27 Apr Philadelphia Monthly Arts Round-Up: May 2023
BY ARTA BARZANJI
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May 1, also known as May Day, marks two different occasions which are celebrated around the world. The first is an ancient European festival that marks the beginning of summer. The other, International Workers’ Day, celebrates the historic struggles of the world working class. On top of that, the lovely month of May (to borrow a phrase from Chris Marker) also features a number of exciting screenings, talks, and workshops in our City of Brotherly Love. With colleges wrapping up for the semester, there are several student film festivals to check out, as well as the start of an exciting season of outdoor events.
Highlights of this month include the return of cinéSPEAK’s Under The Stars screenings, a mini-retrospective of six newly-restored films by Camille Billops & James Hatch, and a screening/conversation with artist Ingrid Raphaël.
Monday, May 1, 2023 at 10 AM
Center for Experimental Ethnography Carnival
This unique event celebrating CEE’s fifth anniversary boasts just over 12 hours of programming, including performances, film screenings, installations, and conversations. If you can make it out to the Penn Museum on this Monday, you’ll have the chance to see renowned thinkers and creators, including curator James Claiborne, filmmaker and activist Louis Massiah, and movement artist Reggie Wilson.
Cost: Free
Penn Museum — 3260 South Street, Philadelphia, PA
Tuesday, May 2, and Wednesday, May 3, 2023 at 6 PM
Diamond Screen Film and Media Arts Festival
One of two Philadelphia-area student film festivals this month, the Diamond Screen Film and Media Arts Fest showcases the best work from students in Temple University’s Film and Media arts program. This festival includes two evenings of curated film programs, and is free to attend.
Cost: Free
Temple Performing Arts Center — 1837 N Broad Street, Philadelphia, PA
Friday, May 5, 2023, at 6 PM
Kenza Bousseloub: Echoes / أصداء
Don’t miss this exciting exhibit opening presented by Batikh Batikh at Vox Populi’s Black Box Theater. Curated by Sarah Trad, the founder of Batikh Batikh, Echoes is Algerian-American Kenza Bousseloub’s first solo exhibition. The exhibit features film and photography focusing on Algerian women and emotional labor and care, and includes a world premiere of the artist’s documentary Nissa’a Djazaïriat, Voices of East Algeria. The exhibit opening event is on May 5, and the exhibit will remain up through June 11.
Cost: Free
Vox Populi — 319 N 11th Street #3, Philadelphia, PA
Saturday, May 6, 2023 at 5 PM
In Process with Ingrid Raphaël
Join a screening and conversation with the multi-disciplinary artist, filmmaker, and educator, Ingrid Raphaël. Exploring the workings of memory and how it informs storytelling traditions, this lecture-workshop-screening will delve into the process of Raphaël’s work and give the audiences a close glimpse into their approach.
Cost: Suggested Donation: $10 – $20, or Pay-What-You-Can.
Making Worlds Cooperative Bookstore & Social Center — 210 South 45th Street, Philadelphia, PA 19104
Monday, May 8, 2023 at 7 PM
12th Annual Tri-Co Film Festival
Watch local student films at an annual film festival celebrating work made by students at Bryn Mawr, Haverford, and Swarthmore Colleges. The single evening curated short film program will screen in person at the Bryn Mawr Film Institute. With free admission, this is a great opportunity to support young filmmakers in the Philadelphia area.
Cost: Free
Bryn Mawr Film Institute — 824 W Lancaster Avenue, Bryn Mawr, PA
Friday, May 12, 2023 at 7 PM
A String of Pearls: The Films of Camille Billops & James Hatch
Scribe Video Center and Lightbox Film Center come together to present an essential program: two venues, three nights, and six films from two underappreciated filmmakers associated with the LA Rebellion: Camille Billops and James Hatch. Challenging the documentary traditions both in terms of form and content, Billops and Hatch’s daring explorations of familial and generational trauma, violence, and racial and gender dynamics work in tandem with their tireless formal innovation to create some of the most intriguing works of American nonfiction cinema from the 1980s and 90s.
Cost: $10 General, $8 Student/Senior, and Free for Scribe and Lightbox members, UArt Students and Faculty/Staff
Scribe Video Center — 3908 Lancaster Avenue, Philadelphia, PA 19104
Wednesday, May 10, 2023 at 7 PM
Walk Up
Korean director Hong Sang-soo has been one of the most prolific filmmakers of the past decade, having one or two films featured every year at international festivals. His idiosyncratic and modest production process, as well as his regular troupe of actors and behind-the-scenes collaborators, all come together to make this pace of work possible. Deceptively simple and casual on the surface, Hong’s films are in fact some of the most meticulously formally designed works of contemporary cinema, as he constantly plays with repetition and small variations on similar themes, working almost like a scientist of cinematic form to test what happens to the whole if he alters one element in his cinematic experiments.
Cost: $10 General Admission, $8 Students/Seniors, Free for Members/UArts Students/UArts Faculty & Staff
Lightbox Film Center — 401 South Broad Street, Philadelphia, PA 19147
Thursday, May 18, 2023 at 7 PM
Moving Through the World: Animated Shorts by Lowell Boston
Drawing inspiration from everyday life, Lowell Boston has been creating short animations and live-action films for three decades. This screening brings together some of the artist’s most important works, including Water Born (USA, 2022, 16 min), Slipstream (USA, 2017, 7 min), Falling Sky (USA, 2017, 3 min), Camden (USA, 2006, 10 min) and Friends (USA, 2018, 10 min).
Cost: $7.50 General Admission, $5 Students/Seniors, $4 Scribe Members
Scribe Video Center — 3908 Lancaster Avenue, Philadelphia, PA 19104
Wednesday, May 10, 2023 at 7 PM
Twilight
While sharing a title with a popular Hollywood series, this Hungarian film from 1990 is a rather different affair. Directed by György Fehér with striking black and white photography by Miklós Gurbán (who also shot Bela Tarr’s Werckmeister Harmonies), Twilight is a grim serial killer/police procedural film with a haunting score that often evokes the feeling of being stuck in someone’s nightmare.
Cost: $10 General Admission, $8 Students/Seniors, Free for Members/UArts Students/UArts Faculty & Staff
Lightbox Film Center — 401 South Broad Street, Philadelphia, PA 19147
Friday, May 26, 2023 at 7 PM
cinéSPEAK Under the Stars 2023 Kick-Off: Max Roach: The Drum Also Waltzes
Every year, when the weather is *just* right, cinéSPEAK bring audiences together for magical evenings of outdoor cinema at some of Philadelphia’s most beloved green spaces. This kick-off event for the spring 2023 season will feature Max Roach: The Drum Also Waltzes, which tells the story of a musician whose far-reaching ambitions were inspired and challenged by the inequities of the society around him. Presented in partnership with WRTI and Ars Nova Workshop, the event will also include local DJs, food trucks, and much more. Bring a picnic blanket, a folding chair, and some friends to watch a movie with your neighbors on this beautiful spring evening. The DJ and festivities begin at 7 PM, and the film will start at 9 PM.
Cost: Free
Clark Park — 4300-4400 Chester Ave, Philadelphia, PA
Saturday, May 27, 2023 at 3 PM
La Dolce Vita
The year 1960 marked an unmistakable shift in cinema toward Modernism. While French New Wave filmmakers, like Jean-Luc Godard, were making their first films, older filmmakers like Federico Fellini also went through a transition that pushed them fully over the edge of Modernist cinema. La Dolce Vita exemplifies this shift perfectly, as Fellini abandons any remaining elements of Italian Neorealism and forgoes a classical three-act design in favor of a more formalistic episodic structure, as he follows the iconic Marcello Mastroianni’s meandering reporter through the streets of Rome.
Cost: $14 General Admission, $13 Students, $12 Seniors, $10 Children (12 and under)
Philadelphia Film Center — 1412 Chestnut St Philadelphia, PA 19102
Sunday, May 28, 2023 at 5 PM
Sans Soleil
Picking a single “favorite film” is a task I often dread, but if you were to ask me that question within the past three years, my answer would probably be Chris Marker’s Sans Soleil. The film’s mixture of philosophical musings and poeticism, historical lamentations and cultural observations, fiction and nonfiction, the mundane and the fantastical, in a chillingly beautiful voice-over delivery by Alexandra Stewart, which accompanies Marker’s hauntingly gripping imagery, will forever mark my eyes, ears, and soul.
Cost: $14 General Admission, $13 Students, $12 Seniors, $10 Children (12 and under)
Philadelphia Film Center — 1412 Chestnut St Philadelphia, PA 19102
MORE EVENTS:
Wednesday, May 3, 2023 at 7 PM
Cost: $14 General Admission, $13 Students, $12 Seniors, $10 Children (12 and under)
Philadelphia Film Center — 1412 Chestnut St Philadelphia, PA 19102
Wednesday, May 3, 2023 at 7 PM
Deep Listening: The Story of Pauline Oliveros
Cost: $10 General Admission, $8 Students/Seniors, Free for Members/UArts Students/UArts Faculty & Staff
Lightbox Film Center — 401 South Broad Street, Philadelphia, PA 19147
Thursday, May 11, 2023 at 7 PM
Cost: $13.50 General Admission, $8 BMFI Members, $11 Seniors/Students, $9 Children
Bryn Mawr Film Institute — 824 W. Lancaster Avenue, Bryn Mawr, PA
Thursday, May 11, 2023 at 7 PM
Cost: $10 General Admission, $8 Students/Seniors, Free for Members/UArts Students/UArts Faculty & Staff
Lightbox Film Center — 401 South Broad Street, Philadelphia, PA 19147
Sunday, May 14, 2023 at 3 PM
Cost: $14 General Admission, $13 Students, $12 Seniors, $10 Children (12 and under)
Philadelphia Film Center — 1412 Chestnut St Philadelphia, PA 19102
Tuesday, May 16, 2023 at 7 PM
Cost: Suggested Donation $5
Scribe Video Center — 3908 Lancaster Avenue, Philadelphia, PA 19104
Sunday, May 21, 2023 at 5:30 PM
Cost: $14 General Admission, $13 Students, $12 Seniors, $10 Children (12 and under)
Philadelphia Film Center — 1412 Chestnut St Philadelphia, PA 19102
Wednesday, May 24, 2023 at 7:30 PM
Cost: $14 General Admission, $13 Students, $12 Seniors, $10 Children (12 and under)
Philadelphia Film Center — 1412 Chestnut St Philadelphia, PA 19102
Saturday, May 24, 2023 at 7:15 PM
Cost: $13.50 General Admission, $8 BMFI Members, $11 Seniors/Students, $9 Children
Bryn Mawr Film Institute — 824 W. Lancaster Avenue, Bryn Mawr, PA
Thursday, May 25, 2023 at 7:30 PM
The Texas Chainsaw Massacre II
Cost: $14 General Admission, $13 Students, $12 Seniors, $10 Children (12 and under)
Philadelphia Film Center — 1412 Chestnut St Philadelphia, PA 19102
Saturday, May 27, 2023 at 7 PM
Cost: $13.50 General Admission, $8 BMFI Members, $11 Seniors/Students, $9 Children
Bryn Mawr Film Institute — 824 W. Lancaster Avenue, Bryn Mawr, PA
Sunday, May 28, 2023 at 3 PM
Cost: $14 General Admission, $13 Students, $12 Seniors, $10 Children (12 and under)
Philadelphia Film Center — 1412 Chestnut St Philadelphia, PA 19102
*Featured Image: Image from cinéSPEAK Under the Stars 2022. Courtesy of cinéSPEAK.
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Arta Barzanji is an Iranian cinephile, writer, filmmaker, and a current MFA candidate in Film and Media Arts at Temple University. His work, encompassing experimental, narrative, and documentary modes, deals directly with the cinema itself, exploring the relationship between the viewer and the screen while engaging with the works of filmmakers as diverse as Stan Brakhage, Orson Welles, Kamran Shirdel, and Malcolm Le Grice. Arta was a 2022 participant of the Young Critics Workshop, and his critical writings and translations have appeared both in Farsi and English.
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