Alexandria Film Festival To Get Permanent Home In Old Town North

ALEXANDRIA, VA — The Alexandria Film Festival will get a permanent home as development in Old Town North provides more space for arts uses.

MetroStage and the Alexandria Film Festival last week that the festival will be located permanently at the MetroStage within the Venue condominium complex (915 N. Fairfax St.) starting in 2026. The new location will come as the Alexandria Film Festival celebrates its 20th anniversary in 2026.

"MetroStage in the Old Town North Arts District is the ideal home for the Alexandria Film Festival," said Dara Sanders, committee chair for the Alexandria Film Festival. "It’s long epitomized excellence in the arts and its new facilities will be state-of-the-art for both theatre and film."

The festival will be the first "in residence" arts program at MetroStage. MetroStage had to relocate from its location of 19 years on N. Royal Street that Carr was developing into Condos. Carr offered the new space at Venue with a 30-year rent-free lease. MetroStage is in the final stretch of its fundraising campaign for buildout of the arts space at Venue.

The theater will have 120 seats, a focus on quality sightlines and acoustics, and film and video projection technology for festival screenings. CarrAmerica, formerly known as Carr Companies, is the developer behind Venue.

The 2026 Alexandria Film Festival will take place from Nov. 5 to 8, 2026. According to festival organizers, the program will be theater centric and have films jointly curated by the Alexandria Film Festival and MetroStage. Talent featured in the films will participate in audience discussions and educational sessions.

"We very much look forward to complementing our live theater offerings with select film presentations and the AFF is the perfect partner to curate, present, and connect films with the entire DMV audience," said Carolyn Griffin, MetroStage's producing artistic director. "We are very excited to be the home of the annual Alexandria Film Festival and other film offerings throughout the year."

The Alexandria Film Festival says it is exploring hosting special film screenings and events at MetroStage throughout the year. The next festival will take place on Nov. 6 to 9, 2025.

The announcement comes amid an effort to build up an arts and cultural district in Old Town North. Civic organization Old Town North Alliance hinted that another arts facility is being planned in Old Town North. According to the alliance, developer CarrAmerica has selected a tenant for an arts venue at the redevelopment of the Montgomery Center. The group says that the developer could likely announce the tenant in the next month.

The Montgomery Center is a block of commercial tenants around Madison, Montgomery, Fairfax and Royal Streets. Carr is looking to turn it into a mixed-use development with 327 multifamily rental units (22 affordable units) and nine stories, 412-space parking garage, 25,000 square feet of retail and 13,000 square feet of an arts venue.

According to the Old Town North Alliance, Carr is expecting to begin demolition of the existing Montgomery Center in late spring. The delivery of the final building is aimed for the latter half of 2027.

However, the redevelopment of the Montgomery Center has prompted business tenants to close or relocate. One of these is The Art League, which has hosted some of its classes at the Montgomery Center location, and is repurposing an old print shop warehouse at 800 Slaters Lane into classroom space. The Art League is fundraising to fund the first phase of its buildout costs.