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in terms of fillers conventions Galax is
better than any of the others it's
absolutely the best with us one of the
things that people like about old-time
music is we can trace the lineage you
can trace you know you can go back
generation by generation
if you win Galax we're conservative on
the basis that
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you are watching part of the trailer
called fiddlin a bluegrass music
documentary filmed primarily at the old
Fiddler's convention in Galax Virginia
that's right the film has garnered
numerous accolades and there's a special
screening of the film coming up this
Sunday and here to tell us more we have
Vicki Vlasic the film's producer and
co-writer thanks so much for coming in
thanks for having me fiddlin and what
inspired it so my sister and I grew up
in Hillsville which is the town just
over the hill from Galax and about ten
years ago she looked at me and she said
you know I think it'd be really cool to
do a documentary about the Fiddler's
convention and I'm like wow great idea
but we were both still busy with young
kids and so three years ago we realized
it was the 80th anniversary and we
thought forever going to do this now is
the time and so we just dope in and we
started making a movie so what is it
about the Fiddler's convention that you
wanted to highlight well there are so
many things first of all the the
quantity of talent is mind-blowing and
one of the things that we had started
noticing in the last 15 to 20 years that
was different from when we were kids
going to that convention was that there
were kids young kids from literally
four-year-olds into their teens who were
playing this music and we hadn't seen
that it was all the older people that
played it when we were growing up and we
thought you know how incredible not only
are there all these kids playing along
with the adults who mentor them passed
down the old tunes but you see kids
walking around with instruments instead
of smartphones right yes which was
pretty incredible music either no sheet
music and most of them play by ear so
how is the film been received by those
who have seen it you know it's been a
pretty amazing experience and you don't
know when we went to our first Film
Festival we premiered in San Luis Obispo
in California and no one had seen the
film yet I mean we scrambled to finish
it in time to go to that festival and we
were scheduled for three screenings and
we sold out all three screenings they
opened up
two additional theaters we sold out
those extra theaters and we ended up
winning the audience award Wow so we
were the favorite documentary film of
the festival and so that's and that has
continued and you know we've won four
other audience Awards a Best Documentary
Feature Award Best Score Best
Cinematography so the quality of the
film really speaks for itself and the
audience's everywhere across the country
and in Europe have loved it
Wow so where can we see it well next is
this weekend in Charlottesville okay
Sunday afternoon at 2 p.m. at the
piedmont valley community college
theater and we're also this weekend in
st. louis Ojai California East Lansing
Michigan Rochester New York I think
that's it for this and then the next
week we're in Fort Lauderdale Florida so
we're on our festival tour right now
we'll probably have a handful more
festivals in early 2019 and then we're
hoping to work out some kind of
distribution so that the world at large
can see the film yeah and you we have we
do we do we have Martha Spencer who is
an incredible talent who's from that
area and some members of the white top
mountain band we have frank russia and
billy hurt here to play for us today and
martha actually has a brand new album
that was just released this past week
check out mark on facebook and online
and you can find her new music she's a
great singer songwriter and if you want
more information on the film and where
to get more information you can go
online to Virginia Film Festival dot org
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