
If not necessarily better, things in the Philadelphia film festival community have sure been getting interesting of late. After the messy divorce between the Philadelphia Film Festival and the Philadelphia Film Society, the founding and subsequent financial failure of the new Cinefest (run by the old PFF's programmers and occupying its April dates) and the "new" PFF's relocation to mid-October, a new landscape has gradually come into focus. Last week, IFC's Ryan Werner and Magnolia's Tom Quinn were named as the PFF's new programmers, a move that adds a welcome dose of professionalism while taking a substantial chunk out of the festival's local identity. (They've previously programmed at Woodstock and Nantucket, a roster of idyllic vacation spots that made Philadelphia the only logical next step.) Given Werner and Quinn's day jobs, conflicts of interests are sure to surface, but their collective taste is irreproachable. It should be fascinating to see how things shake out over the next few months.
Cinefest is still dead, or at least slumbering heavily, but former PFF/Cinefest programmer Ray Murray, who doubles as the head of local chain TLA Video, is pressing onward with QFest, the new and welcome name for the former Philadelphia Gay and Lesbian International Film Festival. Before Murray was handed the reins to the foundering PFF, which had been rudderless since the ouster of founder Linda Blackaby, PIGLIFF had been a for-profit operation, which means that even though it's now presented under the aegis of the newly formed Philadelphia Cinema Alliance, it should be no problem keeping QFest out of the red.

The orphan in this alphabet soup is the (former) PFF's popular midnight movies series Danger After Dark, founded by programmer Travis Crawford. Or I should say was, since this year Danger After Dark and QFest will run side-by-side. I'd call it a festival within a festival, except I doubt too many gym queens are going to be dashing from the the latest boy-meets-boy rom-com to catch Big Tits Zombie 3-D.
Danger After Dark kicks off this evening with Giorgos Lanthimos' unsettling Dogtooth, in which Greek parents raise their children to adulthood without ever allowing them contact with the outside world. My review is in this week's City Paper, along with my take on another DAD highlight, Gaspar Noé's phantamagoric mindfuck Enter the Void. (I'm not particularly high onNightwatch director Ole Bornedal's Straw Dogs retreat Deliver Us From Evil, but I say a few words on that as well.) Beginning with its stroboscopic credits, Noé's movie is an imagistic ordeal that acts like a jumper cable hooked to your optic nerve. If that sounds even remotely like something you might enjoy, you owe it to yourself to see this one on the big screen.

One movie I couldn't review, owing to a series of bum screeners, is Simon Rumley's Red White & Blue, but the 43 minutes and change I saw was enough to convince me the movie has greatness in its grasp. Gorgeously shot and elliptically edited, its first third details the evolving relationship between prostitute Amanda Fuller and neighboring creepazoid Noah Taylor (whose appearance crosses one name off my mental "What happened to...?" list). Then the story shifts to suburban punk rocker Marc Senter, which is about the point at which my DVD goes kablooey, but it's pretty clear there's a shoe waiting to drop, and substantial quantities of blood will be spilled when it does. Chances are good I'll be there for the finish on the 17th, along with the rest of you sickos — and Fuller, who is scheduled to attend the screening.