Virginville Film Fest 08

The 4th Annual Virginville Film Fest went off without a hitch (at least any that I could see) this past Saturday (June 28) up in the LV... I rolled up solo, gorgeous drive up with knee high corn on either side for a lot of it, hazy summer, but not awful... listening to the new Malkmus, Phish, Lil Wayne and Antiseen. Gorgeous sundown drive with no traffic. Noticed a Vermont plated minivan taking all the same turns as me, when I finally parked, it WAS Charles and Sharon and their basketball team in the making rolling down. Most awesome. Oh yeah, full disclosure, Prophase music was a sponsor of this deal.

The fest is at some farm, screen set up at the bottom of a hill in front of a pond. Things were already up and running when I got there, Mexican food, beer, pottery table and Eric and Beth and Wayne running around/working the tables. I enjoyed a bit of an awes brownie and blabbed with them for a bit before plopping down for the flicks. About 300 folks gathered for this one at the peak, at least to Wayne and I's estimate at the end of the deal. Lots of kids and families, it was more of the mellow arty/hippie wing of the LV weirdos, opposed to the noisy crew from Muscle Beach and such... Met Bart from Sloow Tapes and was under the impression he was an American, so I did a double take when his answer to my "So where you from?" was an accented reply about somewhere near "Antwerp." Was fun to blab with him and such after my Ugly American embarrassment; spread the word about the new We Have Heaven on his label. As the sun went down, my vision got wiggly and the screen started to stretch a little as the darkness behind the screen grew. Add some lightning and fireflys, it was rural psychedelia at its best... The flicks themselves are a bit of a blur as I was almost astral traveling at points, but all were fun and cool to some degree and none were awful. The fear of rain/thunderstorm kept up throughout the evening, but held off for the most part, occasional drops not withstanding.

A great time, really incredible. If I can figure out how to get my pics off of my phone, I will post them. Great to see the crew and so happy to see all of Eric, Beth and Wayne's good vibes and hard work pay off. Seriously, the jam of the summer/your own private Woodstock, whatever you wanna go with it. Only bummer? No Simon flick! Argh! Definitely already making plans for next year and will be bugging everyone to really go and mark their calenders and all that jazz, esp the Byrnsies! So perfect for them! Oh, and keeping with my usual LV deal, yep, I got lost on the way home.