The Philadelphia Film Festival is here. Here’s what we are watching.

The Philadelphia Film Festival opened yesterday and, like every year, it brings along its usual array of film festival-favorite films that will undoubtedly go on to appear on awards’ nomination lists. The program also boasts of films by Philadelphia filmmakers and with extremely Philly story lines.

Here’s is a list of what we are excited to watch. As always, use the roundup as a starting point and go ahead and get a ticket to a film you’ve never heard of.

As Philadelphia Film Society CEO and executive director J. Andrew Greenblatt said, what makes the festival special, even in its 35th year, is what made the first edition special.

People walking away with new appreciation for cinema and a new favorite film.

Informaton on program, schedule, and tickets at filmadelphia.org/festival/

One way to look at Joy Will Prevail, which gets its world premiere at the festival on Oct. 21, is that it’s the ultimate inside job: filmmaker Max Korman’s telling of Philadelphia architect Louis I. Kahn’s commission to design a country house for Steve and Toby Korman, who happen to be the filmmaker’s grandparents.

But proximity can also bring insight, and the dramatic possibilities of a story around Kahn are tremendous — especially here with Griffin Dunne cast as Kahn. Set in 1971, the film looks at how an architect-client collaboration “becomes an unexpected friendship, exploring the connections between architecture, family and the way people choose to live,” a description of the film says.

Let’s hope it also takes some long, loving gazes at the architecture at the center of the story. The Korman House, in Ft. Washington, was Kahn’s last house before his 1974 death. With blocks of extra-generous windows at its horizontal core and three vertical brick-chimney towers, the nearly 7,000-square-foot structure hugs its site in a particularly elegant way. The brick is a classic Philadelphia material, and the cypress, Douglas fir, white oak, and pine meld into the country setting.

“Growing up in a Kahn-designed home gave me an instinctive understanding of his architectural language: silence and light, natural materials, geometric order,” wrote Korman in a director’s statement. “Those principles became the foundation of the film’s visual language.”

If Korman succeeds half as well as Kahn did, Joy Will Prevail should be an intimate sensory communion with one of the oft-under-appreciated giants of 20th century architecture.

— Peter Dobrin

I’m a simple man: When I see Pedro Pascal’s name, I am intrigued.

I scanned the Philadelphia Film Festival lineup and noticed the Emmy-nominated actor’s starring role in Behemoth!, I gave the listing a proper tap and was immediately drawn to the music-drama, written and directed by Tony Gilroy.

The film follows a gifted cellist named Alex Serian (Pascal) who returns home to Los Angeles after 20 years of globe-trotting to evade an old flame, resolve lingering family drama, and rub shoulders with the musical elite.

I have loved Pascal donned galactic armor in The Mandalorian, as a power-hungry general in Gladiator II, and a genius scientist who can stretch his limbs as wide as the actor’s acting range in The Fantastic Four: First Steps.

Plus, a cast boasting of Olivia Wilde, Eva Victor, Will Arnett, Hank Azaria, and Matthew Lillard, sold me from the beginning.

And then I watched the trailer and was fully in.

Pascal’s Alex is at the center of harrowing musical performances, intense conversations between him and Arnett’s Andy, and fiery moments with Victor’s Nadia. What to make of it? I don’t know, but it looks amazing.

Finally, something for (and largely by) the gays.

This wartime epic has emerged as a potential Oscar contender following a rave reception at the Cannes Film Festival, where the gay Spanish directing duo known as Los Javis — Javier Ambrossi and Javier Calvo — won the best director prize.

Inspired by an unfinished work from playwright Federico García Lorca, a gay poet who was assassinated at the start of the Spanish Civil War, La Bola Negra traverses three time periods before (1932), during (1937), and after the war (2017). Shot in 35 mm, the story about queer love, dictatorship, and loss has broad appeal for history buffs, cinephiles, music lovers, and fans of Heated Rivalry and Drag Race España (where Los Javis often serve as judges).

Leading the cast are Spanish singer-songwriter Guitarricadelafuente and Elite actor Miguel Bernardeau; they’re accompanied by powerhouses Penélope Cruz, who dazzles as a raunchy singer in a Sally Bowles-like role, and Glenn Close, who briefly appears as a historian. Famed gay Spanish filmmaker Pedro Almodovar is a producer. (His Bitter Christmas is also playing at the festival Thurs., Oct 20 Oct. 225p8:15 p.m., Oct 2Oct. 23ilm Society East.)

Though it will eventually appear on Netflix, it’s a film best seen on the big screen.

— Rosa Cartagena

(Plays as part of Documentary Shorts Program)

Every time journalists are trained to cover protests, the first thing we are told to do in case the police arrest us while reporting is to yell: “I’m a journalist” while holding up our Press badges. But, as filmmaker AJ Schnack’s Escalation tells us, these newsroom trainings may do nothing to safeguard journalists and their rights to report on events without threats to their well-being.

Starting in May 2020, the film documents the escalation of police violence on journalists reporting on protests, across the country. It looks at data, speaks to journalists, and it stitches together live footage of police brutality. All to raise an alarm that the press is under attack, as is people’s right to the truth.

(Both free screenings)

Make it a Fourth Estate double bill. As someone who works in a local news outlet, it is not a surprise that I am always excited to hear about how other local outlets continue to do their work.

Sharon Liese’s film, which premiered at the Sundance Film Festival, tells the story of the Marion County Record of Marion County, Kans., which is run by Eric Meyer and his near-centenarian mother, Joan. In the little town where grudges abound and power is iften abused, its newspaper office is raided, journalists’ phones are confiscated, and their memo notebooks sealed.

In a battle that is being fought across the country, way beyond than the boundaries of Marion County, the Meyers take on the fight for a free press.

— Bedatri D. Choudhury

In defense of an executive order aimed at upending birthright citizenship, as we have known it, President Donald Trump said the 14th amendment was only meant for the “babies of slaves.”

“It wasn’t meant for people to scam the system and come into the country on vacation …” Trump said during a March news conference as he used the amendment’s possible eradication to crack down on immigration.

The Supreme Court struck down the president’s executive order in a 6-3 decision in June.

I can’t wait to see how award winning actor Ava DuVernay connects the dots around the issue in her latest documentary 14th. During the 108-minute film DuVernay sheds light on the 1868 constitutional amendment that explicitly states all people born in the United States, whether their parents are citizens or not, are Americans who enjoy equal rights of citizenship.

She interviews a mix of historians, legal scholars, and political figures to understand why the 14th amendment remains under systemic attack, in an attempt to answer the question: Who is American?

14th, the next chapter to DuVernay’s 2016 film 13th is in the midst of making film festival rounds and will be released on Netflix in December. 13th examined the prison industrial complex through the lens of the amendment that abolished slavery.

The 13th, 14th, and 15th Amendments — the 15th Amendment gave Black men the right to vote — were passed during Reconstruction. Their goal was to give Black people full citizenship, but that didn’t happen until the passage of the Civil Rights Act in 1964.

— Elizabeth Wellington