AWARDS PRESENTATION: $2,000 in prizes! Plus the Kathryn Stephens VA Filmmaker Award & People's Choice Awards!
KEVIN McNEER, born in Richmond, and this year's awards judge, attended the Moscow Film School, and has directed several documentaries, including Stalin Thought of You (2009) , winner at the Tel Aviv Film Festival, Frame-by-Frame (2019), on the making of the stop-action film Hoffmannaiada in production for decades, and On One Day of the Days of God (2015), about the vanishing traditional life on the Yemen island of Soqotra.
2023 JAMES RIVER SHORT FILM SHOWCASE JURORS:
CARYL BURTNER is an award-winning conceptual artist whose movie-loving mother took her to see her first movie, "The Snow Queen", at the age of two. Thousands of films later, and despite a growing collection of ticket stubs, she still screens avidly.
TOM CAMPAGNOLI watched Moby Dick and Hitchcock movies with his father as a boy, and later was manager/projectionist at Richmond's repertory Biograph Theatre. He was Kosmo in the RVA animated epic, Futuropolis and is recently retired from UR libraries.
KEVIN DOWNS is a screenwriter, and producer/director of numerous commercial shorts--including music videos for Lost Highway and Epic Records. Educated at VCU and NYU he currently teaches screenwriting and film production/ history courses.
KEN HOPSON oversees The Workshop at VCU Libraries, which supports and collaborates with academic research and design through emerging media technologies. His personal narrative is a loose adaptation of an unscripted true story.
COLEMAN JENNINGS is a graduate of VCU's Mass Comm department and a member of the James River Film Society, overseeing the Society's various programming and tech needs. An avid rock climber, he also collects "found" Super-8 home movies.
ASHLEY KISTLER is a graduate of VCU's SOA, and has curated at the VMFA, the Visual Arts Center, and was director of the beloved Anderson Gallery at VCU. She recently edited a book on the gallery's collection and is active in the RVA arts scene.
JERE KITTLE is an award-winning photographer, artist and filmmaker based in Richmond, educated at VCU. She was a finalist in the London Int'l. Super-8 Festival: Straight 8, and the Phillips Collection "American Moments", in Washington, DC in 2015.
RAASA LEELA DE MONTEBELLO is an award winning filmmaker and actress who divides her time between NYC and Ashland. A NYU film grad, she currently freelance edits and directs; her films have been won several awards at RVA's 48 Hr Film Projects.
JAMESON PRICE is a Richmond musician and activist and a member of the James River Film Society central program committee. He has curated the Silent Music Revival programs at various RVA venues for the past 16 years.
TODD STARKWEATHER holds a PhD in English,University of Illinois-Chicago, where he studied film theory. He has taught literature, writing and film studies at various universities in the past twenty years, and currently teaches English in middle school.
SPECIAL THANKS to finalists judge Kevin McNeer, the jurors, and the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts. The Showcase is sponsored annually by the Virginia Film Office and the James River Film Society, a non-profit organization. www.jamesriverfilm.org
