Results tagged “philadelphiafilmsociety”

Fun around town, for $10 or less:

When all the on-again, off-again controversy between the Philadelphia Film Society and TLA earlier this year ended in an uneasy truce and just one, united film festival (with one big, ugly name), we kind of assumed that was it and things would go back to normal again. But no! In fact, it looks like the two groups are off again, and for good this time. TLA will continue to produce CineFest in the spring and QFest in the summer under the aegis of the Philadelphia Cinema Alliance, while the Film Society will now produce the Philadelphia Film Festival in the fall, starting in October 2010. The Film Society will also offer year-round film events, including an indie showcase called Filmadelphia Independent and a repertory program of cult and essential movies called Filmadelphia Classics. Film Society executive director J. Andrew Greenblatt says "the city easily can support two mega-festivals," but we're not so sure. Going to both isn't necessarily going to work for the average person's schedule and pocket book. This Phillyist, at least, might have to choose which festival to go to each year.

A press release we just received from the Philadelphia Film Society reveals that the organization will no longer produce the Philadelphia International Gay and Lesbian Film Festival. Instead, TLA alone will put on a summer gay and lesbian film festival under the name Philadelphia Qfest. (We like the new name; short and catchy.) More information on that festival is forthcoming. Meanwhile, the Film Society says it's expanding, re-branding, and reinventing itself, and that a new website is on the way. We'll keep an eye out for that.

The Philadelphia Film Society has finally put out a response to TLA's recent announcement about the split between the two organizations and the launch of two new festivals. It isn't much of a response, however; it basically says PFS is in the process of reinventing itself and they'll get back to us with more information later. PFS will continue, and will go on providing various services to its members, but it's still unclear what will happen with the Philadelphia Film Festival and the Philadelphia International Gay and Lesbian Film Festival. It seems certain that they won't occur this year, but the end of the press release suggests they aren't necessarily gone for good. We'll just have to wait for more information, and keep checking Phillyfests.com (although as of this writing there's nothing on the site yet about the split with TLA).

Time to gear up, people: the 16th Philadelphia Film Festival starts tomorrow! As we did last year, Phillyist is planning plenty of coverage, mostly taking the form of film festival diary entries from various staff members (including, of course, yours truly, whose schedule can be seen here, in case you're interested). But what's going on this year, and what should you look forward to? Well, we're glad you asked. Let's pick through the overview press release, shall we?

Who doesn't love cartoons? We know we do. We particularly love rare and vintage toons. On the other hand, we're not a big fan of doctors and medicine, but we're still pretty jazzed about The Cartoon Medicine Show, a little event going down at the Mütter Museum Thursday and Friday night this week. The museum will be open for special evening hours beginning at 5:30PM, with a reduced entrance fee, and the screenings will begin at 8PM. Featured will be "a rich sampling of rarely screened animated medical cartoons from the 1920s to the 1960s," consisting of 10 to 15 shorts "by animators both obscure and well known, including Walt Disney, Friz Freleng, Zack Schwartz, Walter Lantz, and Shamus Culhane." A couple of medical historians will even be on hand to provide expert commentary, and that's bound to be interesting. This definitely sounds like a fun time! Plus, if you're into that kind of thing, you can stroll the museum before hand and check out all the creepy oddities they have on display.

It'll soon be film festival time again in Philly - the 12th Philadelphia International Gay & Lesbian Film Festival (PIGLFF to its friends), to be precise. The website has just been launched and tickets go on sale for Philadelphia Film Society Members today, with sale to the general public starting on Monday 6/26 at 10AM, so it's time to make your schedule! The festival will run from July 13th through July 26th, and here are some of the highlights: the "hilariously raunchy" opening night film, Another Gay Movie, looks to be a parody of American Pie, with a bunch of teens trying desperately to lose their anal virginity before summer's out; comedian and performer Sandra Bernhard is being honored Friday, July 14th with an Artistic Achievement Award; a free screening of John Waters's Cry-Baby, complete with a Drag King/Johnny Depp look-a-like contest, is going down at Penn's Landing on Thursday, July 20th; there'll be outdoor screenings of other "classics," as well, such as Barbarella and The Bad Seed; Creatures from the Pink Lagoon (preceded by short Mars Needs Bibles, no less) is a wacky spoof of '60s zombie flicks featuring a swamp "teeming with flesh-eating queers!" - which sounds like a conservative nightmare if we've ever heard one. And of course that little list only just scratches the surface of the huge number of films (141 from 23 countries) being screened this year - many of them being shown in Philly for the first time, and some even having their national or world premieres - so be sure to check out the site for more information. PIGLFF is here, and it's awesomely queer!