The Fredericksburg Film Festival returns for its third year on June 25, with more than 70 films and 12 distinct events planned over a three-day event. 
Along with screenings, the festival features panels, workshops and social mixers across its three downtown Fredericksburg venues: The Courtyard Marriott, 718 Venue and REIGN The Venue.
This year, the selections are based on the theme “Cinema that Connects” and represent 32 countries. Festival president Dalton Okolo said all continents — except Antarctica — are present in the lineup.
“Cinema connects people, and it’s a working man’s medium,” he said. “It’s the thing that we can all understand and talk about. What’s wonderful is, we can go to a movie together, watch the exact same thing,” but have different interpretations while appreciating art.
The festival opens on Friday with a screening of “Cutting Through Rocks,” a documentary that follows 37-year-old Sara Shahverdi, a motorcycle-riding, land-owning former midwife-turned-citizen-advocate and recent divorcée, who has just won a landslide local election in her Iranian village.
The film was nominated for an Oscar this year, and for Okolo, the film embodies that theme of connection. Though director Sara Khaki and writer Mohammadreza Eyni can’t attend because of the current tensions between the U.S. and Iran, Okolo said he hopes audiences connect with how the movie shows riding as an act of rebellion, not to mention the quality of the filmmaking.
Friday’s opening shorts also embody the theme of connection across borders, with a selection of international films.
They include Australian filmmaker Nash Edgerton’s “Candy Bar,” about a girl who thinks a man in a snack bar line looks like her father; U.S.-based Luca Huff’s “Shallow,” about teenagers dealing with pride and masculinity; and Norwegian Ida Melum’s “Ovary-Acting” an animated piece about a woman’s decision to become a mother.
Other shorts that will be shown include the Qatari “I Lay for You to Sleep,” Swedish “Terror Night,” Japanese “Magic Candies, and two American shorts, “909” and “The Queen’s Flowers.
The third-annual festival features nearly double last year’s number of titles, with simultaneous screenings through Sunday, June 28, of feature length films and shorts, chosen from 127 submissions.
Films are organized into categories including student filmmakers, Virginia-based filmmakers, LGBTQ+ stories, and international cinema. There are screenings across genres with abstract cinema, adult animation, kids’ films, suspense and horror, and those depicting grief represented, as well.
A block of seven short films from Virginian filmmakers closes the festival on Sunday as part of the “VA is for Film Lovers” screening, bringing that connection home. “Heaven Spot,” directed and written by Harrison Woodley and Jadon Boeglin, follows a graffiti artist; “Untouchable,” by Adam Lapallo, tells the story of a fencing coach and her student; “In Your Dreams,” written by Nathaniel Henry and produced by Cristian Cabral Rios, follows a neuroscientist building a device; “Dead Giveaway,” directed and written by Jarett Melville, centers on a patient and psychiatrist duo; “Homie,” directed and written by Kevin Henry, follows a man who realizes his smart home device is manipulating him; “Connection,” directed, written, and produced by Tom White, features a government agent tasked with interrogating a silent prisoner; and “Vicarious,” directed and written by Zachary O’Connor, follows a loner who listens to a couple through a hearing aid.
“We want to make sure that there’s something for everyone and make sure there’s high quality, a high caliber of films, that can give you a wide spectrum of what cinema could be,” Okolo said. “There are filmmakers who care about their work, and I think if you’re just somebody who likes movies, it provides everything, right? It’s a nice date night, it’s a nice way to learn about something new, a craft you may not know much about before, or just go see a good movie.”
Most of the screenings include a Q-and-A afterwards, during which the audience “can ask whatever questions they want of the filmmaker and the filmmakers get a chance to kind of connect with the audience,” he said.
Okolo is a locally based director, writer and producer. His company 1108 Media puts on the event and he is the creator of two shorts and recently wrapped production on his third, shot partly in Fredericksburg.
He said the community here is welcoming to the creation of art in a way he hasn’t experienced in other locales.
“I think Fredericksburg isn’t just accepting, it’s like openly engaged in the arts, and with artists,” he said.
He explained that while there was a cinema community here prior to 2024, there wasn’t an event to bring them together. “It seemed to be this like perfect storm of a lot of artists, good area, and just right opportunity.”
For Okolo, each year isn’t just about growing the number of titles, but about creating a reliable draw to downtown on the last weekend in June “similar to how Sundance is for Park City” as a driver for local businesses. He also wants it to be a special time for filmmakers.
“That last week, end of June, I get to go down to Fredericksburg…and I’m going to go talk to people who like movies,” he said. “We’re going to get to walk around town. I’m going to get to have this small intimate experience with people who like movies.”
Passes to the entire festival are available, as well as individual tickets to screenings through the organization’s website https://fxbgfilmfestival.com.
