The 2025 MFF Spotlights Self-Reflection
Written by Kaitlin Hill | Photo by Shannon Finney
Since the 1878 “Horse in Motion,” a set of pictures made to move, or 1888’s “Roundhay Garden Scene,” widely considered the first motion picture film, movies have always had the ability to elicit emotion from viewers. Laughing, crying, or, in the case of horror films, the desire to look over one’s shoulder or keep a light on at night, memorable films of any genre can have an effect that attendees of the Middleburg Film Festival are all too familiar with.
But it’s a rare film that captures the true complexity of the human experience and demands something deeper from its audience: self-reflection.
From October 16 to 19, as shuttles passed between Salamander Resort & Spa, The Hill School, the National Sporting Library & Museum, and the Community Center, as tickets were scanned, seats filled, and credits rolled, three films screened at the 2025 Middleburg Film Festival accomplished just that. “Sentimental Value,” “Ask E. Jean,” and “Hamnet” — three very different movies — examined three fundamental questions: what do we owe our parents? What do we owe ourselves? And, finally, what do we owe our children?
Set in Oslo, Norway, “Sentimental Value” centers on the relationship between a screenwriter father and his two semi-estranged adult daughters. Viewers quickly learn that the father, Gustav Borg, played by Stellan Skarsgård, left his family home and young kids, only to reappear in their lives at the funeral of their mother. As the film progresses, Gustav asks daughters Nora (Renate Reinsve) and Agnes (Inga Ibsdotter Lilleaas) to participate in his new film project and indirectly, but more importantly, to forgive him. As the daughters struggle with the question of what they owe their father for simply being their father, the story that unfolds is a beautiful expression of unconditional and at times conditional love, an examination of obligation, and a period of introspection for all of the film’s characters and by extension the audience.
“Ask E. Jean,” a documentary about the life of American journalist, author, and advice columnist E. Jean Carroll, was perhaps the biggest surprise of the weekend. Far from a dry retelling of events, the film was often humorous and filled with relatable moments sourced from Carroll’s 1990s television series. During the Q&A that followed, director Ivy Meeropol shared, “The hardest thing was getting that tone right.” And Carroll, also in attendance at the film festival, mused on the “tightrope” that women have always had to walk in personal and professional contexts. Set against the backdrop of the life of a working woman, Carroll flips the script from, “What do women owe to society?” to the much more valuable question of, “What do we owe ourselves?” As she ponders the prompt, viewers are asked to as well, proving that a relationship with oneself is as complex as any relationship with another.
While in many ways an exercise in escapism with period costumes, English accents, and Shakespearean dialect, “Hamnet” was far from worlds away in its core messaging. The film follows a young William Shakespeare (Paul Mescal), his wife, Agnes (Jessie Buckley), and their three children as the family navigates the challenges of budding success in the time of the plague. For Shakespeare, his time and attention are divided between his career in London and his children at home, while his wife dedicates herself entirely to the family’s success, happiness, and safety. As the Globe Theatre is built and the plague closes in, both parents grapple with the best approach to balance their fraught yet rewarding lives while protecting their children from harm. While originally a moment of personal crisis in “Hamlet,” the play, viewers of “Hamnet,” the film, might ponder the question, “To be or not to be,” through the lens of what a parent can reasonably accomplish and control when both sheltering their children from and exposing them to the world.
All three are examples of a film’s ability to explore, mirror, and question the human psyche, and each speaks to the beauty of the Middleburg Film Festival experience. No two people among the trailing lines that spilled out of the screening venues were the same. Attendees of different ages, genders, belief systems, hometowns, and life stories filled the streets of Middleburg, yet were all united by the common human experience of a day at the movies and the opportunity to reflect. ML
Published in the November 2025 issue of Middleburg Life.