VFIpresents

A filmmaker (John WIlson, How To with John Wilson) applies lessons from a Hallmark movie writing workshop to pitch a documentary about concrete.

"The History of Concrete paints a compelling portrait of what a weird world we live in. Wilson seems uniquely open to weirdness – in part, I suspect, because he’s a bit of a weirdo himself. He finds the poetry in it. Whereas most of us brush past a million oddities a day, Wilson seems to stop and say, let’s investigate further." - Kimberley Jones, Austin Chronicle

"All this makes for an affecting, oddball tone, and it means that a film packed with obscure little facts about concrete also happens to be a moving meditation on time and memory, death and decay." - Alison Gillmor, Winnipeg Free Press

"The gravitational joy of Wilson’s comic approach is watching how he follows his instincts and later applies his own sui generis mortar to the assembled vérité blocks." - Robert Abele, Los Angeles Times

From the writer/ director of Weapons and Barbarian, Resident Evil follows a hapless courier tasked with delivering a package to a remote hospital. He soon finds himself caught in the middle of an outbreak and must fight through hordes of mutated creatures to survive.

“Resident Evil comes out swinging and never stops, building in intensity from its opening scenes to its dread-soaked first encounter in the woods to a wild third act that pushes the movie into over-the-top territory.” - Don Kaye, Moviefone

“By bucking the cloying attempts at ‘pleasing fans’ that have sunk so many other movies of this kind, Zach Cregger has made the platonic ideal of what a video game movie should be: a cinematic experience that approximates the medium-specific idiosyncrasies of the game, while offering something new and satisfying for fans and newcomers.” -Chrishaun Baker, Inverse

“This is how movies and video games can merge in a way that makes them stronger for sharing their DNA rather than disfiguring them both.” - David Ehrlich, IndieWire

At once a rousing paean to artistic creation, a delicate evocation of divine grace, and the ultimate film about food, the Oscar-winning Babette’s Feast is a deeply beloved treasure of cinema. Directed by Gabriel Axel and adapted from a story by Isak Dinesen, it is the lovingly layered tale of a French housekeeper with a mysterious past who brings quiet revolution in the form of one exquisite meal to a circle of starkly pious villagers in late nineteenth-century Denmark. Babette’s Feast combines earthiness and reverence in an indescribably moving depiction of sensual pleasure that goes to your head like fine champagne.

“Mr. Axel, a film maker new to me who has worked as much in France as in Denmark, treats the Dinesen text with self-effacing but informed modesty. The understated courage of the characters, the barren beauty of the landscape and, finally, the unexpected appearance of salvation are all effortlessly defined in images and language that reflect the writer's style - swift, clean, witty and elegant.” - Vincent Canby, New York Times

“Henning Kristiansen’s rich camera work and Sven Wichman’s production design highlight opulent wallpaper murals and marbled wainscotting; there are creams and pale blues and golds of the aristocratic officer’s family estate. Axel feeds our eyes the way his staging of the famous feast--cinema’s most seductive food sequence, bar none--movingly satisfies our appetites.” - Sheila Benson, Los Angeles Times

“The playing is so good and the direction and photography so sure that the film’s point, about the value of artistry and the true meaning of pleasure, cannot be either missed or misinterpreted.” - Derek Malcolm, The Guardian

Thirty-four days before she's sent to prison, notorious Theranos founder Elizabeth Holmes invites a skeptical film crew to document her every move. What begins as an intimate portrait becomes a mind-bending three-year journey.

"A three-hour cinema landmark from prickly Nathan Fielder that follows fraudster Elizabeth Holmes to jail and makes a winning case for being the first doc ever to get into the Oscar race for best picture." - Peter Travers, The Travers Take

"A miraculous piece of work, an endlessly fascinating documentary that explores the mysteries of human behavior while testing the limits (and possibilities) of the form itself." - Scott Tobias, The Reveal

"You Can See Everything stands out not only for doing something different and surreal with the story, but for effectively raising questions about the narratives we create for ourselves and present to others." - Randy Myers, San Jose Mercury News

Ten states. 10,825 miles. 123 theaters.

An elegy for small-town cinemas.

Filmmaker Rustin Thompson journeys into the American West on a search for traces of what was once a center of small-town life: the movie theater. On the trip, he finds long abandoned and forgotten cinemas; movie houses that have fallen into disrepair; theaters recently closed, theaters struggling to hold on, and theaters that—thanks to their thoughtful caretakers—are not only surviving but thriving. Between the stops along the way, Rustin poetically intersperses excerpts from Peter Bogdanovich’s 1971 classic film The Last Picture Show, as well as reflections on past and present hardships facing the film exhibition industry. The Last Picture Shows is not only a timely portrait of an industry in crisis, one facing the headwinds of consolidation, streaming, and the diminishing theatrical experience, but it also reminds viewers that even in vast cinema deserts, there are oases of community and gathering that remain, where the movie house continues to be a place of wonder, contemplation, and connection.

“At a time when so-called social media encourages and enables us to be alone it reminds us of the vital importance of gathering together. The people who appear on camera demonstrate a uniquely American can-do spirit, swimming against the tide and somehow surviving. The Last Picture Shows is a moving and poetic slice of Americana.” - Leonard Maltin, Leonardmaltin.com

“This spare and beguiling movie directed by Rustin Thompson opens with a quote from Esther Kinsky’s novel Seeing Further, which is about a woman trying to revive a gone-to-seed movie theater in Hungary: ‘A trip to the cinema expands the world and stretches time.’ Many have lost sight of the value of that, as streaming services and home theaters have made movie watching a platform-neutral if not platform-indifferent activity.“ - Glenn Kenny, New York Times (NYT Critic’s Pick)

“There is a special place in Heaven for the owners of independent movie theaters who are struggling to survive in the age of multiplexes and streaming yet continue to operate their theaters as a labor of love.” - Donald Liebenson, Rogerebert.com