Next week marks the second annual NOIR CITY: Philadelphia Film Festival, held at the historic Colonial Theatre. The event comes from the Film Noir Foundation, led by president Eddie Muller (who some may recognize as the host of ‘Noir Alley’ on Turner Classic Movies) and boasts three days packed with genre-bending films.
From Nov. 15 to 17, visitors will be able to catch noir films from Argentina, France, Japan, and Italy with English-language films from the United States and the United Kingdom. Stories delve into heists, prison breaks, missing persons, cultural alienation, and plenty of classic, old-fashioned murder.
“This year’s NOIR CITY program is tailored to satisfy folks who love noir that’s full of the colorful vernacular slang so essential to American and British noir—as well as adventurous viewers intrigued by a familiar story—a crime committed for passion or profit—playing out in cultures with different values, mores, and styles,” says the “Czar of Noir”, Eddie Muller in a statement.
“The popularity of classic film noir is at an all-time high, and the Film Noir Foundation is dedicated to rescuing neglected examples of the form, as well as fostering an appreciation of the genre as an international cinematic movement, not merely an American phenomenon.”
NOIR CITY: Philadelphia will kick off with a screening of theFNF’s most recent restoration, the 1952 Argentine film ‘Never Open That Door (No abras nunca esa puerta)’ based on two short stories by popular American suspense-fiction author, Cornell Woolrich.
The schedule, according to a release, also includes showings of some “English-language rarities” including ‘Black Tuesday’ (1954) and ‘Across the Bridge’ (1957). International titles on the other hand span ‘Zero Focus’ (Zero No Shoten, Japan, 1961) and ‘Smog’ (1962), described as a surrealist masterpiece by Italian director Franco Rossi, recently restored by UCLA Film & Television Archive.
The festival ends Sunday, Nov. 17, with a heist double bill of John Huston’s ‘The Asphalt Jungle’ (1950) and the 1963 French film ‘Symphony for a Massacre.’
The noir film fest will also include a book signing with Muller (on Saturday, Nov. 16), where visitors can purchase reads from his recent publications, including ‘Dark City: The Lost World of Film Noir’, ‘Noir Bar: Cocktails Inspired by the World of Film Noir’, and ‘Kid Noir: Kitty Feral and the Case of the Marshmallow Monkey.’
Single tickets for NOIR CITY: Philadelphia at the Colonial Theatre (227 Bridge St., Phoenixville) are $25. Double feature tickets come out to be $40 (available online.) To find out more information about the festival, visit thecolonialtheatre.com
