It will take you from Bombay to Madagascar, from Joy Street to Palookaville. The Fifth Annual Philadelphia Festival of World Cinema, which runs from Wednesday through May 12, literally spans the globe, from Korea (a film from Ireland) to The Darien Gap (a swamp in Panama).
While the festival boasts such exotic destinations as the angry red planet (Aelita, Queen of Mars) and Transylvania (The Outpost), it's also host to such less well-known domestic spots as Dadetown and Troublesome Creek.
The vital statistics of PFWC '96? Twelve days. One hundred films (44 shorts and 56 features from 37 countries). Nine venues. Seven Cine Cafe discussions. Five seminars. One screenwriting prize. And some provocative themes that suggest our domestic preoccupations are global.
Consider, for instance, shrinking economic opportunity. It's the theme of the festival-opener, Palookaville, Alan Taylor's prize-winning comedy about a trio of Joisey City mugs who are out of jobs and out of luck.
And it's the theme of Dadetown (screens May 5, 7 and 10), Russ Hexter's seeming-documentary about a high-tech company that muscles into a town as an old-tech firm collapses.
And likewise the subject of Mayday (May 3, 4 and 6), a French film where marriages are a casualty of unemployment, Men of the Ports (May 5 and 7), an Italian-Swiss coproduction about the effects of containerization on stevedores, and Struggles in Steel (May 3, 5 and 6), a documentary about Pennsylvania mill closings and their impact on black employees.
In PFWC '96, food is most definitely the international language. Possible menus include Eggs (May 2 and 6), a Norwegian film about a pair of septuagenarian brothers, and The Elixir (May 5, part of the ``Shape Shifters'' shorts program), a Russian experimental film inspired by The Tales of Hoffmann.
Or how about A Feast at Midnight (May 5, 7 and 11), about boarding schoolers who rebel against a diet of tofu lasagna, and Naked with Oranges (May 2 and 5), a Venezuelan drama featuring an Anglo woman in love with an Indian officer during the 19th-century federal wars?
Perhaps your palate prefers Pickled Okra (May 11, part of the ``Show Me a Story'' shorts program), about going food shopping in New Orleans, and The Watermelon Woman (May 8 and 10), Cheryl Dunye's comic feature about a filmmaker's search for an elusive subject.
