14th Annual Philadelphia Film Festival

By Rich Drees

     In 2003, the Philadelphia Film Society made a grave mistake, changing the name of the Philadelphia Festival of World Cinema to the shorter, and a bit more generic, Philadelphia Film Festival. With a majority of this year’s festival’s 140 feature films hailing from outside the United States, the Philadelphia Film Festival is perhaps the premier showcase for international cinema on the East Coast. With separate tracks for Spanish and Latin American, Korean and Muslim films, as well as its International Masters and World Focus programs and the foreign films in the Documentary Tradition and Danger After Dark series, the Philadelphia Film Festival presents a wide diversity of international cinema.

     Even a Herculean effort wouldn’t allow one to see every film being screened over the festival’s 13 days. However, here is a look at just a few of the films that screened. (Please note that some films screened are receiving theatrical releases in the upcoming months, and larger reviews for them will run at those times.)

Opening Night- Spanish director Alex de la Iglesia presents his latest film, the dark comedy Ferpect Crime.

Reviews- Survive Style 5+, Swindled, The Lakeside Murder Case, Mana- Beyond Belief, Checking Out

Reviews- Marebito, Frozen, Crying Out Love In The Center Of The World, Z Channel: A Magnificent Obsession

Reviews- King Of The Corner, One Missed Call, Izo, Karaoke Terror, Macked, Hammered, Slaughtered And Shafted, Sweet Sixties, Cutie Honey

Festival Photo Gallery