Philly Fest Loads Up On Tributes, Fest Indies

by Mark Rabinowitz

The 1998 Philadelphia Festival of World Cinema (PFWC) kicks off on April 29th (closing on May 10th) with a screening of Shane Meadows' upcoming Bob Hoskins starrer, "TwentyFourSeven" and will feature tributes to acclaimed Canadian stage and film director Robert Lepage ("The Confessional," "Le Polygraphe"), singer, actor, political activist, and author, Paul Robeson and New York-based indie production company, Good Machine.

The Lepage tribute features the Philly premiere of "The Confessional" ("Le Confessional"), "Le Polygraphe," Peter Mettler's adaptation of Lepage's stage play "Tectonic Plates" and "The Seven Streams of the River Ota," a "series of snapshots from the lives of a handful of people connected somehow to the bombings at Hiroshima," according to a festival press release. The tribute will also feature Q&A's at the screenings with those involved in the films, including "Le Polygraphe" co-writer Michael Mackenzie and co-writer and star of "Le Polygraphe" and "The Seven Streams of the River Ota" Marie Brassard, both long-time members of Lepage's theater company.

Good Machine, the independent production company founded in 1991 by co-presidents James Schamus and Ted Hope will be represented at the festival by three films, Hanna Weyer's "Arresting Gena," Frank Grow's digital feature "Love God" and Hilary Brougher's "The Sticky Fingers of Time."

Paul Robeson, an opera singer, actor, world-class athlete, law school graduate and civil rights activist was born in Princeton, New Jersey in 1898, as part of a city-wide celebration of what would have been his 100th birthday, the PFWC will screen Oscar Micheaux's silent classic "Body and Soul" with live accompaniment by Honk Wail and Moan, Dudley Murphy's "The Emperor Jones and Thornton Freedland's "Jericho." Robeson's brilliant career was derailed by U.S. Government objection to his open support of the Soviet Union and the Communist Party, and his subsiquent blacklisting, which included the temporary revocation of his passport.

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For the seventh year, the festival will also incorporate the Festival of Independents, a showcase of independent video and filmmakers from the Philadelphia region. The "Fest Indies," as it's called, existed on its own for six years before becoming part of the larger festival seven years ago. This year's Fest Indies kicks off with "Relationships," a series of four narrative shorts, and continues with several Philadelphia premieres, including Eugene Martin's "Edge City" and Kevin DiNovis' Slamdance Grand Prize and New York Underground Film Festival Best Feature winner, "Surrender Dorothy"; two documentary programs, "Women's Realities" and "Beneath the Surface" and two programs of shorts, "Personal Explorations & Community Issues" and Relationships." In all, the Fest Indies will feature twenty-one works produced in the Philadelphia-area. Other films screening at the PFWC include: Best Foreign Language Oscar winner, Mike van Diem's "Character," Takeshi Kitano's "Fireworks" ("Hana-bi") from Japan, Tony Gatlif's "Gadjo Dilo" (France), Pal Sletaune's "Junk Mail (Norway), Susan Skoog's "Whatever" (U.S.A.) and Carlos Marcovich's "Who the Hell is Juliette?" ("Quien Diablos es Juliette?") from Mexico. [For advance tickets and Film Fan passes, call: (215) 569-9700. For information about the festival, call: 1-800-WOW-PFWC (969-7392) or check out their web site at:www.libertynet.org/ihouse ] Login to recommend this article » posted on April 2, 1998 Films to Snag Login to Leave a Comment »