World Meeting Film Fest to celebrate papal week

Thirteen films will be screened at the Kimmel Center the week leading up to Pope Francis' visit - the latest in a huge lineup of cultural offerings throughout Philadelphia announced for late September.

The World Meeting of Families Film Festival will run Sept. 22-25, featuring films about Philadelphia and the Catholic Church, as well as classic movie offerings for families.

The Greater Philadelphia Film Office is curating the event, which will be ticketed ($10 for adults, $5 for children). All but two films will be shown at the 500-seat Perelman Theater at the Kimmel Center.

"It's going to be a red carpet almost every day," said Sharon Pinkenson, executive director of the Greater Philadelphia Film Office, who said spotlights would beam above the theater at night during the festival.

Films include The Mighty Macs, the story of the NCAA-champion Immaculata College women's basketball team; Diary of a City Priest, on the life of Father John McNamee and his work with the poor at St. Malachy Parish in North Philadelphia; and M. Night Shyamalan's Wide Awake, about a 10-year-old boy's search for God after the death of his grandfather.

Shyamalan is expected to attend to introduce his film, and additional celebrities have been invited, Pinkenson said.

A full schedule along with tickets will be available on the Kimmel Center website and the theater's box office.

The festival will also premiere Urban Trinity, a film by Sam Katz, a historian and three-time Philadelphia mayoral candidate, on the history of Catholicism in Philadelphia. It will be shown Wednesday, Sept. 23, at 8 p.m.

On Thursday, Sept. 24, the day after Yom Kippur ends, 1,400 high school students from the Archdiocese of Philadelphia and the Philadelphia School District will attend a screening of Schindler's List - about an ethnic German businessman who saves more than 1,000 Jewish refugees' lives during the Holocaust - at Congregation Rodeph Shalom on North Broad Street.

On Friday, Sept. 25, the festival will conclude with an outdoor screening for 1,000 people of the sing-along version of The Sound of Music at Dilworth Park.