“This is a labor of love,” Executive Director Dalton Okolo said Wednesday evening at the opening night festivities of the 2025 Fredericksburg Film Festival.  “But there’s also film lovers, people who just want to sit in a dark room and have an experience.”

Wednesday evening’s program started off with a round of short films, including “George” from Alex Craig and Aaron Craig, featuring Adrian Martinez (“Severance”) as a rather jolly crematorium worker.  Co-director Alex Craig migrated from New York to Fredericksburg upon realizing that he and his spouse and five kids “couldn’t fit in our Brooklyn apartment anymore.”  The Craig brothers are hoping to turn “George” into a feature.”Waiting for April,” by writer-director Timothy Parsons, centers on a romance between two senior citizens (Jack Mayo and Marsha Rehns) that blossoms touchingly.  Producer Kyle Schick stated at a post-screener roundtable discussion that, in addition to “retirement community” being the more polite term, the fictional website used in the film, SeniorsForLove, is now real.

“There are people out there that are looking for companionship at this stage of life, and that’s…what the film is about,” Shick said.

Parsons added that a tear-jerking montage near the end of “Waiting for April” was purposely scored with gentle piano tones to make the scene feel more “hypnotic.”

“We knew we wanted something that was going to be sentimental but not completely boring,” Parsons said, adding that he and his editor separately made their own versions of that montage that were surprisingly similar.

Marsha Rehns, who co-starred as the film’s April, was in the audience and acknowledged by Parsons.  Rehns told the gathered that in addition to her acting and voiceover work, she also gives tours at the Smithsonian.

“I want to make a feature at some point, but I want to make sure that I’m ‘good enough’ to make a feature,” Parsons admitted.  “Right now, I’m failing…with smaller consequences.”

“How to Feel Fulfilled at Work” by Nathaniel Gary Henry centers on a rather baroque fight scene filmed in the Watergate, of all places.  Henry, who conceived of the idea while a film student, said he and his crew were allowed a maximum of twelve people for eight hours at the infamous D.C. address due to COVID restrictions.  Henry said that the actors were friends and that “we make action stuff fun together…they have some Taekwondo experience.”

Other shorts in the opening block included Callie Carpinteri’s “Dirty Towel,” a dark comedy about the guilt of a teenage girl who has sex for the first time, and “Somebody Cares,” a ransom murder comedy (yep) from director Julien Lasseur.

“We realized the shorter you make a script, the less expensive it is,” Lasseur said on the panel.  “Buried in that is a larger theme of you [finding] your people.”

Lasseur and his small crew shot “Somebody Cares” in Crestline, California, using the opening moment for a rather detailed Steadicam shot.

“One of the great things about filmmaking is ‘getting your hands dirty,'” he said, adding that for anyone who wants to produce, his advice is simple:  “Let’s see [you’re] work.”

The evening concluded with a screening of the feature-length documentary “The Body Politic” from Gabriel Francis Paz Goodenough, which follows the unlikely journey of Baltimore’s current mayor, Brandon Scott, now in his second term in City Hall at the age of just 41.  Following the screening, Fredericksburg Mayor Kerry P. Devine spoke with Erricka Bridgeford, a community activist seen in the film who works with Scott and other Baltimore community advocates—many of them formerly incarcerated—to try and defuse many of the interpersonal situations that continually push Baltimore’s notorious homicide rates upwards.

Bridgeford, despite being born with only one hand and dealing with so much death on the streets of her city, is remarkably positive and spoke gently with Devine, whose town only recently experienced a rather grisly multiple homicide.

Violence is an issue all mayors face, whether they lead cities large or small.  By continuing to work to bring down the temperature and avoid retaliatory action—as has been tried in Baltimore—Bridgeford said that our towns and cities could soon be better places to live, work and play.

THE REVIEWS

“The Secret Game: A Fast Break to Freedom”
Director: Greg de Deugd

John B. McLendon was a basketball player and coach at Kansas who studied under the inventor of the game, James Naismith.  He became a coach in Durham at what would become North Carolina Central University, an all-Black school.  McLendon’s inventions in the game were legion as well, including the “fast break,” under which teams he coached began winning over 100 points in a game.

McLendon also decided it would be a great idea to take on Duke, then as now an absolute powerhouse in basketball—and, back then at least, all-White—and a blow to Jim Crow policies.  However, in order to happen, it had to be done in secret, without spectators.  They picked a Sunday morning while everyone was in church.  Then, when the Black team ran roughshod over Duke, the coach decided the teams would mix and play shirts and skins.  De Deugd staged this with actors.  (I moderated a panel on which he spoke Sunday.)

“It’s just God’s children horsing around with a basketball,” one talking head says in the doc—as if separating players based on skin tone alone was ever anything other than the timid pushing their fears onto children.

“Not the Same Clarence”
Directors: Brian Russell & Samuel B. Russell

Gideon (Greg Naughton) and Clarence (James Naughton) are fathers and sons whose lives were close during Gideon’s childhood, with Clarence as his son’s baseball coach.  Now a middle-aged adult, Gideon has to help Clarence adjust to life in an assisted living facility as his memories fade.  “I just don’t want to spend my last inning on the bench,” Gideon says at one point during a trip outside his facility with Clarence.  With help from a friendly nurse (Delissa Reynolds), Gideon discovers a way to get Clarence back out on the baseball field one more time.  The real-life pairing of father-son actors makes this short even more heartfelt.

“Contigo Siempre (Always With You)”
Director: David Cortés Sáez

From Puerto Rico comes this tense short, with a pair of women barricading themselves in a structure against something malevolent.  Though we never find out precisely what they are running from, they comfort themselves by flashing back to happier times cooking together.  In less than six minutes, director David Cortés Sáez manages to take viewers on a disturbing journey.

“Keepers”
Director: Paul Emile

A lobsterman (Luke Slattery) begins pulling gold bars up from his nets, which is as surprising to him as it is to us.  If something is down there, he aims to find out what.  Director Emile, who told me on a panel that he shot on Cape Cod during some chilly weather, ratchets up the fear without a single line of dialogue as the mysterious situation continues.  A pulsing, pounding score from Seth Glennie-Smith increases our collective unease.

“Secret Game” director Gregory de Deugd (in the middle) and “Dax & Lio: Shoot Your Shot” writer Paul Moore at left, with author Eric Althoff on the right

“Dax & Lio: Shoot Your Shot
Director: Michael Filippi

It’s high-jinks meets low-jinks galore in this short, which sees Dax (Andrew Rappo) and Lio (Nick Garabedian) as a pair of dimwitted criminals who spend more time arguing about online dating apps than dealing with the man tied up in their trunk.  Screenwriter Paul Moore joined a panel I moderated Sunday alongside “Secret Game” director Gregory de Deugd to discuss the respective challenges in making documentary and narrative shorts.

“String Head”
Director: Matthew Vargas

Trouble sleeping?  It could be worse.  Just ask the man (Justin Oratokhai) at the center of “String Head,” who wakes up in a nightmare involving a humanoid figure with tons of red strings protruding from his cranium.  Then it gets weirder.  Unnerving in its 7 minutes, this one isn’t for those prone to bad dreams.

“Asterion”
Director: Alejandro D. Orengo Colón

In this surreal, David Lynchian-style puzzle, an actor (Pedro de León) plays a character in the movie of his life…or does he?  Best to just go along on this surreal ride.

“Border Hopper”
Director: Nico Casavecchia

Laura (Gabriela Ortega) needs a work permit to travel to Poland to make a Super Bowl commercial, and then her reality promptly becomes undone.  Director Nico Casavecchia takes viewers on a surreal journey through Laura’s life, which starts to resemble a living video game (see for yourself).  Casavecchia interweaves animation with live action as our heroine’s life becomes increasingly unglued, and her reality shifts from scene to scene.  Creepy and unnerving, this is a surreal and experimental trip indeed.

“Beautyosity”
Director: Zach Solberg

This absurdist short is like every nightmare you’ve ever had about not turning in your homework on time (just me?) as Dean (Cyle Winters) fails to grasp mammoth math equations on the classroom whiteboard by his teacher (Sherrie Peterson) that only grow longer.  Then, his homework problems start changing as he stares.  Solberg is using this as a calling card as he attempts to raise money for a full feature, as he told us at the festival.  Based on this opening scene, what will eventually follow will give us nerds even more agita.

“The French Italian”
Director: Rachel Wolther

Kind of a comic version of “Rear Window” for the Gen Z set, a Brooklyn couple (Aristotle Athari and Catherine Cohen) hear the arguments in the apartment below them, with the couple alternately screaming at one another and then engaging in rather loud karaoke.  Rather than being adults and asking them to stop, the couple decides to not only move but then turn the bickering couple’s arguments into a play.  Wouldn’t you know it, the woman of the bickering couple (Chloe Cherry) shows up to the audition.  Reveals, naturally, ensue.  Wolter directs from her own screenplay.

“All Things Metal”
Director: Motoki Otsuka

The Patterson brothers love metal—in many senses of the word.  The Santa Barbara trio owns a metallurgy shop by day, and by night, they use the shop as the setting for filming tongue-in-cheek homemade heavy metal music videos.  Joel was the first of the brothers to be diagnosed with Tourette’s syndrome, but soon enough, both Andy, the youngest, and Dan, the most aggressive, were diagnosed as well.  Their well-meaning parents (one a pastor) helped them to channel their youthful energy in creative ways that helped their tics—including their mother singing the F-word along with them to help demystify its sting.  Now adults and with children of their own, the Patterson brothers continue to create music, movies and metal objects—all activities that have helped them with social anxiety and circumvented their tics to a degree.  Halloween, understandably, is a favorite holiday, and the pumpkin monster the trio conjures for their latest film must be seen to be believed.

Heartfelt and inspiring, and a reminder that people face challenges every day that are deserving of our sympathies and understanding.

“The Wychwood Cycle”
Director: Robert J. Kendzie

Local Fredericksburg filmmaker Robert J. Kendzie and his team weave an eerie tableau about several characters who encounter an unusual spiritual entity in the forest—one per each season.  Dreamy and creative, Kendzie weaves a unique, mythical yarn without a single line of dialogue that was shot in Fredericksburg throughout an entire year’s worth of seasonal change.

“Memory Project”
Director: Timothy Parsons

Anyone who took Psychology 101 almost certainly learned about Stanley Milgram’s notorious “learning” experiments, in which teachers were directed by experiment confederates to deliver increasingly painful shocks to learners who were, in fact, actors screaming as if in real pain.  The presence of an “authority” figure in the room who was willing to “take responsibility” incredibly made the teachers continue giving fake shocks to the learners, with more than 60 percent delivering a fatal dose.  Milgram and his confederates believed—falsely—that perhaps one or two teachers would deliver the fatal dose, but the obedience the teachers showed demonstrated how easily and quickly the deference to authority could turn deadly.

Parsons’s film dramatizes the experiment, and he bookends his film with relevant quotes from C.S. Lewis and Hitler about the use of power and conformity.  Not precisely a comforting watch in these surreal times.

“Nhu Dawn”

“Nhu Dawn”
Director: Caitlin Whitaker

The film opens with several women trapped in a cage for reasons unknown, and things get bloody rather fast.  Whitaker takes the extra step of having several characters speak different languages, and this babel-infused element makes the film more tense as they cannot communicate their way out of danger.

“Consumed”
Director: Samuel Robert Van Fossen

In a post-apocalyptic world, it’s best not to trust anyone, as the hero (Thomas Scott) learns the hard way when he is kidnapped as the next human sacrifice by a “family” in the woods.  However, despite the carnage, the hero still finds it within himself to end with a good deed.

“After Hours”
Director: Andrew Akbari

A young man develops a plan to sneak out at night, with somewhat predictable results.

(featured image is from “Border Hopper”)