The Virginia Film Festival has been approved for a $20,000 Grants for Arts Projects Award from the National Endowment for the Arts to support the 2022 Virginia Film Festival. The VAFF is among 1,248 projects across America totaling $28,840,000 that were selected to receive this first round fiscal year 2022 funding in the Grants for Arts Projects category.
Acapella concerts on the Lawn, dance showcases, live theater productions – student performances have long graced the University of Virginia. In the past year, as coronavirus brought in-person shows to a halt, UVA’s performance groups adapted to create virtually and keep their art alive. Some groups are taking advantage of technology like Zoom or TikTok to allow students in different places to create, practice, or learn together virtually, while others have met in small groups with a lot of precautions in place. UVA Today reached out to a number of student arts groups across Grounds to find out how they survived the past year.
The Criterion Channel on Tuesday will showcase a series of short films about African American student life at the University of Virginia as one of its highlights for Black History Month. The film series, “Black Fire,” is an ongoing collaboration that UVA history professor Claudrena Harold and art professor Kevin Everson, an experimental filmmaker, have worked on for about a decade – always involving students – to focus on different aspects of Black experience on Grounds.
UVA President Jim Ryan announced at a Board of Visitors meeting a $50 million lead gift from Tessa Ader for the building of a performing arts center at the University.
On Wednesday, October 27th, UVA President Jim Ryan took the stage of The Paramount Theater to welcome the near-capacity crowd, all gathered to see Wes Anderson’s latest film, The French Dispatch. The film was the first of many to be screened at the 34th Annual Virginia Film Festival. Ryan’s speech was not just any welcome, just as 2021 is not just any year. The night marked a return to live theatrical presentation for VAFF following a virtual and drive-in program in 2020 due to COVID-19.
Anyone involved with the UVA Arts Council over the last 30 years will tell you that their efforts on behalf of the University and its arts-oriented students are about more than numbers. After all, it’s hard to put a price on the inspiration the members of the arts council have unleashed since its founding in 1990 and the dizzying spectrum of art that has made its way to the world with their support.
