CHARLOTTESVILLE (CVILLE RIGHT NOW) — The Virginia Film Festival is set to return to Charlottesville this week. The five-night festival, now in its 38th year will feature more than 100 films, kicking things off on Wednesday night with “Springsteen: Deliver Me From Nowhere” at the Paramount Theater at 7 p.m.

The event will wrap up on Sunday with the closing night film, “Rental Family,” which will also feature a discussion with its director, Hikari.

The festival slate is highlighted by a number of highly anticipated films like “Jay Kelly,” “Train Dreams” and Guillermo Del Toro’s “Frankenstein” as well as 14 international Oscar contenders. The festival also features a number of films from Virginia filmmakers, including the aforementioned “Springsteen,” directed by Virginia native Scott Cooper, who serves as an Advisory Board member for the festival. The event will also feature a few Virginia-centered films, like “Shenandoah,” “Pep Banned” and “Been Here Stay Here among others.”

“It’s an incredible lineup of films, and the response from audiences has been really tremendous so far,” VAFF executive director Jody Kielbasa told Cville Right Now. “We’re on track to top last year, I believe, in attendance.”

Kielbasa said the festival tries to look for a diverse lineup of films each year that “reflect the community in which we live in.” He said he hopes there are films that will speak to people living in Charlottesville and attending UVA, but he also hopes there are films that can “open up a window on a different community and a different culture.” He believes an important part of the mission of the festival to “engage our community in dialogue about storytelling that’s behind these films.” He said the festival also hopes to bring in the top films that will be talked about later in the year and give the community the opportunity to watch them weeks, even months before their wide release, if they are released widely at all.

The festival will also bring in a number of filmmakers, producers, actors, composers and others from the industry to participate in post-screening discussions about their films, panels and other events through the five days.

While the vast majority of the films have not been released publicly, there is a notable exception in the lineup in “Sinners,” which was released in April to both critical and commercial success. VAFF’s screening of “Sinners” on Saturday at 4 p.m. will be bookended by a discussion and brief musical performance from co-star Miles Canton. The Festival’s Artistic Director Ilya Tovbis told WINA in September that while screening an already released film is a departure for the festival, he said “Sinners” was a “cultural touchstone” when it released in the spring and went on to praise Canton for his performance and musical talents.

“If you don’t know his name, show up and be sure to know it before the rest of the world does,” Tovbis said.

Other special events include Academy Award and Grammy-nominated composer of “Jay Kelly” Nicholas Britell, which will occur after the screening of the film and be recorded for the “Awards Chatter” Podcast, hosted by The Hollywood Reporter’s executive editor of awards coverage Scott Feinberg. There will also be five panels hosted during the festival, covering a number of film industry-related topics like Artificial Intelligence in film, writing for the screen and casting among other topics.

Kielbasa said the festival ultimately aims to bring together the community, especially in a time where more and more people opt to stay home to watch movies and lose out on the communal experience. He also said that while it’s impossible to watch every film in the festival, he hopes people will use the festival lineup as a guide for what they may want to watch on their own in coming months.

“We have this tightly curated film festival program,” he said, “which is essentially a guide for the rest of the year that we hope people will take fully advantage of.”