26th Philadelphia Film Festival, Day 9: Festival winners and good picks

(Read about days 6 and 7 here)

The "closing night" of the festival is supposed to be the ending shebang on the ninth day. The one thing that always baffles me is why closing night festivities occur with two days left in the festival. It's not the last day of the festival so why market it as such? Maybe it's more fun to make the most of a Friday night instead of a Sunday night? At least they get the opening night right by putting it on the first day.

Anyway, winners were announced by the "jury" — the composition of which is never made public so I don't know who is selecting these winners — on "closing night" with documentaries cleaning up nicely. "Bobbi Jene" picked up the documentary feature prize with "At the Drive-In" winning the Pinkenson Award for local features and "Jane" claiming the student choice award.


Of the narrative feature winners, the animated Chinese film "Have A Nice Day" won the narrative prize with the Archie Award for first feature split between "Bad Lucky Goat" and "Bloody Milk". "Custody" received an honorable mention in the Archie contest.

I was elated to see "At the Drive-In" win a prize at the festival because it was such a lovely film and one of my favorites of the festival. "Bloody Milk's" win is questionable in my eyes since I didn't think much of that French export about dying cows. I'll be seeing "Have a Nice Day" on Sunday so I'm looking forward to that!

Aside from announcing the winners the film "Three Billboards outside Ebbing, Missouri" closed out the festival. Eek, I get shivers saying it closed out the festival since there are still two whole days of programming left after it. Philadelphia Film Society, can you please make the last day of the festival closing night. All of the major festivals don't have closing night celebrations until everything is shown.

Free snackage at the festival lounge. Certainly held me over 

for a little bit.

So Friday was a pretty busy day for myself and the festival. I managed to pack in four movies, not including "Three Billboards", and boy was that tiring!

"Bye Bye Germany" kicked things off and it was a ho-hum kind of feature. With WWII over a group of hustling Jews in Germany try to make enough money to leave for America, but they can't escape their past of concentration camps and Nazi occupation. Aside from the humor it was just another bland Holocaust film. Nothing really interesting.

Next up was "Souvenir", another Isabelle Huppert vehicle from her already perfect 2016 filmography which was totally different from her turns in "Elle" and "Things to Come". She plays a former Eurovision songstress who's re-discovered by a boxer. Featuring some beautifully cheesy songs that kept me jiving I forgave its predictability. It's a light film and I had a good time watching it. Je dis oui!

Third was a film that really surprised me. "Princess Cyd" was originally planned to be a filler selection between "Souvenir" and "Before Hollywood", so I wasn't eagerly anticipating it or had any expectations. A teenager name Cyd spends the summer with her aunt and discovers the power of relationships, love,  family, and herself. Cyd is your typical teenager curious about everything, including the personal life of her famous aunt Miranda and the sexual intrigue with an androgynous girl named Katie. It's pretty cut and dry like that and to call it a gay love story or a coming-of-age tale is the most basic term this film could be labeled. Those are the major elements, but it's not at all a conventional story.

There is so much depth to this film in part to its really interesting and fully developed characters. I loved hearing their conversations, watching them interact, grow as people, move on from tragedy and just be who they are. "Princess Cyd" is definitely one of the best I've seen at the festival because it's so open and breaths effortlessly. The story and character progress naturally, going scene-to-scene with extremely good dialogue and small moments of achieving a better self.

Finally was a documentary called "Before Hollywood: Philadelphia and the Invention of the Movies", a passion project by former Philadelphia Inquirer film critic Carrie Rickey about the city's prominence in the evolution of the motion picture. It's a pretty dense 70 minutes that tracks the 200-year history of Philadelphia brethren who have contributed to the art of photography and cinema. There is a lot of information here about various innovators and you'd be surprised how much the City of Brotherly Love has contributed to this art form. It was a joy to watch, but it seemed to end suddenly after talking about the invention of the Steadicam and the film as a whole was loosely held together from event to event.

Overall, this was a pretty good day. That day I realized that even though the festival throws my world for a loop for over a week, I would be missing it when it's over in just a few days. It may be exhausting, but I love it so much! What can be better than watching movies all day? Of course it helps that the movies are good. The festival has certainly taken off since the underwhelming start. Looking forward to the real closing night on Sunday!

And, of course, here are the dishcloths I completed on Friday. I'm up to 15 from 18 movies.

Festival ballot ratings:

"Bye Bye Germany"- Fair

"Souvenir"- Good

"Princess Cyd"- Excellent

"Before Hollywood: Philadelphia and the Invention of the Movies"- Good

"Sister of Mine"- Good

"Thelma"- Very Good

"In the Fade"- Fair

"At the Drive-In"- Excellent

"Under the Tree"- N/A

"Spoor"- Good

"Faces Places"- Excellent
"Brimstone and Glory"- Excellent
"The Square"- Very Good
"On Body and Soul"- Good
"Bloody Milk"- Fair/Poor
"BPM (Beats Per Minute)"- POOR
"A Ciambra"- Fair

"A Sort of Family- Fair/Poor

"Gemini"- POOR