The goal this year: improved programming. Even amid the hurly-burly of '09, the festival gave us early looks at Oscar-worthy movies and performances - "Precious," "The Messenger," for instance.
The 19th opened yesterday with Darren Aronofsky's "Black Swan" (it screens again tomorrow evening). The movie's already generating awards buzz for star Natalie Portman. The movie, which won't be released until December, was hailed in Variety as a "wicked, sexy, devastating study of a young dancer's all-consuming ambition."
There are more big-buzz movies that played well and won awards at major festivals - part of a new emphasis on substance, said executive director J. Andrew Greenblatt.
"We have more significant films, more highly regarded films, films that come out of Cannes or Toronto or Sundance with well-deserved attention," Greenblatt said.
The closing-night film, for instance, is Telluride hit "127 Hours," the fact-based movie directed by Danny Boyle ("Slumdog Millionaire") starring James Franco as a man trapped in an avalanche who must amputate his own arm to escape and survive.
The festival gives Philadelphians a chance to see these films early, before the hype. It also offers a chance to see them in their original form - before they're cut down to suit the marketplace.
For example, the sexually candid Ryan Gosling-Michelle Williams movie, "Blue Valentine," has been tagged with an NC-17 rating, meaning there's a chance it may be trimmed before its commercial release.
"We may be the only way in Philadelphia you get to see the original, as the director intended," Greenblatt said.
There are also oddities like Joseph Gordon-Levitt's "Hesher" - purchased after a rough-cut screening at Sundance, then completed on its way here.
