PATRONS OF THE WEEKEND LONG EVENT WILL RECEIVE PASSES
TO PREVIEW PAYNE’S NEWEST FILM, THE DESCENDANTS,
WHICH HITS THEATERS ON NOVEMBER 18
(PHILADELPHIA, PA) November 8, 2011 – The Philadelphia Film Society presents a two-day retrospective on the films of Alexander Payne, in anticipation of the theatrical release of his newest feature, The Descendants which hits select theaters on November 18th.
The four-film retrospective, made possible thanks to Fox Searchlight Pictures, highlights Payne’s directorial accomplishments and brings to light his critically-acclaimed talents as a dark comedy filmmaker. The series will run from November 12-13, concluding with a special preview screening of The Descendants on November 14. All retrospective screenings will be held at the Bossone Theater at Drexel University, located at the corner of 33rd and Market Streets, West Philadelphia. Admission is free with a suggested donation of $5 to the non-profit Philadelphia Film Society and all attendees will receive a complimentary pass to the following Monday’s advance viewing of The Descendants.
Scheduled films include:
Saturday November 12
Citizen Ruth (1996), 6:00pm
An irresponsible, drug addicted, recently impregnated woman finds herself in the middle of an abortion debate when both parties attempt to sway her to their respective sides. Starring Laura Dern.
Sideways (2004), 8:30pm
Two men reaching middle age with not much to show but disappointment, embark on a week long road trip through California’s wine country, just as one is about to take a trip down the aisle. Starring Paul Giamatti, Thomas Haden Church and Virginia Madsen.
Sunday, November 13
About Schmidt (2002), 5:00pm
A man upon retirement embarks on a journey to his estranged daughters’ wedding only to discover more about himself and life than he ever expected. Starring Jack Nicholson, Hope Davis and Dermot Mulroney.
Election (1999), 7:15pm
A high school teacher’s personal life becomes complicated as he works with students during the school elections. Starring Matthew Broderick, Reese Witherspoon and Chris Klein.
Monday, November 14
*SPECIAL ADVANCE PREVIEW SCREENING
The Descendants (2011), 7:30
Rave Motion Pictures, 40th and Walnut Streets
Payne’s first film since Sideways, The Descendants is a powerful blend of comedy and tragedy, with insightful examinations of marriage, family and community. Starring George Clooney, Judy Greer and Matthew Lillard
For information about this series, please contact Parinda Patel, Managing Director at media@filmadelphia.org
For general information, visit PFS on the web at www.filmadelphia.org
| Attachment | Size |
|---|---|
| PRESS RELEASE - PFS - Alexander Payne Retrospective Film Series.pdf | 170.59 KB |
The milestone Anniversary year featured 147 films,
including 122 narratives and documentaries hailing from 34 countries.
Among the genres and categories covered were New French, Spanish Language, Sports in Motion, World Narratives, American Independents, Greater Filmadelphia – a series which showcased films with a local connection – and many more.
(PHILADELPHIA, PA) November 4, 2011 – The 20th Philadelphia Film Festival (PFF) concluded its 15-day Anniversary celebration with Jury Prize award ceremony and Gala screening of Alexander Payne’s The Descendants on Saturday, October 29 at the Annenberg Center’s Zellerbach Theater. Payne’s international festival favorite served as a bookend to the October 20 – November 3 event, which opened with Sundance Grand Jury Prize (Dramatic) Winner Like Crazy, featuring an appearance and post-screening Q&A session with Director Drake Doremus and Lead Actress Felicity Jones. Closing festivities were followed by 5 more days of guests and screenings to wrap up a Festival with a rich 20-year history of showcasing films from around the world.
Jury Award winners include:
Best Narrative Feature
Grand Jury Prize – Policeman; Director Nadav Lapid
Special Jury Prize for Originality of Vision - OK, Enough, Goodbye; Directors Rania Attieh and Daniel Garcia
Best Documentary
Grand Jury Prize - Where Soliders Come From; Director Heather Courtney
Greater Filmadelphia Award for Best Local Film
Grand Jury Prize - Race to the Bottom of the Earth; Directors Michele Loschiavo and Nancy Glass
Honorable Mention - Joe Frazier: When the Smoke Clears; Director Mike Todd
Best Short Film
Grand Jury Prize - Water Lillies in Bloom; Director Emil Stang Lund
Honorable Mention - We're Leaving; Zachary Treitz
Special Jury Prize for Writing – Pioneer; Director David Lowrey
Additional Awards include:
Archie Award for Best First-time Director
Michael; Director Markus Scleinzer
Audience Award, presented by Amtrak
Staging Hope; Director Bil Yoelin
The Festival included a wide variety of sold-out screenings, including such highly anticipated films as Shame, Medineras, Streets, A Dangerous Method, Thin Ice, Melancholia,The Kid With A Bike, Pina, Martha Marcy May Marlene, Perfect Sense, and Habemus Papam. Other highlights of the Festival included a variety of very special guests joining in the 20th Anniversary celebration. This year, the Festival was proud to welcome Kevin Clash and America’s most beloved puppet, Elmo; subjects of the documentary Being Elmo: A Puppeteer’s Journey.
Philadelphia director Jonathan Demme was in attendance for his new documentary I’m Carolyn Parker: the Good, the Mad, and the Beautiful, proceeded by a retrospective 20th Anniversary screening of Silence of the Lambs later in the festival, as were writer/director Peter Berg and author Buzz Bissenger, who presented a special screening of Friday Night Lights, followed by an engaging 30-minute conversation afterwards. Guests with a local connection also included boxer Chuck Wepner of The Real Rocky and producers Melissa Fitzgerald and Katy Fox of Staging Hope. All in all, the Festival again hosted more than 100 filmmakers and industry professionals, many of whom hosted engaging post-screening Q&A sessions or participated on energetic and informative panel discussions.
SEE ATTACHMENT FOR FULL RELEASE
| Attachment | Size |
|---|---|
| PRESS RELEASE - PFF - 20th Philadelphia Film Festival Wrap Up.v3.pdf | 174.92 KB |
PHILADELPHIA FILM FESTIVAL ANNOUNCES CONFIRMED GUESTS AND ADDITIONS TO THE 20th ANNIVERSARY SLATE
JONATHAN DEMME, PETER BERG, JOE FRAZIER AND KEVIN CLASH (aka ELMO) ARE INCLUDED AMONG THE MANY ACTORS, FILMMAKERS
AND SPECIAL GUESTS ATTENDING THE EVENT
(PHILADELPHIA, PA) October 14, 2011 – Each year, the Philadelphia Film Festival hosts a plethora of actors and filmmakers making extraordinary contributions to the world of cinema. The Festival is excited to welcome a variety of guests, as well as to proudly announce new additions to the current program, including short films and the much anticipated Puss in Boots!
PUSS IN BOOTS, Chris Miller, 2011, USA, 96 min (Dreamworks Animation)
Saturday, October 22nd; 10:30am at the Rave Theater
Long before he even met Shrek, the notorious fighter, lover and outlaw Puss in Boots becomes a hero when he sets off on an adventure with the tough and street smart Kitty Softpaws and the mastermind Humpty Dumpty to save his town. This is the true story of The Cat, The Myth, The Legend, The Boots.
Additional Short films include:
AARON BURR, PART 2, Dana O'Keefe, 2011, USA, 8 min
THE DUNGEON MASTER, Rider Strong and Shiloh Strong, 2011, USA, 13 min
HOW TO RID YOUR LOVER OF A NEGATIVE EMOTION CAUSED BY YOU!, Nadia Litz, 2010, Canada, 15 min
TWO DREAMS, Meredith Hama-Brown, 2011, Canada, 6 min
The Festival will further celebrate its 20th Anniversary by pairing film screenings and Q&As with the following guests:
SEE ATTACHMENT FOR FULL GUEST LINE-UP!
| Attachment | Size |
|---|---|
| PRESS RELEASE - PFF - Guest Schedule Additional Film Announcement v3.pdf | 244 KB |
THE 20TH PHILADELPHIA FILM FESTIVAL ANNOUNCES ITS FULL FESTIVAL SLATE
SUNDANCE GRAND JURY PRIZE WINNER LIKE CRAZY TO OPEN FEST
ALEXANDER PAYNE’S THE DESCENDANTS TO CLOSE FEST
120 FEATURES FROM 35 COUNTRIES TO SCREEN FESTIVAL RUNS
FROM OCTOBER 20-NOVEMBER 3
(PHILADELPHIA, PA) September 27, 2011 - The Philadelphia Film Society is proud to announce the full slate for the upcoming 20th Philadelphia Film Festival, which will run October 20 – November 3 on 8 screens throughout the greater Philadelphia area. The Festival will open on October 20th with the Philadelphia Premiere of Drake Doremus’ Like Crazy. Winner of the Sundance Grand Jury Prize and Best Actress for Felicity Jones, Like Crazy is a powerful story about two young lovers whose relationship is threatened by international borders. The Festival will close on October 29th with Alexander Payne’s The Descendants. Starring George Clooney, The Descendants is a sharp, emotional and often hilarious portrait of a man who uncovers life’s altering secrets while his wife is on her deathbed.
The Festival will also feature 6 Gala screenings, including: Roland Emmerich’s Anonymous, a captivating political thriller about a controversy surrounding the authorship of Shakespeare’s plays; Michel Hazanavicius’ The Artist, a suburb silent film in classic black-and-white that was the darling of the Cannes Film Festival; Jim Field Smith’s Butter, a politically incorrect satire that places an all-star cast in the competitive world of butter carving; Jay Duplass and Mark Duplass’ Jeff, Who Lives At Home, a sincere comedy about family, destiny, mystery and finding one’s place in the universe; Simon Curtis’ My Week with Marilyn, a charming behind-the-curtain biopic on the relationship between Laurence Olivier and Marilyn Monroe; and Steve McQueen’s Shame, the powerful and provocative winner of the Best Actor prize in at the Venice Film Festival, which tells the story of a man who is forced to confront his own extreme sexual compulsions.
Check out the full line up with trailer links on Cinedelphia.com
| Attachment | Size |
|---|---|
| PRESS RELEASE - PFF - 20th Philadelphia Film Festival Announcement and Line-up.pdf | 331 KB |
THE PHILADELPHIA FILM FESTIVAL ANNOUNCES OPENING, CLOSING AND GALA SCREENINGS FOR ITS MILESTONE 20TH ANNIVERSARY FESTIVAL
FESTIVAL TO OPEN WITH SUNDANCE GRAND JURY PRIZE WINNER LIKE CRAZY, CLOSE WITH ALEXANDER PAYNE’S THE DESCENDANTS, AND FEATURE GALA PRESENTATIONS OF THE ARTIST, JEFF, WHO LIVES AT HOME, MY WEEK WITH MARILYN AND SHAME
(PHILADELPHIA, PA) September 21, 2011 - The Philadelphia Film Society is proud to announce its Gala Screenings for the upcoming 20th Philadelphia Film Festival which will run October 20 – November 3. The Festival will open on October 20th with the Philadelphia Premiere of Drake Doremus’ Like Crazy. Winner of the Sundance Grand Jury Prize and Best Actress for Felicity Jones, Like Crazy is a powerful story about two young lovers whose relationship is threatened by international borders. The Festival will close on October 29th with The Descendants, starring George Clooney. The Descendants is a sharp, smart and emotional film, powerfully blending comedy and tragedy.
The Festival will also feature 4 Gala screenings, including The Artist, a superb silent film in classic black-and-white which was the darling of the Cannes Film Festival; Jeff, Who Lives At Home, an engaging film about family, destiny, mystery and finding one’s place in the universe from the talented filmmaker brothers Jay and Mark Duplass; My Week with Marilyn, a charming behind-the-curtain biopic on the relationship between Laurence Olivier and Marilyn Monroe during the production of The Prince and the Showgirl; and Shame, the powerful and provocative story of a man who is forced to confront his own sexual compulsions which was the talk of the Venice and Telluride Film Festivals.
J. Andrew Greenblatt, Executive Director of the Philadelphia Film Society and Philadelphia Film Festival commented, “I’m incredibly excited to open our 20th Festival with Like Crazy, a captivating film I fell in love with when I first saw it at Sundance, and I’m equally thrilled to close with The Descendants, the latest in masterful and emotionally powerful films from Alexander Payne. I think Festival-goers will spend months talking about these films, and the amazing performances from the actors involved, be it Anton Yelchin and Felicity Jones in Like Crazy or George Clooney and Shailene Woodley in The Descendants.”
Michael Lerman, Artistic Director said, “I couldn’t imagine a better lineup to commemorate our 20th Anniversary. These gala screenings represent an exciting sampling of the fantastic Festival program we will be offering, and I think they build the foundation for what we believe to be our finest Festival yet!"
The 15-day Philadelphia Film Festival will feature more than 120 of the best new films from around the world - from today’s most important and emerging filmmakers - curated by the stellar programming committee, which includes Artistic Director Michael Lerman, programmers Tom Quinn and Ryan Werner and shorts programmer Jesse Trussell. The 20th Philadelphia Film Festival is made possible through the generous support of its sponsors, including Official Sponsors Philadelphia Weekly, Southwest Airlines, the University of Pennsylvania and WHYY; through the generous support of the Wyncote Foundation and Dolfinger-McMahon Foundation, as well as through the support of the members of the Philadelphia Film Society.
Badges and Ticket Packages are currently on-sale through the Festival website, www.filmadelphia.org/festival or over the phone by calling 267-239-2941. Individual tickets will be available to Film Society Members beginning Wednesday, September 28th, and to the public beginning Monday, October 3rd.
For more information about the Philadelphia Film Festival and the Philadelphia Film Society, please contact the Philadelphia Film Society at 267-239-2941 or info@filmadelphia.org.
| Attachment | Size |
|---|---|
| PRESS RELEASE - PFF - 20th Phila Film Festival Gala Line-up Announcement.pdf | 158.99 KB |