Previewing the 2023 Philadelphia Film Festival
PFF, taking place for the 32nd time, will begin with 'American Fiction' and close with 'Saltburn,' with special guests including John Legend and Allen Iverson. The films I'm most anticipating.
Each October, the Philadelphia Film Festival takes place in Center City and Old City, featuring a selection of films that usually end up in the end-of-year awards conversation, along with a healthy collection of foreign films, documentaries, and movies with local ties.
It’s often a lot of stuff that was at earlier fall festivals like NYFF, TIFF, and Venice, but gives cineastes in the City of Brotherly Love a chance to catch big films early. It is, just about every year, my favorite week of the fall.
The festival is presented by the Philadelphia Film Society, at its three venues: The Philadelphia Film Center on Chestnut Street in Center City, and the PFS East and PFS at the Bourse, in Old City. The festival starts this Thursday, October 19, and runs through the 29th; tickets and passes are available here, while the film guide is here.
Substack won’t let me embed it, but here’s a trailer for this year’s lineup, put together by the Film Society’s ace programmer Trey Shields.
This year’s program didn’t land absolutely everything from this year’s fall festival lineup; I would have loved to see Jonathan Glazer’s Zone of Interest, Michael Mann’s Ferrari, and/or Yorgias Lanthimos’ Poor Things. But that’s what November and December are for, I suppose. And while Maestro is indeed in the lineup, the SAG strike will prevent Philly native son Bradley Cooper from making an appearance at the local premiere, as he did for A Star is Born back in 2018.
However, a couple of Philly stars will be there, in their capacity as documentary producers, which keeps them out of SAG trouble. Sixers legend Allen Iverson will be there with the documentary Bad Things Happen in Philadelphia, while Penn grad John Legend will be there with Stand Up and Shout: Songs From a Philadelphia High School.
Here are the half-dozen films in this year’s lineup that I’m most looking forward to seeing:
American Fiction
Cord Jefferson used to be a journalist, writing for Gawker and other publications. Then he went to Hollywood and wrote for a bunch of acclaimed TV shows like Master of None, The Good Place, and Watchmen. Now, he makes his directorial debut with a fascinating, of-the-moment satire, based on Percival Everett’s novel Erasure, in which the plot sounds like a literary answer to the Spike Lee movie Bamboozled. Starring Jeffrey Wright, American Fiction is the opening night selection, at the Film Center on October 19, and Jefferson will be in attendance.
Silver Dollar Road
Back in 2016, Raoul Peck directed an amazing documentary called I Am Not Your Negro, which had the counterintuitive but brilliant idea to have Samuel L. Jackson voice James Baldwin. Now, he’s back with his first feature documentary in seven years, telling the multigenerational saga of a family’s ownership of a plot of land and their harassment by developers. The film shows at the Film Center on October 19, before landing the following day on Prime Video.
Break the Game
A documentary by director Jane M. Wagner looks at the world of video gaming, and specifically, a gamer named Narcissa Wright, who sought to break a speed-run world record in “Zelda: Breath of the Wild,” came out as transgender, and was subsequently harassed. The film shows on October 21 at the Bourse, and October 27 at PFS East.
Bucky F*cking Dent
Every Red Sox fan knows what the title references, but this film, directed by David Duchovny, builds a father/son story out of sports fandom, in a plot that sounds like a baseball-informed answer to Good Bye, Lenin! The film stars Duchovny, Logan Marshall-Green, and Stephanie Beatriz, and it plays October 23 at the Film Center and October 29 at the PFS East.
Rustin
Directed by theater legend George C. Wolfe, this November Netflix release stars Colman Domingo as Bayard Rustin, the 1960s civil rights leader who organized the March on Washington. Rustin, though, was later marginalized as both a gay man and an ex-Communist. Since Rustin hailed from the Philadelphia area and Domingo does as well, it was pretty much a given that would make the Centerpiece lineup. Rustin plays Monday, October 23 at the Film Center.
American Symphony
Fresh off its nominations sweep in the Critics Choice Documentary Awards (in which I, full disclosure, am part of the doc branch), Matthew Heineman’s American Symphony lands at PFF, also ahead of its still-undated launch on Netflix. The film follows a year in the life of musician and former Colbert band leader Jon Batiste, as he battled personal and professional tribulations.
Saltburn
Emerald Fennell made her directorial debut mid-pandemic with the love-it-or-hate-it Promising Young Woman, and now she returns with her sophomore effort, a Talented Mr. Ripley-like exploration of a young man’s obsession with his rich, handsome classmate. Barry Keoghan and Jacob Elordi star, along with the always-welcome Richard E. Grant. It’s the closing night film, at PFS on October 27, although as usual, “closing night” is followed by followed by two more full days.
I’ll be at the festival most days in the next ten days, as well as the opening and closing parties. And I’ll be reviewing the films here, as I watch them.
Films and Phillies
I’d be remiss in not mentioning that, for the second year in a row, the Philadelphia Film Festival will coincide with a Philadelphia Phillies postseason run, with the Phils now up 2-0 in the National League Championship Series. Since the Phillies went from 2009 to 2022 without making a deep October run, that hadn’t been a concern in quite a while, but last year, Game 1 of the World Series was on the closing night of PFF.
Game 3 of the NLCS is this Thursday night, opposite PFF opening night, while Game 4 is Friday, another centerpiece night, although that raises the exciting possibility of a film crowd the latter night exiting the theater into a city-wide celebration on nearby Broad Street. The World Series is once again set for the closing weekend of the festival, with Game 1 on October 27 and Game 2 on October 28.