in favor of Mapes, but it’s entirely unconvincing to anyone who, like a good journalist, approaches the story with a whiff of skepticism. Sadly, the film comes closest to the actual truth when it shows Mapes watching a broadcast of Rather acknowledging to viewers (on orders from his network bosses) the story’s problems. And how does director James Vanderbilt, who also wrote the screenplay, treat the actual truth as presented in the film? He has Mapes turn off the broadcast in order to silence most of the apology.

If Truth was the weakest of the films I saw in Middleburg, Spotlight was the finest. Showing journalism at its best and most effective, Spotlight recounts how a group of Boston Globe reporters broke the story of priests’ abuse of children. Tom McCarthy, who directed the affecting Win Win, has made a low-key, mature work about a dark chapter for the Catholic church. Without histrionics or any grandstanding speeches—OK, maybe one from Mark Ruffalo, but in the moment it’s well earned—McCarthy and a team of outstanding actors (Ruffalo, Liev Schreiber, Michael Keaton, Stanley Tucci, Rachel McAdams, John Slattery) deliver a sober film of low-key excellence.

Day Two

Marriage was in the spotlight at the beginning of the festival’s second day. 45 Years, from director Andrew Haigh (Weekend), examines a married couple’s reaction to an unsettling revelation as they prepare to celebrate their 45th wedding anniversary. As the wife (Charlotte Rampling) contemplates the implications of her husband’s (Tom Courtenay) past, she grows increasingly troubled. Your reaction to the film may hinge, as mine did, on how reasonable you find the wife’s response to her husband’s newly revealed secret.

Better was Son of Saul, a Holocaust film focusing on a Hungarian prisoner in Auschwitz who’s trying to protect the body of a young boy so it can have a proper Jewish burial. The camera stays on the prisoner, Saul, in nearly every shot, tracking him in a way that may remind some viewers of the work of the Dardennes (The Son). Director Laszlo Nemes’ harsh story has a religious dimension and vigorous aesthetic that set it apart from other Holocaust films.

The day closed with Anomalisa, the latest offbeat puzzler from director Charlie Kaufmann (Being John Malkovich, Adaptation, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind). Animated using puppets, Anomalisa looks unlike any other animated film I’ve seen. The story’s key event is a one-night stand in a hotel room, and while Anomalisa presents no pressing reasons for its main characters’ need for each other, it also doesn’t make the event out to be more meaningful than it is. The film might be about the acceptance of one’s limitations—or not. But it’s oddly compelling in ways that, I must admit, I haven’t been able to fully process. I only knew that I instantly wanted to watch the film again the minute it ended, and I did make a point of catching the tail end of Anomalisa’s second screening at the festival.

Day Three

Religion rears its head in Kent Jones’ engaging Hitchcock/Truffaut, recounting a series of interviews between Francois Truffaut and Alfred Hitchcock. The interview transcripts are the basis of a key film-class text that shares its name with this documentary, and Jones brings the words to life through interviews with famous filmmakers who are well-versed in the book and in Hitchcock’s and Truffaut’s visual styles. For those of us familiar with the print interviews, clips from interview tapes open up the text in sometimes surprising ways. Indeed, had Jones given us more audio from the famous Q&A, the film likely would have been even better than it is.

Director Todd Haynes is best known for Safe (1995) and Far From Heaven (2002), both of which star Julianne Moore. Openly gay, Haynes has dealt forthrightly with homosexuality in his earlier films, but none of those films has the star caliber of Carol. The title character, played by Cate Blanchett, is in the process of divorcing her husband (Kyle Chandler) when she strikes up a relationship a store clerk (Rooney Mara). But rather than play as a tragedy, Carol takes a steamy then strange turn into girl-with-a-gun territory before regaining its footing in time for a potent ending. A strong score from Carter Burwell undergirds the film, especially in the story’s early going.

Prior to a turgid Macbeth starring Michael Fassbender and Marion Cotillard, the festival honored composer Carter Burwell with a live performance by the Loudon Symphony Orchestra of several of his best-known themes, including selections from Burwell’s newer scores for Carol and the Kray brothers tale, Legend. The successful tribute was at least as rewarding as even the best films on offer at Middleburg.

Day Four

Just as the festival opened with a strong film about religion and religious institutions in Spotlight, it closed with a potent story of the impact of religious zeal on the lives of young women. Mustang, France’s official Oscar submission for this year’s Best Foreign Language Film, has a visual immediacy that matches well to its content. Five sisters in Turkey are seen frolicking with some boys, and the grandparents who are raising the girls decide to marry them off. The sisters’ desire to be free of cultural and religious strictures is best expressed through the youngest, Lale, who refuses to resign herself to an arranged marriage.

Mustang capped a festival that dealt forthrightly with religious themes while honoring contributions from artists who don’t receive the same level of attention that stars and directors do. Blessed with great weather and beautiful countryside, the Middleburg Film Festival is clearly matching the beauty of its location with high-caliber films from Hollywood and beyond.

Films

Previous Post

October 23, 2015

INTERVIEW: 60 Minutes journalists in pursuit of “Truth”

Next Post

November 23, 2015 Firefly is just lukewarm

Browse Our Archives

Select a Category Action AFI Top 100 Animation Best Picture Winner BFI Top 250 Biography Biopic Books Childrens Christian Classics Classics Comedy Crime Documentary Drama Editor's Choice Family Fantasy Fantasy Films Foreign Historical Historical Fiction History Horror Horror IMDB Top 250 Indie Memoir Modern Novel Musical Mystery Non-Fiction Oscars Philosophy Poetry Popular Literature Reading and Writing Reality Romance Science Fiction Science Fiction Silent Sports Thriller TV Show Uncategorized Western Westerns Young Adult

Select a Month October 2026 September 2026 July 2026 June 2026 May 2026 April 2026 March 2026 February 2026 January 2026 December 2025 November 2025 October 2025 September 2025 August 2025 July 2025 June 2025 May 2025 April 2025 March 2025 February 2025 January 2025 December 2024 July 2024 June 2024 May 2024 April 2024 March 2024 February 2024 January 2024 December 2023 November 2023 October 2023 September 2023 August 2023 July 2023 June 2023 May 2023 April 2023 March 2023 February 2023 January 2023 December 2022 November 2022 October 2022 September 2022 August 2022 July 2022 June 2022 May 2022 April 2022 March 2022 February 2022 January 2022 December 2021 November 2021 October 2021 September 2021 August 2021 July 2021 June 2021 May 2021 April 2021 March 2021 February 2021 January 2021 December 2020 November 2020 October 2020 September 2020 August 2020 July 2020 June 2020 May 2020 April 2020 March 2020 February 2020 January 2020 December 2019 November 2019 October 2019 September 2019 August 2019 July 2019 June 2019 May 2019 April 2019 March 2019 February 2019 January 2019 December 2018 November 2018 October 2018 September 2018 August 2018 July 2018 June 2018 May 2018 April 2018 March 2018 February 2018 January 2018 December 2017 November 2017 October 2017 September 2017 June 2017 January 2017 December 2016 October 2016 September 2016 August 2016 July 2016 June 2016 May 2016 April 2016 March 2016 February 2016 January 2016 December 2015 November 2015 October 2015 September 2015 August 2015 July 2015 June 2015 May 2015 April 2015 March 2015 February 2015 January 2015 December 2014 November 2014 October 2014 September 2014 August 2014 July 2014 June 2014 May 2014 April 2014 March 2014 February 2014 January 2014 December 2013 November 2013 October 2013 September 2013 August 2013 July 2013 June 2013 May 2013 April 2013 March 2013 February 2013 January 2013 December 2012 November 2012 October 2012 September 2012 August 2012 July 2012

TAKE THE

Religious Wisdom Quiz

Who was the youngest son of Jacob?

Select your answer to see how you score.

Dan Joseph Levi Benjamin