Philadelphia shines with talent, movies at film fest

Phillywood, Filmadelphia, call it what you like, there's a new indie spirit in the air. Everywhere you go there are folks with cameras and boom mikes, craft services carts and rental trucks, telling stories for the screen.

The Philadelphia Film Festival has long highlighted the work of local film and video artists, but this year's fest shows a new energy and confidence among its legion of homemade movie-makers.

First off, there are the titles arriving with awards already in hand: Jeremiah Zagar's In a Dream took the "Emerging Visions" audience award at the recent SXSW Film Festival in Texas, and Tom Quinn's The New Year Parade (screening April 12 and 14), won the grand-jury prize for narrative feature at January's Slamdance, in Utah. Both are steeped in Phillyness, from street mosaics to the Mummers.

Although Hori Smoku Sailor Jerry (Thursday at the Prince), is a doc about pioneer 20th-century tattoo artist Norman "Sailor Jerry" Collins - a guy headquartered in Honolulu - its roots are in Philadelphia. Director Erich Weiss grew up here and got his start shooting music videos; producer Steve Grasse is one of the masterminds behind the local ad agency Gyro Worldwide and the Sailor Jerry brand of hipster garb.

Philly's award-winning Eugene Martin shepherded The Bloodlines Video Diary Project (tomorrow at International House), in which two Philadelphia eighth graders - a 14-year-old girl from North Philly and a 13-year-old boy from Kensington - were given cameras to document their respective experiences over the course of the 2005-2006 school year. Martin codirected and edited along with the students, Ebony Graves and Dennis Midiri.

In a similar vein, Benjamin Herold's First Person (Sunday and April 12 at International House) trains its lenses on six Philadelphia public high-school students as they try to balance hard realities of their everyday world with dreams of advancing to college.

A different kind of educational institution serves as backdrop for New Cops, Ron Kanter's documentary following the recruits of Class 332 through the Philadelphia Police Academy and onto the city's streets. Kanter's revealing pic is part of the fest's "Law and Order. . . More Or Less" program (Monday at International House).

Philadelphia's Scribe (April 13 at International House), in celebration of Scribe Video Center's 25th anniversary, offers recent pieces from Scribe videomakers and a retrospective look at works from the West Philadelphia's community-based media training ground.

In addition, there are three programs of Philly-based shorts: The Liberty Bell Tolls for Thee (Wednesday, International House); The Rocky Balboa Picture Show (April 12, International House), and The Savage Breast - Rated R (Tuesday, International House), the latter a collection of shorts and videos showcasing Philly-based bands and musicians.

And speaking of local musicians, while Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (April 13, Prince Theater) was made in 1920, in Astoria, Queens, this silent screen classic - starring the late local yokel John Barrymore - will get a live accompaniment courtesy of Golden Ball, Philly musician David Chadwick's weirdly eclectic ensemble.

Other locally connected offerings in PFF17 include a number of winning shorts from the Greater Philadelphia Student Film Festival; Richie Asburn: A Baseball Life; Eleven Minutes, about Project Runway designer Jay McCarroll; the Philly-shot Universal Signs; Holler Back, about disaffected Allentown voters; and Electile Dysfunction, a look at the U.S. Senate campaign between Bob Casey Jr. and Rick Santorum.