It features the world premiere of John Legend and Mike Jackson's "Stand Up & Shout: Songs from a Philly High School."
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"John and Mike will be here with it for a really cool Q&A after the screening," says J. Andrew Greenblatt, the CEO & Executive Director of the Philadelphia Film Society. "It focuses on a Philly high school and their music program. It's a really powerful, engaging film that I think the city is going to fall in love with, and then the rest of the world, once it premieres. It's Philly, it's set in Philly and it's ours. We would frankly have been angry if it went somewhere else first."
The HBO documentary features Hill-Freedman World Academy, a Philadelphia public high school in the city's Mount Airy neighborhood. That world premiere will happen at the Philadelphia Film Center in Center City on October 20th.
The festival's opening night is October 19th, with "American Fiction," starring Jeffrey Wright, Issa Rae, Tracee Ellis Ross, and Sterling K. Brown.
Other films include "Maestro," starring Bradley Cooper as the legendary conductor and composer Leonard Bernstein, and "Sly," the Sylvester Stallone documentary.
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"People walk out of this festival with some bragging rights," says Michael Lerman, the Artistic Director and Senior Director of Programming of the Philadelphia Film Society, especially ahead of Oscar season. "Who doesn't want to be somebody that is talking about something before anybody else is and telling their friends to go see it and sharing it with them?"
The closing night film, "Saltburn," is already getting major buzz.
Tickets for the 32nd Philadelphia Film Festival go on sale Monday, October 9th. The festival runs from October 19-29.
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