‘I Play Rocky’ Wins Virginia Film Festival Award — SkimNews
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- I Play Rocky, Peter Farrelly’s Amazon MGM production, was named the Virginia Film Festival’s audience-award winner for narrative feature.
- Virginia Film Festival drew more than 26,600 attendees in its 39th year, screened 134 features from Wednesday through Sunday and counted more than 120 industry guests.
- Admission Possible won the documentary-feature audience award; Matthew Syrett and Bowie Alexander’s nonfiction film follows seven first-generation New York City high-schoolers working to secure futures for themselves and their families.
- Getar Hero won the narrative-short audience award for Teddy Stern’s story about a cowboy living in Bombay.
- Sarah Ann Kelley: Becoming Visible won the documentary-short audience award, centering on an 85-year-old Charlottesville native who broke racial and gender boundaries.
- I Play Rocky finished as first runner-up for the Toronto International Film Festival People’s Choice Award behind “La Bola Negra”; the source frames the current Oscar race around “La Bola Negra” and Universal’s “The Odyssey” while cautioning against discounting “I Play Rocky.”
- I Play Rocky opens in select theaters November 6 ahead of a November 20 wide release; Anthony Ippolito portrays Sylvester Stallone as the movie recreates the scrappy production of the 1977 Best Picture winner “Rocky,” though critics do not universally love the film.
Why it matters: For Amazon MGM’s “I Play Rocky,” the festival delivers an audience win despite the source’s note that critics are not universally won over, ahead of a November 6 select-theater opening and November 20 wide release. Its first-runner-up finish at Toronto adds audience evidence to an awards discussion the source says currently centers on “La Bola Negra” and “The Odyssey.”
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