Film Festival is splitting up
The Philadelphia Film Society and TLA, divided by dissension, will stage rival events.
In a breakup that will create rival local movie extravaganzas, the cosponsors of the Philadelphia Film Festival are citing irreconcilable differences and going their own ways.
TLA and the Philadelphia Film Society are dividing community property and the calendar year. TLA president Ray Murray says his group (which has run the March movie madness since 2000) will continue to produce a festival - CineFest - in spring and QFest (formerly the Philadelphia Gay and Lesbian Film Festival) in summer, both under the aegis of the Philadelphia Cinema Alliance.
The Philadelphia Film Festival (PFF) will be produced by the Philadelphia Film Society, says executive director J. Andrew Greenblatt, and will take place in fall, starting in October 2010.
Harlan Jacobson, the esteemed New York film critic and historian, has been hired as artistic adviser. Jacobson runs the popular Talk Cinema programs at local art theaters.
The Film Society will offer year-round film events including Filmadelphia Independent, an indie showcase, and Filmadelphia Classics, a repertory program of cult and essential movies.
"Philadelphia film culture is rich and there are so many great movies out there that the city easily can support two mega-festivals," says Greenblatt, noting that Austin, Texas, Chicago, and New York have three major fests each.
This local episode of As the Reel Turns is a snapshot of the turbulence on the film-festival circuit, where recent management shake-ups have rattled the Sundance, Tribeca, and New York Film Festivals. "Festivals have an average management life of about seven years," observes Murray.
For Thom Cardwell, formerly of the Philadelphia Film Society and now development director of the Philadelphia Cinema Alliance, the schism between TLA and the Film Society was a case of "too many skippers at the helm."
Now, says Murray, "the focus isn't on infighting but on the product."
The Philadelphia Film Festival began in 1992 as the Philadelphia Festival of World Cinema, the brainchild of Linda Blackaby, now with the San Francisco Film Festival.
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