There’s no culture, there’s no spies!

For all the sixth bor­ough talk that’s gone on in the past year, there’s one thing that’s unde­ni­able: Philadel­phia is a city with­out film cul­ture. Apart from what’s curat­ed at Inter­na­tion­al House or appears hap­haz­ard­ly at local col­leges, there’s no inde­pen­dent or reper­to­ry cin­e­ma to speak of. The two Philadel­phia film fes­ti­vals are spot­ty at best and run so late in the fes­ti­val sea­son that many offer­ings have already screened well in advance of the fes­ti­val. Despite the heavy lift­ing of sev­er­al good local crit­ics, there just isn’t much “there” there. It’s not hard to see why Net­flix has tak­en off in cities like ours [or, as the case may be, the films aren’t in print, in which case Rosselli­ni may as well be a unicorn.]