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 The Philadelphia Film Society was pleased to present the 18 ½ Philadelphia Film Festival which took place this year on October 15-19! LAW ABIDING CITIZEN opened the Festival, with director F. Gary Gray and additional special guests in attendance, while PRECIOUS: Based on the Novel "Push" by Sapphire brought the Festival to a close, with director Lee Daniels and additional special guests in attendance. In between, the Festival featured many incredible premieres, including THE MEN WHO STARE AT GOATS, SERIOUS MOONLIGHT, GOOD HAIR, RED CLIFF, and the controversial ANTICHRIST. The Festival also highlighted DARE and TENURE, two films shot in and around the greater Philadelphia region.
While the Festival has long been held in the spring in previous years, we felt it was important that we relocate to the fall in order to program the festival from a much larger and excellent selection of films following their debuts at Cannes, Toronto, Venice, and other well-known international festivals. Along with the change in calendar position, PFS was proud to announce our new Artistic Director, Harlan Jacobson, film critic and co-founder of Talk Cinema. His addition to the Festival staff brought a fresh perspective to our programming!
Among the films, there were: 6 films from Sundance, 3 films from Berlin, 3 films from Cannes, and 7 films from Toronto. Likewise, the films featured: 4 Oscar-winning actors and 2 Oscar-winning directors (with another 4 and 2 nominees, respectively). Two films claimed awards at this year’s Cannes film festival, another film dominated the awards at this past Sundance film festival, and three films were gala or special presentations at Toronto. About Harlan Jacobson:
Along with his partner, Susan Jacobson, Mr. Jacobson is the founder of Talk Cinema, a nationwide series of screenings well known to Philadelphians for the past 15 years for its pre-release showcasing of innovative independent and foreign films followed by discussion with critics, scholars and filmmakers. Mr. Jacobson culls his selections from key discovery festivals around the world, including the Cannes, Sundance and Toronto film festivals, with regular stops in Locarno, Palm Springs, Reykjavik and Amsterdam, among others.Harlan Jacobson has covered the film industry for more than 30 years, having served as film critic and reporter at Variety, editor of Film Comment Magazine, where he continues to interview major filmmakers (Francis Ford Coppola, Mike Leigh, Sir Ben Kingsley) as contributing editor, and as regular special contributor to USA Today. |