At the Richmond International Film Festival, which celebrates and showcases music as well as films, the influence of art and culture in the twentieth century was never more than a breath away, even when the influences themselves were unexpected.
Jesse Vaughan is influenced by Hitchcock; Jesse Vaughan himself influences Richmond kids and aspiring filmmakers. Hip hop artist Black Liquid uses a story about the development of Rambo 4’s score to inspire a Richmond composer to add a depth of nuance to his scores. Youth Yamada, a Japanese-American guy from Philly, performs songs that sound more purely seventies than some of the music that actually came out of the seventies while his musical partner, Belle, accompanies him on the tambourine, Stevie Nicks style.
150 films and 50 bands were given a spotlight at the festival — a brainchild of producer, director and force of nature Heather Waters that grows larger in attendance and notoriety every year. The venues that were the site of critiques, jam sessions, film screenings and performances each hummed with nervous energy as artist after artist opened themselves up to their audiences. More seasoned artists seemed barely fazed by the throngs around them, while others seemed unable to think about anything else.
But more than anything, at RIFF, there was the strong sense of community that little big city Richmond does better than most places. At a FLOW Collective panel, the artificial barrier between the successful filmmakers up on the dais and the seated audience who had come to learn from them was broken by a Girl Scout darting up and down the aisle, stage-whispering her sales pitch and offering everyone a plate of cookies. Maybe the biggest takeaway from RIFF 2017 is that inspiration is a circle, not a one-way street.
“I think it’s Hitchcock,” Vaughan said when a panel-goer asked him who he thought the best director of all time was. “Because he understood story, he understood lighting, he got the technical aspects. I mean, he invented that shot, the Hitchcock shot. That zoom, you all know what I’m talking about. He was so on top of the special effects.” (PHOTO BY DIANA DIGANGI)
At the end of the festival, Waters said that all told, she estimated attendance of this year’s festival to number around ten thousand.
The Byrd Theatre opened in the 1920s, and is a fixture of the city that often plays host to film festivals. (PHOTO BY DIANA DIGANGI)
“He had the Ali attitude, the confidence,” Vaughan said. “He walked in and he said, ‘Look, I’m six foot three. I’m two thirty pounds. I look like Muhammad Ali.’ He had no idea I was already set on him before he even walked in.”
Riley, a lifelong fan of Ali, says that embodying the role affected him deeply and it took him about a year to shake having played the boxer. (PHOTO BY DIANA DIGANGI)
RIFF kicked off the month of March and the third day of festival events by hosting a music showcase with performances from a wide variety of artists at popular local venues Strange Matter, the Broadberry, and The Camel.
This is the first year that RIFF has showcased musicians and music along with films and filmmakers. (PHOTO BY DIANA DIGANGI)
“Dave is great,” said bassist Jon Nazdin. “It’s hard to rock out that hard sitting down.”
Hadley started playing in the 1970s, toured with the Army Band in the 80s, and now tours the country as a performing and recording pedal steel guitarist. (PHOTO BY DIANA DIGANGI)
Youth Yamada was one of RIFF’s featured musicians. A Japanese-American who hails from Philadelphia, Yamada travels all over the world to perform his music, which is sonically reminiscent of artists like Bob Dylan and the Beach Boys.
Belle’s outfit and choice of instrument seemed to echo the time period and genres evoked by her musical partner’s stylings. (PHOTO BY DIANA DIGANGI)
The FLOW Collective is a recent addition to the RIFF lineup that began in 2016 and expanded this year. The panels center on the concept of “creative flow”, an idea common to Eastern religions that gets its official name from Hungarian philosopher Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi. (PHOTO BY DIANA DIGANGI)
“If I’m watching something, I need context,” said Black Liquid. “Greatest thing I ever heard about film, and about a score, is about the fourth Rambo movie, which some may say is ridiculous. But when they made it, it didn’t have a score, and people couldn’t sit through it in focus groups. They put a score to it and it changed the entire game. They added that context.”