April 29-May 5, 2004
screen picks
PFF Wrap-up Despite scaled-back programming, the Philadelphia Film Fest racked up its highest attendance ever, with a reported 61,000 in ticket sales, including 70 sold-out screenings. Jury winners included a two-way tie for first: Anatomy of Hell and Unknown Soldier, with Proteus taking best documentary and Asshak's Ulrike Koch scoring best director. No doubt buoyed by Mario and Melvin Van Peebles' lively Q&As, Baadasssss! was the audience choice for best feature, with The Corporation the favored documentary. (Both films are due for theatrical runs.) Less favored were slow-moving films like S21 and Uniform, among the festival's best but evidently too rarefied for the audience's tastes. Honors in the Festival of Independents went to Eugene Martin's The Other America, David Deneen's Inhuman Creation Station, Anthony Mastanduno's Wiley Jack-a-napes, dodges, parries unmitigated evil, Ted Passon's Robot Boy and Cheryl Hess' La Promesa, the last of which heads to New York's Tribeca Film Festival this weekend.
My favorite festival moment: hearing a full house draw breath as one during the ultra-tense A Tale of Two Sisters. Least favorite: trying to tune out the projectionist's 10-minute rant during the same Ritz East screening, clearly audible from the far end of the theater. Such carelessness was repeated at several Ritz East screenings, with the house lights left up during the movie or subtitles run off the bottom of the screen, though the screenings I attended at other venues went off without a hitch. (A power outage forced one cancellation at International House.) Still, the festival proved quick on its feet, switching sold-out films to larger theaters when circumstances permitted. In a make-or-break year, the PFF skewed toward the former.
Symphony of Six Million (Sat. May 1, 8:30 p.m.; Sun., May 2, 2 p.m.; Mon., May 3, 7 p.m., $8-11, Gershman Y, 401 S. Broad St., 215-446-3033) The 6 million in the title of Gregory La Cava's pre-World War II tearjerker refers to the approximate population of New York City, but Symphony (1932) still has plenty of Jewish content, if not many Jewish actors. Ricardo Cortez plays Felix Klauber, a bright young boy whose Old World parents positively burst with joy when he becomes a doctor, less so when his success takes him away from the old neighborhood. Yiddishe Mama cliches abound, and the story's climax, which overtly reminds immigrants to respect their roots, can alternately be read as a warning to stay in their place. Still, Symphony, also known as Melody of Life, is a vivid reminder of a time when Jewish families could regularly be seen on the country's movie screens.
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