26th Philadelphia Film Festival

Fair Play Initiative

Through our Fair Play Initiative, PFS is committed to presenting work from filmmakers who have been historically underrepresented within the film industry as well as stories that confront beliefs surrounding unjustly marginalized people and issues.

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A CIAMBRIA
DIR: Jonas Carpognano / Italy, France, USA, Germany, Sweden / 2017 / 117 MIN / CAST: Pio Amato, Koudous Seihon, Damiano Amato, Francesco Pio Amato
Oct. 20 / 12:00 PM / Ritz East B
Oct. 25 / 1:20 PM / Ritz East B
When his brother goes missing, a sharp young Romani boy must quickly learn to navigate the underbelly of his poverty stricken Southern Italian town in this Cannes Director’s Fortnight prizewinner.

ALASKA IS A DRAG
DIR: Shaz Bennett / USA / English / 2017 / 88 MIN / CAST: Martin L. Washington, Maya Washington, Matt Dallas, Margaret Cho
Oct. 25 / 6:10 PM / Ritz East A
Oct. 28 / 9:00 PM / Ritz Five
Dreaming of trading small-town Alaska for the bright lights of Hollywood, aspiring drag queen Leo prepares for two very different competitions: a drag pageant and a boxing match.

BELOVED
DIR: Jonathan Demme / USA / English / 1998 / 172 MIN / CAST: Oprah Winfrey, Danny Glover, Thandie Newton, Kimberly Elise
Oct. 21 / 2:00 PM / Prince Theater
Toni Morrison’s Pulitzer Prize-winning novel received a faithful adaptation courtesy of late filmmaker Jonathan Demme, whose daring work blends horror and historical drama.

BLAME
DIR: Quinn Shephard / USA / English / 2017 / 100 MIN / CAST: Quinn Shephard, Chris Messina, Nadia Alexander, Tate Donovan
Oct. 20 / 9:00 PM / Ritz Five
Oct. 21 / 4:20 PM / Ritz Five
A troubled teen becomes the victim of relentless high school bullying after she forges a taboo romance with her substitute drama teacher in this subversive drama inspired by The Crucible.

BPM (Beats per Minute)
DIR: Robin Campillo / France / French / 2017 / 143 MIN / CAST: Nahuel Pérez Biscayart, Arnaud Valois, Adéle Haenel, Antoine Reinartz
Oct. 21 / 4:20 PM / Ritz East B
Oct. 24 / 8:45 PM / Ritz East B
In this Cannes Grand Prix winner, an electrifying ensemble brings to life the courageous, radical exploits of a group of French AIDS activists facing the rise of the epidemic in the early 1990s.

FACES PLACES
DIR: Agnés Varda, JR / France / French / 2017 / 89 MIN
Oct. 22 / 12:15 PM / Ritz East B
Oct. 23 / 6:20 PM / Ritz East B
In perhaps the year’s most delightful film, auteur Agnès Varda goes on a road trip with très chic artist JR through the French countryside, affectionately photographing its inhabitants.

LADY BIRD
DIR: Greta Gerwig / USA / ENGLISH / 2017 / 94 MIN / CAST: Saoirse Ronan, Laurie Metcalf, Lucas Hedges, Tracy Letts
Oct. 22 / 7:45 PM / Prince Theater
Acclaimed actress and writer Greta Gerwig’s solo directorial debut is an electrifying and utterly gratifying coming-of-age story about an awkward teen yearning to escape her hometown.

LET THE CORPSES TAN
DIR: Hélène Cattet, Bruno Forzani / Belgium, France / French / 2017 / 93 MIN / CAST: Elina Löwensohn, Stéphane Ferrara, Bernie Bonvoisin, Michelangelo Marchese
Oct. 22 / 10:10 PM / Ritz East B
Oct. 23 / 8:30 PM / Ritz East A
Leather-clad cops and grizzled robbers engage in the ultimate firefight in this bloody and delirious fever dream of a showdown from retro-revisionist filmmakers Hélène Cattet and Bruno Forzani.

MOST BEAUTIFUL ISLAND
DIR: Ana Asensio / USA / English, Spanish / 2017 / 80 MIN / CAST: Ana Asensio, Natasha Romanova, David Little, Nicholas Tucci
Oct. 22 / 8:50 PM / Ritz Five
Oct. 23 / 3:45 PM / Ritz Five
A tense, harrowing look at the dark side of the American dream, this thriller follows a young immigrant as she risks everything to scrape together a living in dog-eat-dog New York City.

MONTPARNASSE BIENVENUE
DIR: Léonor Serraille / France / French / 2017 / 97 MIN / CAST: Laetitia Dosch, Gregoire Monsaingeon, Souleymane Seye Ndiaye, Léonie Simaga
Oct. 26 / 2:25 PM / Ritz East B
Oct. 28 / 12:50 PM / Ritz East B
At the end of a ten-year relationship, rambunctious, newly homeless Paula seeks to define herself and exercise her newfound freedom on the streets of Paris in this star-making feature from Cannes.

OH LUCY!
DIR: Atsuko Hirayanagi / USA, JAPAN / English, Japanese / 2017 / 95 MIN / CAST: Shinobu Terajima, Kaho Minami, JOhn Hartnett, Shioli Kutsuna
Oct. 22 / 12:20 PM / Ritz Five
Oct. 24 / 6:10 PM / Ritz Five
A middle-aged Japanese woman’s life takes a turn for the absurd when she enrolls in an unorthodox English course that challenges her to step out of her shell and transform her outlook.

ON BODY AND SOUL
DIR: Ildikó Enyedi / Hungary / Hungarian / 2017 / 116 MIN / CAST: Alexandra Borbély, Géza Morcsányi, Réka Tenki, Zoltán Schneider
Oct. 21 / 12:10 PM / Ritz East A
Oct. 28 / 7:00 PM / Ritz East A
This Berlinale prizewinner is a beguiling and wholly original love story about two lonely co-workers who connect after discovering that they’ve been having the same strange dream night after night.

ONE OF US
DIR: Heidi Ewing, Rachel Grady / USA / LANG: English, Yiddish / 2017 / 95 MIN
Oct. 25 / 3:40 PM / Ritz Five
Oct. 29 / 4:20 PM / Ritz Five
The directors of Jesus Camp take a heartbreaking look at the lives of three individuals who struggle to escape the restrictive world of New York’s Hasidic community despite grave repercussions.

THE OTHER SIDE OF HOPE
DIR: Aki Kaurismäki / Finland, Germany / Finnish, English, Arabic / 2017 / 98 MIN / CAST: Sherwan Haji, Sakari Kousmanen, Ilkka Koivula, Janne Hyytiäinen
Oct. 22 / 2:20 PM / Ritz East A
The latest from Aki Kaurismäki mixes the auteur’s trademark deadpan humor with a sense of political urgency as it follows a down-on-his-luck Syrian refugee’s attempts to gain asylum in Finland.

PRINCESS CYD
DIR: Stephen Cone / USA / ENGLISH / 2017 / 96 MIN / CAST: Jessie Pinnick, Rebecca Spence, Malic White, James Vincent Meredith
Oct. 26 / 7:00 PM / Ritz Five
Oct. 27 / 4:30 PM / Ritz Five
When 16-year-old Cyd spends the summer with her novelist aunt, their unique cohabitation challenges both of their preconceptions about life, love, faith, and sex.

RADIANCE
DIR: Naomi Kawase / Japan / Japanese / 2017 / 101 MIN / CAST: Masatoshi Nagase, Ayame Misaki, Tatsuya Fuji, Kazuko Shirakawa
Oct. 20 / 2:15 PM / Ritz Five
Oct. 23 / 1:30 PM / Ritz East A
Naomi Kawase’s gentle, soulful romance pairs a curmudgeonly photographer whose eyesight is deteriorating with a younger woman whose job is to narrate films for the visually impaired.

SAMMY DAVIS JR.: I’VE GOTTA BE ME
DIR: Sam Pollard / USA / English / 2017 / 100 MIN
Oct. 26 / 7:50 PM / Ritz East A
Oct. 29 / 6:30 PM / Ritz East A
From childhood stardom to a lifetime of extraordinary success and frequent controversy, this fascinating addition to the American Masters series tracks the pioneering legacy of Sammy Davis Jr.

SPOOR
DIR: Agnieszka Holland / Poland, Germany, Czech Republic, Sweden, Slovakia / Polish / 2017 / 128 MIN / CAST: Agnieszka Mandatgrabka, Wiktor Zborowski, Miroslav Brobot, Jakub Gierszał
Oct. 24 / 6:00 PM / Ritz East B
Oct. 25 / 8:45 PM / Ritz East A
In this entertaining yet fiercely intelligent thriller from master director Agnieszka Holland (Europa, Europa), an animal lover finds herself at the center of a murder mystery when local hunters start turning up dead.

SWEET COUNTRY
DIR: Warwick Thornton / COUNTRY: Australia / English, Arrente / 2017 / 113 MIN / CAST: Sam Neill, Bryan Brown, Hamilton Morris, Thomas M. Wright
Oct. 20 / 2:30 PM / Ritz East B
Oct. 29 / 7:00 PM / Ritz East B
In this sweeping period western, acclaimed director-cinematographer Warwick Thornton tells a tale of simmering racial tensions, set against the majestic yet unforgiving landscape of the Australian Outback.

THE WORKSHOP
DIR: Laurent Cantet / France / French / 2017 / 113 MIN / CAST: Marina Foïs, Matthieu Lucci, Warda Rammach, Issam Talbi
Oct. 20 / 4:50 PM / Ritz East A
Oct. 26 / 11:50 AM / Ritz East A
Prejudices and connections are firmly established among a diverse group of teens at a summer writing workshop in France, while one student’s propensity for violence may spell trouble for all.

THE WOUND
DIR: John Trengrove / South Africa / Xhosa / 2017 / 88 MIN / CAST: Nakhane Touré, Bongile Mantsai, Niza Jay Ncoyini, Thobani Mseleni
Oct. 24 / 6:15 PM / Ritz East A
Oct. 27 / 2:15 PM / Ritz Five
Prejudices and connections are firmly established among a diverse group of teens at a summer writing workshop in France, while one student’s propensity for violence may spell trouble for all.