A look at the 2015 Philadelphia Film Festival

Do you like romantic misadventures? Disaster movies? Culturally important documentaries? Horror? The 24th annual Philadelphia Film Festival is bringing engaging, bizarre, historic, funny, scary, and timely narratives to venues across the city from October 22 to November 1.

This year’s festival boasts over 100 feature-length films and 21 shorts. The fest begins with two screenings of Charlie Kaufman’s Anomalisa at the Prince Theater, an “extraordinary piece of stop-motion animation that is as tender and humorous as it is surreal,” plus an opening night party at 1925 Lounge.

The festival’s official closing film is Michael Moore’s new documentary, Where to Invade Next. Advance tickets to the October 30 award ceremony and screening at the Prince are already sold out, but tickets to a screening of the film at Ritz East the same night at 8pm are still on sale. A masquerade party at the Prince will finish things off.

A few films

On October 26 at 6pm at the Prince, catch a showing of director Patricia Riggen’s The 33, based on the real-life crisis that transfixed the globe in 2010 when 33 Chilean miners were trapped in an underground collapse for 69 days. For a look at life on the other side of the Pacific, see The Birth of Saké, an immersive Japanese-language documentary from Erik Shirai about the Tedorigawa Brewery and how its workers preserve a quickly disappearing tradition. It’s coming to Ritz East on October 29 at 5pm, and Ritz Bourse on October 31 at 4:45pm.

As I AM: The Life and Times of DJ AM calls on interviews, recreations, and archival footage to tell the inspiring and heartbreaking real-life story of Adam Goldstein: his influence on an entire genre of music, his activism to help fellow sufferers of addiction, and his own death by drug overdose. It’s directed by Kevin Kerslake, and you can see it October 27 at 4:30pm at Ritz Bourse or October 29 at 7:15pm at Ritz East.

Fatima, from director Philippe Faucon, tells the story of a Morrocan mother navigating a new life in Lyon, France. It’s a timely and affecting drama about immigration, assimilation, ambition, and family. Find it October 26 at 12:50pm at Ritz East, and October 28 at 2:40pm at Ritz Bourse.

There’s also “Norway’s proud entrance into the pure popcorn canon,” with Roar Uthaug’s The Wave, a ‘90s-style thriller about a geologist who tries to avert disaster when a mountain collapses into a fjord poised (of course) to engulf a world of tourists in the ensuing tsunami. You can see it on October 25 at the Prince at 2:35pm, or 10pm November 1 at Ritz East.

Comedy and scares

Special events include a free, open-to-the-public outdoor screening of Monty Python’s Life of Brian at UPenn Shoemaker Green on October 29 at 7:30pm (no tickets or registration required). And horror aficionados won’t want to miss A Very Scary Sleepover: Wes Craven’s Halloween Nightmare, featuring everything from 1977’s The Hills Have Eyes to the original Scream to a full complement from the Nightmare on Elm Street franchise. It’s happening at the Prince on Halloween, starting at 11:00am and running 'til the following morning.

For the full Philadelphia Film Festival 2015 schedule, click here. Click here to browse all features, and here for short films.