Cinedelphia Film Fest celebrates Philly doc 'Rock School'

When the Philadelphia Mausoleum of Contemporary Art (a.k.a. PhilaMOCA, at 531 N. 12th St.) hosts the third annual Cinedelphia Film Festival, curator Eric Bresler will unspool his usual glut of oddball renegade films.

For 2015's theme - filmmakers working outside Hollywood's system - Cinedelphia will run a 12-hour Best Worst Movie Marathon, the famously cheesy fan-film Raiders of the Lost Ark: The Adaptation, and a retrospective of Broomall native and Johnny Carson-regular Len Cella's aptly titled Moron Movies.

Cinedelphia's main event pays tribute to local filmmaker Don Argott, his producing/life partner, Sheena Joyce (the couple just welcomed a baby), and the 10th anniversary of their documentary Rock School, about the Philadelphia origins of musician/teacher Paul Green's School of Rock. The movie was a hit at the 2005 Sundance Film Festival, where it premiered, garnering strong reviews. The New York Times' Manohla Dargis called the doc "alternately hilarious and alarming." It will screen on Saturday.

The fest itself runs through April 25.

Rock School follows the passionately intense, always-yelling Green as he instructs a handful of kids in the raw fundamentals of rawk-out instrumentation, as opposed to teaching them "Lady of Spain."

Students such as then-9-year-old Aidan "Asa" Collins and the then-teenage Slick siblings (Eric, who now drums with Philly indie superstars Dr. Dog, and Julie, who plays bass for Adrian Belew) graduate from the rigors of daily classes to a finale at a Frank Zappa tribute in Germany featuring Zappa acolyte Napoleon Murphy Brock. "I didn't take W.C. Fields' advice to never work with children," Argott says.

In 2003 when Argott started shooting Rock School - a necessary name-change after Jack Black and director Richard Linklater seemingly appropriated Green's legend for their fictional School of Rock - the gregarious teacher had only one school. It was a dilapidated property at 13th and Race Streets.

Students held classic-rock-theme public concerts, often with those they were meant to honor in attendance, such as a Yes night with singer Jon Anderson.

"I think at the time I got a big kick out of being on camera during those shows," says Collins, one of Rock School's stars, and its mohawked poster child. "It feels like a lifetime ago - which for me it was, in fact, half my lifetime ago."

Green was able to open additional Schools of Rock, and, by 2009, sold his franchise and moved to Woodstock, N.Y, ("The music-biz retirement home," he calls it) where he erected a Paul Green Rock Academy after his non-compete clause ran out in 2013.

Green is fond of the legacy perpetuated by Rock School. "My best connections and friends came from them seeing me there," says Green, who currently has a Billy Joel cover band with pal Dean Ween, formerly of demented New Hope duo Ween, who doubles as an instructor for Rock Academy.

As for Argott and Joyce, they've been on a roll with an additional five documentaries, including the ingenious 2009 Barnes Foundation flick The Art of the Steal and one currently filming - Kurt Vonnegut: Unstuck in Time (with co-director Robert Weide of Curb Your Enthusiasm). Their first narrative film, the Philly-shot Slow Learners, will premier this month at the Tribeca Film Fest in New York.

But Rock School was their first child. "That film put us on the map," Argott said. "It was boot camp on the producing end, especially because we had to license so much music and do it all ourselves. That was a joy, because I'm a guitar player. What better way to combine my loves of film and music? Plus, it was that one project where everything aligned all at the right moment - film fest attention, distributors - until . . . it didn't."

Rock School needed, and received, attention at a golden time for documentaries as film distribution companies were realizing that reality-based films cost little to fund and could earn big bucks. "This was the era of [documentary blockbusters such as] Super-Size Me and Fahrenheit 9/11," Argott said. "And we were totally poised to be . . . the next big doc."

Argott said New Market exec Bob Berney,  the man who made billions for little movies such as The Passion of the Christ, saw Rock School as an event package where the movie could screen and the kids could play.

Berney saw the movie hitting multiplexes rather than arthouses. Alas, Rock School opened and was buried between George Lucas' Star Wars: Episode III - Revenge of the Sith and Christopher Nolan's Batman Begins.

"Still, we needed it to play Philly, so we screened it at the Ritz 5, where we sold out the entire weekend," Argott said. "That's the rowdy spirit of Rock School. I think it still has that vibe."