Alexandria, VA – “Film IS good for the Soul!” – Ink screenwriter James Graham.
Visionary Sheila Johnson’s longtime friend, the late, great Robert Redford, upon visiting the 340-acre site purchased from the Pamela Harriman estate that would become the Salamander Resort, said, “Sheila, you’ve got to put a film festival here.” Partnering with filmmaker and founding Middleburg Film Festival Executive Director Susan Koch, the inaugural MFF was launched 13 years ago, the same year the resort and spa in the tony heart of Virginia horse country opened.
Opening Salamander was met with local resistance and protest, delaying breaking ground and construction for over a dozen years. Outcry from the established horsey set claimed Salamander would ruin the community. Ms. Johnson, co-founder of BET cable and vice chairman as well as partner of Monumental Sports and Entertainment, instead put bucolic Middleburg on the world-class hospitality and entertainment map.
The MFF has since become a barometer for awards season. The esteemed festival has screened six Best Picture films before the Academy Awards nominations: Spotlight (2015), Moonlight (2016), Green Book (2018), Parasite (2019), Nomadland (2020), and Anora (2024). Last year proved indisputably that the festival’s got serious chops. Six out of the ten films in the 2025 Best Picture lineup, Bugonia, Frankenstein, Hamnet, The Secret Agent, Sentimental Value, and Train Dreams, were shown at Middleburg. One hundred thirty-seven films screened over the past thirteen years have earned 456 Oscar nominations, including 50 for Best Picture, with 81 films winning Oscars.
The 14th annual Middleburg Film Festival was held from Thursday, October 15, through Sunday, October 18, amid the glorious autumn splendor of the Blue Ridge Mountains. Kicking off opening night with the best of the fest narrative feature was the film lovers’ favorite, and likely Academy Awards dominator (along with Dune: Part Three), A24’s The Debut. The sold-out screening audience was glowingly overwhelmed by the filmmaking and its stars, exercising multiple standing O’s!
The film, billed as a musical yet more a musical inside a film set staging a musical, stars an unforgettable Julianne Moore as an unassuming community theater player turned manic method actor. A quintessential Paul Giamatti personifies the impenetrable, enigmatic director of the resurrected fictional period play Nosy Neighbors. Written (including the songs), directed, and produced by co-star Jesse Eisenberg, the film narrates one woman’s existential metamorphosis from ineffectual to empowered. Moore’s Mona embodies a chrysalis for the insatiable quest to be seen.
Netflix scored two out of the three audience awards. La Bola Negra earned the Best International Film, competing against the streamer’s Gentle Monster which showcased an exquisite performance by Léa Seydoux that earned her the Outstanding Achievement in Acting Award. Netflix also showed Korean entry Possible Love. 14th, examining the current threat to the 14th Amendment, was the top documentary among compelling contenders such as Avedon (Netflix), a portrait of the iconic fashion photographer Richard Avedon, and Give Me the Ball (ESPN), focused upon the origin story of tennis legend Billie Jean King.
Photo Scott MacConomy
The starz were out in force with Oscar winners Brad Bird, Olivia Coleman, Siân Heder, Peter Farrelly, Martin McDonough, Julianne Moore, and Diane Warren attending, along with film glitterati Jack O’Connell, Rosalind Eleazer, Jesse Eisenberg, Bill Pullman, Mark Ruffalo, Seth Rogan, and Léa Seydoux. Rogan introduced The Invite, one of the best films of the year, and also participated in the Tangles Q & A with his producer wife, Lauren Miller Rogen.
Jack O’Connell, head vampire in Sinners, was presented with the Spotlight Actor Award for his starring role as the inscrutable outcast British journalist Larry Lamb in Ink. Lamb partnered with media magnate Rupert Murdoch (Guy Pearce) to turn The Sun into the most profitable British tabloid at any and all cost. In the Q & A with Ink screenwriter James Graham, they addressed the lurid transformation of Lamb into the demon editor-in-chief of Fleet Street. It’s reminiscent of the observation in Avedon by Tina Brown, former editor of Tattler, Vanity Fair, The New Yorker, and co-founder of The Daily Beast: “You’ve got to stay ahead of your readers. I guess it’s a bit like biting the hands that read you!”
The 14th Middleburg Film Festival proved that filmmaking and film festivals are more vital to the arts and to community building than ever. Sheila Johnson established a festival one hour outside the urban DMV, set in scenic vineyards and horse pastures, with a purpose: to resolve divergent positions standing in opposition to change. As she explains it, “The art of storytelling can solve so many problems.” At Z MovieZ gives a standing ovation to that. And to Sheila Johnson.
