Philly Film Fest Split Provokes The Age-Old Question: Why Can’t This Town Produce A Long-Standing, Decent Festival?
We’ve been cramming to understand this post on The Clog since late yesterday; as you know, we are muy muy fluent in A.D. Amorosi-ese, but when there’s a story with this many moving parts, Angelo gets even more confusing than when he’s trying to punch his way out of the paper bag that is a concert preview. So we’ve A/B’d all the info in his piece with a contact close to the situation, and here is what we know:
Phew. Got all that? Good. Now, let’s put it all in context: For some reason, this city just cannot seem to consistently produce, year in and year out, a festival of import. The Live Arts & Fringe Festival went through a major identity crisis this year. Locally-produced music festivals seem to come and go annually. BlogPhiladelphia is missing in action. And on and on. When it all came down, the Philadelphia Film Festival was the most consistent, reliable, branded festival this city had. Sure, it had problems — the world “festival” is actually Spanglish for “problems,” I think — but it showed up on time, year in, year out. When you do that, you don’t just represent your own festival; you represent its city of origin. And now, Ray Murray, you’re going to trash it all over a pissing match with we-know-not-who? Can’t you just buy the naming rights and be done with it?
January 15th, 2009 at 1:40 pm
Quote: “BUT — and this is where it all gets really stupid — the CineFest board is made up almost entirely of the same people who’ve been producing ye olde Philly Film Fest”
Speaking as a former PFS board member, I can assure you that TLA’s new festivals will NOT have the same board as PFS. Many members of the staff will be returning, but not so much with the board. The staff – the people who actually put these events on – has been working tirelessly during all of this dickswinging. Just a minor, yet important correction.
January 15th, 2009 at 2:13 pm
You say this city cant produce a good festival…you forgot the Backseat Film Festival, which is now in it’s 7th year and has no drama whatsoever, just a lot of great movies and tons of free booze! The 2009 festival site is coming soon and the festival is the first 2 weekends of March…check it out at http://www.backseatfilmfestival.com!
Also, check out Philly’s latest and greatest indie movie theater, music and performance art space, the 941 Theater, where most of the festival events will be held at http://www.941theater.com!
January 15th, 2009 at 2:15 pm
Aw c’mon Sakmann.
January 15th, 2009 at 2:42 pm
what?
January 15th, 2009 at 2:46 pm
Smokey, this is not ‘Nam. There are rules:
http://www.philebrity.com/regarding-comments/
January 15th, 2009 at 4:56 pm
Over the line?
January 15th, 2009 at 7:18 pm
is it called Backseat cuz we never heard of it?
January 16th, 2009 at 1:30 am
Tips, you’re being a baby. Doug was just commenting on a story about film festivals in this city not being able to get their shit together. He is just letting your readers know there is another film festival in the city that people should know about. He didn’t crow-bar his ‘thing’ into an unrelated story. God forbid people who are into film festivals should be told about a sweet film festival. Especially one with free booze! I’ve read your rules and Doug wasn’t over the line. Mark it an eight, Dude.
January 16th, 2009 at 1:35 am
Meh.
January 26th, 2009 at 10:31 am
“Site Temporarily Unavailable”
Nice effort to get your festival some pub but it may work better if the sites were actually up and running.