Word broke late Friday that in all likelihood, for the first time in more than 17 years, there probably won’t be a Philadelphia Film Festival this spring — and there most likely will not be a Cinefest, its evil twin, either. And in fact, there may be lawsuits tying up both indefinitely. Bravo! So Philly, so you. All of this, of course, stems from some kind of longstanding beef between TLA honco/longstanding PFF organizer Ray Murray and the Philadelphia Film Society board, which Murray has characterized as being stodgy — although it’s hard to tell what the truth is here, since our gut tells us that at least some small part of the beef here revolves around Murray squeezing in TLA’s hella corny/awful TLA releasing titles into the fest for the last few years. Either way, this is a mess, and it’s very sad: Warts and all, The Philadelphia Film Festival was one of the better-run and more interesting annual festivals this town had each year, and its loss, especially with all the other things that Philly is losing these days, feels utterly criminal. To the point where, full disclosure, we’re considering running an alternate film festival this spring ourselves. If anyone is interested in helping or has any suggestions, get at us at tips[at]philebrity[dot]com. Together, maybe we can minimize the bummer.
UPDATE: TLA intern swears Cinefest will start on March 26th, no matter what, in the comments below.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, February 17th, 2009 at 11:26 am.