Please note: This article is published as an archive copy from Philadelphia City Paper. My City Paper is not affiliated with Philadelphia City Paper. Philadelphia City Paper was an alternative weekly newspaper in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. The last edition was published on October 8, 2015.
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April 26–May 3, 2001
cover story| pfwc
Right Here, Right Now
FestIndies serves up a banquet of local goodies.
Like the rest of PFWC 2001, the Festival of Independents — I’m sorry, the Philadelphia City Paper Festival of Independents — is greatly expanded from last year’s slimmed-down Fest. But where FestIndies has sometimes in the past faced the problem of being a little bit too big, the size of this year’s slate of films is mitigated by the fact that three of FestIndies’ seven programs are devoted to feature-length films (plus, in two cases, accompanying shorts). The veritable explosion of features is no doubt due to the newly competitive Fest’s addition of a "feature-length film" category, but each of the features is a crowd-pleaser in its own way, and they’re sure to draw big crowds.
American Chai (Sun., April 29, 7:15 p.m., Ritz East) closes out Opening Night with its genial (perhaps slightly too so) tale of an Indian-American college student attempting to hide his devotion to music from his traditionalist parents, who still think he’s pre-med. Written and directed by Cherry Hill’s Anurag Mehta (and starring brother Aalok), American Chai is appealingly commercial if not overly imaginative, notable mainly for its subject matter. It’s by some distance the slickest of the three features (and the only one shot on 35mm), but it’s not soulless, just a bit predictable. (Put it this way: The movie builds up to a big contest.) But Mehta at least knows how to deploy the formula successfully and with heart. There’s no reason it shouldn’t win over Philadelphia audiences the same way it did the crowd at Slamdance. (The fast-selling film will also screen May 1 at 12:30 p.m., Ritz East.)
Something’s Happening to Robin Stark (Thu., May 3, 9:30 p.m., International House) is by far the loopiest of the three, with its story of a terminally ill woman (Jennifer Childs) who’s pursued through suburbs and city by the rather genial figure of death (Pearce Bunting). As her treacherous husband, who may well have cut a deal with the reaper, Surrender Dorothy’s Peter Pryor again plays the heavy, with cool folks like artist Mark Brodzik and rocker Red Burns popping up cameo-style. Gage Johnston’s feature debut doesn’t always move smoothly, and its black-comic surrealist tone is wobbly in spots, but it shows a genuine imagination (and a depth of understanding) uncommon in a debut effort, and its truly home-grown cast and crew make it a welcome FestIndies entry. Shown with Micah Chambers-Goldberg’s The Monk and the Tiger.
Vlas Parlapanides’ Everything For a Reason (Fri., May 4, 6:15 p.m., Ritz Bourse) closes out FestIndies with a bang. Set on the Jersey shore, the film has a fairly typical plot — aspiring Greek-American screenwriter seeks romance with aspiring Greek-American MBA — but Parlapanides’ clever use of cross-cutting and sharp sense of humor lift the film out of its familiar milieu. A perfect mix of romantic warmth and worldly-wise cynicism, it’s the work of a budding director who can deliver on both commercial and artistic levels. Shown with Sean McBride’s That Special Monkey.
Among the shorts programs, the best bet is the lively (if awkwardly named) Philadelphia: Hot Pepper/Sweet Pepper (Wed., May 2, 5 p.m., International House). Featuring new work from Big Tea Party and Termite TV Collective (whose praises I’ve sung in these pages many times), the bill also includes Miriam Camitta’s enlightening Crosstown, which tells the story of how ’60s and ’70s activists stopped City Hall from building an expressway down the middle of South Street which would have flattened a neighborhood in the midst of revitalization and severed South Philadelphia from the rest of the city. Watching such films can sometimes be like being read to from an encyclopedia, but Camitta makes the story vital, and contemporary.
Other shorts programs:
Worlds of Women (Sun., April 29, 2 p.m., International House), including Hernan Reyes’ dreamlike Eye of God and Caran Hartsfield’s Cannes prize-winner kiss it up to god.
Wrong Turns Not Forgotten (Mon., April 30, 7:15 p.m., Studio Theatre), includes a trio of prison-themed shorts: Severed Souls, which probes the circumstances surrounding the execution of the first African-American woman in Pennsylvania; Prison Dialogues (by DUTV’s George McCollough), which features recollections from Graterford lifers; and Peter Rose’s abstract OMEN, which plays with the imagery of incarceration.
Dance, Dance, Dance (Tue., May 1, 9:15 p.m., International House), featuring the whimsical When Dancers Go Bowling, the biographical Limón: A Life Beyond Words and Standing on the Edge, We Dance, a history of Philadanco founder Joan Myers Brown.
Don’t forget that this year’s FestIndies features a full day of panel discussions (April 28 from 10 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. at WHYY’s 6th and Race studios), as well as a closing party and awards presentation at the Trocadero, starting at 8 p.m. on May 4. The ceremony will be hosted by CP honcho David Warner and myself, assuming I can’t figure out a way to fake a crippling injury between now and then.
Clips for most of these films are available online, at www.citypaper.net/independentfilm/thefilms.shtml
