18 1/2 Philadelphia Film Festival Highlights

Because this is an equal opportunity Film (and Food) blog. I’m not going to ignore the fact that the Philadelphia Film Society is producing the 18 1/2 Philadelphia Film Festival, even though I have ties to the original producers of The original Philadelphia Film Festival, which is now called CineFest under The Philadelphia Cinema Alliance.

Confused? Well, the reason the Film Society is calling it 18 1/2 is because they co-produced last April’s CineFest 09 as an agreement with PCA before the final split. So, basically, Philadelphia is lucky enough to have two 501c3 film companies vying for the same grants and audience!

Have you picked a side?

The PFF runs from October 15- 19th – 5 Days of World-Class Films programmed under the expertise of new Artistic Director Harlan Jacobson and new Program Director Michael Lerman.

The Opening and Closing Night films have been announced:

Law Abiding Citizen, which was filmed in Philadelphia earlier this year, will kick off the Festival on Thursday, October 15. Director F. Gary Gray will accompany to introduce the film and lead the audience in a post-screening Q&A before the Opening Night Party

Precious: Based on the Novel “Push” by Sapphire, directed by Philly native Lee Daniels (who will attend with the film), will close the Festival on Sunday, October 18. Precious walked away from Sundance with the Audience Award, the Special Jury Prize, and the Grand Jury Prize; last week it also claimed the top prize at the Toronto Film Festival when it was awarded the Critics Choice Award.

I’m most likely going to attend the screening of “Precious”, but out of loyalty to PCA, I won’t be doing any opening or closing night partying.

Besides, I have to save my energy for THE NEW YORK INTERNATIONAL INDEPENDENT FILM & VIDEO FESTIVAL which I’ll be covering from October 22nd – 29th. Be sure to add your e-mail to my new SMPT subscriber list, so you can receive up-to-the-minute news and happenings from NYIIFVF!