Virginia Film Festival starts today

Ticket sales for the 22nd-annual Virginia Film Festival - which begins today - have already surpassed the number sold for last year’s festival.

“We’ve got a great jump on things,“ said Jody Kielbasa, who earlier this year was appointed director of the festival, which will feature more than 80 films and more than 100 special guests.

This year’s theme is “Funny Business,“ and the festival kicks off today at Charlottesville-area theaters with such classic comedies as “Duck Soup” and “Monty Python and the Holy Grail,“ as well as a new documentary titled “Marching Band” that follows the marching bands of the University of Virginia and Virginia State University against the backdrop of the 2008 historic presidential election.

A visit by the so-called “Pope of Trash,“ cult filmmaker John Waters, is proving among this year’s festival’s most popular offerings.

Waters will appear at 4:30 p.m. Friday at UVa’s Culbreth Theatre in a joint presentation of the festival and UVa’s Arts Assembly program. Waters will offer up his one-man multimedia presentation, “This Filthy World.“ The event’s free tickets have sold out, organizers said.

Waters will also present “Hairspray” to an audience at 7 p.m. at Newcomb Hall’s theater. And later that evening, Waters will be the guest of honor at a dance party at The Southern that will feature appearances by the Charlottesville Derby Dames roller derby team and members of the Charlottesville Lady Arm Wrestlers.

A Sunday evening screening of a new romantic comedy titled “Wonderful World,“ hosted by star Matthew Broderick, is also sold out.

Broderick will also present “Election,“ which was released 10 years ago, to an audience at 3 p.m. Sunday at the Culbreth.

Another Sunday highlight will be a 10th-anniversary screening of “American Beauty” that will feature a Q&A with screenwriter Alan Ball.

Ball will also deliver a shot-by-shot presentation of an episode of HBO’s vampire series “True Blood” that Ball wrote and directed. The event will be held at 10:30 a.m. Sunday at the Culbreth and will be free and unticketed.

All of this year’s festival panel discussions will be free, Kielbasa said. Those without tickets to screenings can wait until the film is over and then enter to listen to the discussion.

According to the Charlottesville-Albemarle Convention & Visitors Bureau, this year’s film festival has led to bookings for roughly half the area’s hotel room inventory.

“That’s pretty solid for this time of year,“ said Allie Baer, marketing manager of the tourism bureau.

The bureau estimated that this year’s film festival will generate some $500,000 in local economic activity.

“We knew that with this year’s lineup that it was going to be a great festival,“ Baer said.