Cheap Shots

A new festival dedicated to honest-to-goodness indie films kicks off in Northern Liberties.

by Shaun Brady

FORCE OF HOBBIT: The Lords of the Rhymes show off their Middle Earth hip-hop skills in Nerdcore for Life, one of many music docs at the fest. (CLICK IMAGE FOR LARGER VERSION)

"I think the city could have a film festival every month," asserts Steven Greenbaum, co-founder and managing director of the first Philadelphia Independent Film Festival. And while that sort of schedule might overtax the eyes (and wallets) of the city's cineastes, his point is well-taken: There's plenty of room in Philly for another cinematic buffet.

Coming as it does in between the city's two flagship festivals — April's behemoth Philadelphia Film Festival and July's ever-expanding Philadelphia International Gay & Lesbian Film Festival — the Independent Film Fest has to be looked at as David next to a pair of well-established Goliaths. But by focusing on indies, the new kid on the block has a distinct advantage in differentiating itself from the marquee names and crowd-pleasers that increasingly fill PFF's catalog, and the niche programming of PIGLFF.

The fest's alternative approach is reflected in its venues: There's not an established movie theater in the bunch. Instead, screenings take place in cafes, parks and screening rooms — even a bowling alley — scattered around Northern Liberties. It's a convenient location given that the neighborhood is home to Media Bureau, the new-media facility behind the festival, but also, says Greenbaum, provides the perfect atmosphere.

"We've got a radically artistic community here in Northern Liberties. There's a lot of creative talent here and we want to have an annual event that shows off our city and our neighborhood. This will bring people from South America and Europe and the West Coast into contact with our local and regional talent for a collaborative global exchange."

The festival is a natural outgrowth of Media Bureau's work, if something of an old-school format for a company that embraces the new. Founded in 1997, Media Bureau has production studios, a post-production facility, HD screening room, cafe and gallery.

"We consider ourselves a 21st-century multimedia network," Greenbaum says. "We were the first webcasting company in Pennsylvania, so we've been online streaming for years, and now that the infrastructure has caught up, there's a lot of opportunity for original content. So whether it's our own product or working collaboratively with people throughout the city, it's just about getting people together and putting stuff out there."

The company's new-media interests are evidenced by the fact that this is a film festival without an inch of actual film. The 150-plus selections will be screened in digital or videotape formats, and most if not all were shot the same way. Independents who are actually independent, as opposed to the studio-branded subsidiaries whose films actually make it to theaters, rarely have the ability or desire to expend their budgets on celluloid these days. The fest features work shot digitally, on video and even on cell phones.

Documentaries seem to dominate the fest schedule, which kicks off Thursday morning with This Is My Cheesesteak, an account of Philly's wit/witout dynasties. As with this year's PFF, plenty of screen time is given to stories about music: Nerdcore for Life, about geek-centric hip-hop; Such Hawks, Such Hounds, surveying America's hard rock underground; Pipes of Peace, George Manney's doc on late Philly jazz bagpiper Rufus Harley; and The Salvation Blues, about Jayhawks co-founder Mark Olson.

Other promising titles include At Home in Utopia, about a cooperative Communist apartment block in the pre-WWII Bronx; Urban Explorers, which follows thrill-seekers trespassing into abandoned buildings; Record Store, about Philly's vinyl-collecting subculture; Dark Streets, a noir musical with dance numbers by the choreographer for the film Rent; and Insects With Glasses, shot entirely on black-and-white security cameras.

(s_brady@citypaper.net)

Philadelphia Independent Film Festival, Thu.-Sun., June 26-29,$6-$8 (tickets), $60-$175 (passes), 215-592-1059, philadelphiaindependentfilmfestival.com