The document discusses upcoming events celebrating film history in Virginia. The Virginia Museum of Fine Arts will host exhibitions on Hollywood costumes from November to December featuring iconic costumes from films. It will also host the "Made in Hollywood" exhibition of photographs from the golden age of cinema. Additionally, the 26th annual Virginia Film Festival will take place in Charlottesville from November 7-10, screening films new and classic along with discussions. These events will celebrate Virginia's long history with film.

1. ALBEMARLE46
HOLLYWOOD
INVIRGINIA
Elizabeth Taylor,
MGM, 1948
Photograph by Clarence
Sinclair Bull
Photographs from the
John Kobal Foundation
The Virginia Museum
of Fine Arts exhibits
a collection of
photographs of the
greatest stars during
the golden age of film

2. ALBEMARLE 47
BY JOHN BOLEN
AND CAROLINE PARSLEY
V
irginia has long been
a sort of rural hub for
film, with numerous
movies, actors, and di-
rectors calling our lush
landscape home. One
of the earliest twentieth century pictures
filmed in Virginia was a groundbreaking
project called The Colored American Win-
ning His Suit. This was the first feature
length film made by African American
producers and actors. Later in the twen-
tieth century, some of the great names
in the American film industry came to
Virginia, including Humphrey Bogart,
Elizabeth Taylor, Ronald Regan, Charl-
ton Heston, Rock Hudson, and Alfred
Hitchcock. Beginning in 1980, Virgin-
ia once again rose to the forefront of
film production with the founding of
the Virginia Film Office. Actively recruit-
ing film, video, and television industries,
this organization brought major pictures
back to Virginia and spread excitement
about the art form throughout the state.
Films continued to bring revenue and
publicity to Virginia, including the recent
films War of the Worlds, True Colors, and
Lincoln, all set in the commonwealth. In
November, Virginia plans to celebrate
this long history with a blockbuster line-
up of film appreciation.
From November 7th to 10th, Char-
lottesville will host the 26th Virginia
Film Festival, a four-day event celebrat-
ing the magic of film. Presented by the
University of Virginia, the festival will
include first run features as well as time-
less classics. The four days will be filled
with screenings, lectures, and discussions
with experts in film, giving attendees
a thorough insight into the making of
movies. Films range from contemporary
to classic and from documentaries to
experimental film, followed by special
behind the scenes looks and commen-
taries. Past events have included shot by
shot workshops with Roger Ebert, ad-
vanced screenings of movies like Mother
and Child, and even live producer com-
mentary of shows like True Blood. This
year promises to be just as exciting. The
festival recently announced a 50th an-
niversary screening of Alfred Hitchcock’s
1963 classic The Birds on Friday, Novem-
ber 8, featuring a post-screening discus-
sion with the film’s famed star Tippi He-
dren. Another highlight this year will be
the annual Family Day festivities, which
for the first time will take place at the
Betsy and John Casteen Arts Grounds
at UVA. The Family Day offerings are
being expanded, and the format of the
festivities has been revamped and revital-
ized for this year. A complete schedule
detailing all the festival’s exciting events
will be announced on October 8 at www.
virginiafilmfestival.org.
On the same weekend that
Charlottesville will be hosting the
Katharine Hepburn, RKO, 1935
Photograph by Ernest A. Bachrach
James Cagney for
“Angels With Dirty
Faces,” Warner Brothers,
1938
Photograph by Scotty Welbourne
THE KOBAL FOUNDATION is the
legacy of John Kobal (1940–1991) who
was among the pioneering generation of
Hollywood historians and among the first
to examine seriously the photographs
taken to promote the stars, the films, and
Hollywood as place.

3. 48 ALBEMARLE
Virginia Film Festival, Richmond will be
welcoming the opening of the highly
anticipated Hollywood Costume exhibit.
Starting November 9th, Richmond’s
Virginia Museum of Fine Arts (VMFA)
will house over one hundred of the
most iconic costumes in film from 1912
to 2012. The exhibition, organized by
London’s Victoria and Albert Museum,
will give visitors an in-depth look at how
these Hollywood costumes created fashion
trends and social icons. The exhibit will
cover over 1500 square feet and will
feature costumes from Superman, The
Seven Year Itch, Taxi Driver, and even Tippi
Hedren’s costume from The Birds. It will
also include a dialogue between Alfred
Hitchcock and famed costume designer
Edith Head.
The Birds was Tippi Hedren’s debut
film, which critics called one of the scariest
movies ever made. Alfred Hitchcock, the
director of both Psycho and Rear Window,
agreed with critics and once admitted that
The Birds could have been the most ter-
rifying motion picture he ever directed.
In the film, Hedren plays the flippantly
adorable Melanie Daniels, a blonde so-
cialite who plans to surprise love interest
Mitch Brenner (Rod Taylor) in an isolated
Northern California community. However
her plans going terrifyingly south when
swarms of crows and seagulls begin to in-
explicably attack the town’s residents. The
film unfolds into a brutal, yet beautiful dis-
play of both acting and filmmaking. This
movie was the beginning of a controversial
relationship between Hedren and Hitch-
cock, who continued to work together fol-
lowing the film.
On November 23rd the VMFA contin-
ues their exploration of the film industry
with the Made in Hollywood exhibit. Featur-
ing over ninety original prints from 1920 to
1960 from some of the most important pho-
tographers working during the golden age
of cinema, Made In Hollywood will give view-
ers another behind the scenes look at some
of the most iconic films ever made. The
photographs, which include stars like Greta
Garbo, Marlene Dietrich, and Clark Gable,
were selected from the John Kobal Founda-
tion Collection in England. John Kobal, a
film historian and author of thirty books,
began collecting photographs of Hollywood
actors in the 1970s and 80s. Before even
realizing the worth of this project, Kobal
set out to reunite forgotten artists with their
original negatives, which he then displayed
at museums such as the Victoria and Albert
Museum in London. Some photographs
reveal the subtle beauty of actors like Grace
Kelly, while others provide insight into the
troubled but genius minds of stars like Mar-
lon Brando or Alfred Hitchcock.
James Dean for
“Rebel Without a Cause”
Warner Brothers, 1955
Photograph by Floyd McCarty
Rock Hudson for “Lover
Come Back,” Universal, 1961
Photograph by Leo Fuchs

4. 49ALBEMARLE
The VMFA seeks to encourage and
foster film appreciation in everyone, in-
cluding younger audiences. In December,
the VMFA will host an event called Teen
Stylin’ designed for young students with
a passion for clothing design, studio arts,
installation art, or sculpture. Teen Stylin’
will provide aspiring designers with the
guidance and assistance to create their
own one-of-a-kind, wearable works of art.
More than 80 Virginia student designers
in grades 6-12 will work throughout eight
weeks to create these wearable works of
art inspired by Hollywood Costume. During
orientation, each student designer will
choose an inspiration piece from several
predetermined works of art in the per-
manent collection that explore cinematic
themes including: Wearing the Nation;
Beauty & Vanity; Bold, Graphic & Iconic;
Culture; The Good Life; Setting & Style;
Picturing Power; Making Myths; and Hu-
man Stories. Using creative construction
and alternative material application, stu-
dent designers will represent characters,
plot, and setting through the sheer power
of costumes. The students’ creations will
then be featured during the Teen Stylin’
Fashion Weekend Runway Exhibitions.
The Virginia Film Festival, Hollywood
Costume, Made in Hollywood, and Teen
Stylin’, are coming together this fall and
winter to make them landmark seasons
for Virginia film lovers. With Virginia’s
Marilyn Monroe, RKO, 1952
Photograph by Ernest Bachrach
Audrey Hepburn for “Funny
Face,” Paramount Pictures, 1956
Photograph by Bud Fraker
Nina Mae McKinney for
“Hallelujah,” MGM, 1929
Photograph by Ruth Harriet Louise
Jean Harlow,
MGM, 1933
Photograph by
George Hurrell
Hedy Lamarr, MGM, c. 1940
Photograph by Clarence Sinclair Bull

5. 50 ALBEMARLE
Marx Brothers for “A Day
at the Races,” MGM, 1937
Photograph by Ted Allan
Alfred Hitchcock with the
MGM Lion, MGM, 1958
Photograph by Clarence Sinclair Bull

6. 51ALBEMARLE
natural beauty and picturesque landscape,
it is not difficult to see why a genre so
reliant on aesthetics would flourish here.
But beyond aesthetic beauty, it is the deep
history and culture found here that makes
Virginia unique among our nation’s fifty
states. Lincoln production designer Rick
Clark recognized the distinctiveness of
our state when he said, “History is alive
in Richmond in a way that you don’t
find it in the rest of the country.” This
combination of beauty, history, and
culture has made Virginia a popular
destination and a flourishing home in the
film industry world. a
Rita Hayworth for “Gilda,”
Columbia Pictures, 1946
Photograph by Robert Coburn Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers for
“Swing Time,” RKO, 1936
Photograph by John Miehle
Grace Kelly, MGM, 1956
Photograph by Clarence Sinclair Bull
Clark Gable and Joan Crawford
for “Dancing Lady,” MGM, 1933
Photograph by George Hurrell

7. 52 ALBEMARLE
Humphrey Bogart for “High Sierra,”
Warner Brothers, 1940
Photographer by Scotty Welbourne
Marlene Dietrich,
on the set of “Manpower,”
Warner Brothers, 1944
Photograph by Laszlo Willinger
Buster Keaton, MGM, 1925
Photograph by Arthur Rice
FOR MORE
INFORMATION
ONLINE VISIT:
Virginia Museum of
Fine Arts
WWW.VMFA.STATE.VA.US
John Kobal Foundation
London
WWW.JOHNKOBAL.ORG
Victoria and Albert Museum
London
WWW.VAM.AC.UK
Virginia Film Festival
WWW.VIRGINIAFILMFESTIVAL.ORG
Library of Congress Packard
Campus for Audio-Visual
Conservation, Culpeper, VA
WWW.LOC.GOV/AVCONSERVA-
TION/THEATER/
Ava Gardner for “The Little Hut,”
MGM, 1956
Photograph by Davis Boulton
Laurel and Hardy, 1925
Photograph by Lansing Brown

8. 53ALBEMARLE
Charlie Chaplin and Jackie Coogan
for “The Kid,” Charles Chaplin
Productions, 1921
Photographer by unknown