2024 Philadelphia Film Festival wrap-up

The 33rd PFF is in the books, and despite some hiccups, it was the best-programmed PFF is years.

The last two years, the Philadelphia Film Festival ran up against the backdrop of Philadelphia Phillies playoff runs, with the 2022 edition having its closing night going up against Game 1 of the World Series.

The Phils’ early exit in this year’s playoffs put an end to that, but instead, PFF33 ended up going against something else: The home stretch of the presidential election, in which Pennsylvania is among the most closely-contested states.

Both Donald Trump and Kamala Harris paid visits to Philadelphia during the festival, as did various surrogates for both, which led to closed-off roads and, in some cases, delays to the start of screenings.

Ironically, the screening of The Last Republican, the movie about anti-Trump ex-Congressman Adam Kinzinger, started late because it was the same afternoon as Trump’s McDonald’s stunt in Bucks County, I-95 was closed off, and some people associated with the film couldn’t get there on time. No, none of them stopped in to see a film, although one politician, State Sen. Nikil Saval, did show up for the closing ceremony.

For those who were looking to use the festival as a respite to get their mind off the election in the final days, this got in the way a bit.

There were some other hiccups as well, including a projector mishap on opening night that led to a nearly hour-long delay of the start of the film, September 5 and a few scattered complaints about the festival’s somewhat complex ticketing system.

But nevertheless, PFF was an exceptionally well-programmed festival. I liked almost everything I saw, and several films that were shown there — Anora, The Brualist, Eephus, September 5 — are among my favorite films of the year so far.

If you include movies I saw at the fest, stuff I caught beforehand, and films that I had screeners for, I saw a total of about 30 films at the festival, which is quite a lot, but that’s barely a quarter of what was on offer there overall. The other 70 or so? I guess that’s what the rest of the movie year (and a good chunk of next year, I would imagine) is for.