VCU Film Festival Has Lasting Effects: Event Gives Students Chance to Work With Some Professionals

By Penelope M. Carrington, Richmond Times-Dispatch, Va.

Apr. 14–When Michael Leonberger penned a script plunking Edgar Allan Poe in a 21st century bar with a modern woman, the last thing on his mind was whether a famous French director/cinematographer would take on the project.

Leonberger is a freshman film major at Virginia Commonwealth University, and won’t work with 35mm film for three more years. But recently, Leonberger was on set for the action as Pierre-William Glenn — with more than 80 films to his credit — directed “Poe Fiction.”

“As a poet, Edgar Allan Poe kind of transcends time, so it’s about time and words and the impact words have on time and dreams,” Leonberger said of his script during a lunch break on set at the Canal Club in Shockoe Bottom.

The Chantilly native was one of more than 40 freshmen in VCU’s cinema arts program who collaborated with a handful of French filmmakers such as Glenn on four short films. The weeklong shoot with the VCU students and graduates of France’s La Femis film school was the equivalent of a cinematic master class.

Call it Part Deux of VCU’s internationally acclaimed French Film Festival, which brings scores of French-language films to Richmond along with their actors and directors. The event celebrated its 16th year last month, and founders hope the alliances made with this cross-cultural film project will be equally enduring.

“This taps into the creative side by creating films through the festival,” said Peter Kirkpatrick, the festival’s founder and co-director. “This type of experience for students is something VCU or a university film festival should also have as a mission. It shouldn’t just be showing films.”

The collaboration puts VCU “among the very advanced film schools of the world because most places don’t do this,” said Rob Tregenza, a director and professor in VCU’s cinema arts department. “What we’re doing today is going to look like something that was shot in a studio — but in Paris — but we’re doing it here in the Canal Club.”

There Leonberger marveled as Glenn brought new dimension to Leonberger’s words with lighting and camera angles he hadn’t considered.

“It’s fascinating,” he said.

VCU student and Richmonder John Reaves agreed. He also said the experience was the first time he used his French with his film studies.

“Despite the language barrier . . . we’re still getting through and communicating so we can make these films,” said Reaves, who built props and tracked shots. “In the whole industry of film, the only real way to learn anything is to actually do it. . . . Everything they do is second nature for them, and that’s what we want it to be for us.” Contact Penelope M. Carrington at (804) 649-6027 or pcarrington@timesdispatch.com.

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