“The Grand Hopwood Hall,” the University of Lynchburg’s 2023 holiday video, will be screened at the Lynchburg Film Festival, to be held on Saturday, Oct. 25, at the Academy Center of the Arts in Lynchburg.
Tickets for the all-day festival are $25 and can be purchased here.
The quirky, Wes Anderson-style short film tells the story of two University of Lynchburg students who try, unsuccessfully and then laughably, to enter a campus gingerbread house-making competition.
It was written and directed by Suzanne Ramsey, senior writer and editor in Lynchburg’s Office of Marketing and Communications, and filmed and edited by MarCom’s video producer, Tim Russon.
The film stars theatre majors Arilyn Webster ’26 and Nico Thomas ’25 as main characters Pansy and Ned; Lane Payne ’27 as the Brian Cranston-esque narrator; and Dr. Kelly Ann Jacobson, assistant professor of English, as Mrs. Pumpernickel, a hilariously intense faculty member who has been running the gingerbread house contest for decades.
Props were made by Ramsey and other members of the University community. For example, Jenny Horton, director of Knight-Capron Library, made a cardboard model of Lynchburg’s iconic Hopwood Hall, and Lori Elholm ’23, an environmental services employee and skilled seamstress, created eye patches for one of the main characters.
“It was truly a team effort,” Ramsey said. “It also was a great opportunity for the theatre students to work in another genre — film. Faculty and staff enjoyed the movie at the 2023 holiday party, and now hopefully the wider community will enjoy it, too.”
