Philly’s Adam Weiner of Low Cut Connie is the star of a new concert film

In Art Dealers, the new concert film that stars Adam Weiner — the Philly musician who leads the rock and soul band Low Cut Connie — we see Weiner on stage, interviewed between shows, and interacting with fans. We also see him doing something very familiar in the Philadelphia film canon — jogging around South Philly.

“I live in South Philly and I jog and exercise on the street in South Philly like Rocky does,” Weiner said in an interview with The Inquirer. “It captures the flavor of South Philly a little bit.”

Weiner, a native of South Jersey who graduated from Cherry Hill East, first arrived in Philadelphia in 2006 and later left for a while but has been living in the city continuously for about 10 years.

Art Dealers, which Weiner codirected with Roy Power, focuses on a three-show run Low Cut Connie played in New York City in 2022. We also see Weiner performing solo at Philadelphia’s City Winery, and there’s plenty of footage of Weiner and his bandmates in Philly.

We see Weiner, who frequently takes pride in his Jewish heritage, performing at a benefit concert in Pittsburgh shortly after the Tree of Life synagogue massacre in 2018. And there’s some even older footage that Weiner dug out from decades-old hard drives.

The documentary project had its genesis in the spring of 2018, when actor Danny DeVito was honored at the Asbury Park Music & Film Festival, and Low Cut Connie played there.

“They did an after-party for Danny DeVito, and we were the entertainment,” Weiner said. ”There were all these filmmakers, producers, and film critics at this party, and a bunch of different people came up to us and said that somebody has to do a Low Cut Connie movie. ‘This show is just so explosive, like somebody’s got to do something with this.’”

The film was initially envisioned as a road documentary. But “the pandemic just derailed all the plans like so many things. And during COVID, I didn’t know if we’d ever be on tour again,” Weiner said. He spent much of the lockdown period performing weekly live-streamed shows called Tough Cookies from his South Philly home.

“And when we did come back, we did a couple of shows and there were a lot of people crying at those first few shows. I’m used to people laughing, screaming, flirting, dancing, going crazy at a rock and roll show, but I wasn’t used to people crying at my, weeping at my concerts.”

That inspired Weiner to capture that moment, which led to revisiting the documentary idea.

“I said, ‘You know what, we got to capture this right now.’ There’s something so special, the feeling in the room every time we get on stage and the way that we interact with the people in the audience, there’s something magical about it. We’ve got to do a film that captures that feeling.”

The goal, he added, was “a different kind of concert film, different kind of performance film that would … try to put you in the room with us, make you feel part of the audience and not glorify me or the band or the performance, but just really try to get eyeball to eyeball between you, the band, the audience.”

Art Dealers first played in Philadelphia last October at the Philadelphia Film Festival, which helped him find a distributor for the film.

“I’ll never forget having such an early screening of Art Dealers at the PFF, the audience lining down the street before the movie started. It was surreal and very very cool,” Power, the co-director, told The Inquirer. Power previously made a short documentary film about Viva Video, the recently shuttered video store in Ardmore.

More recently, Weiner spent 10 weeks this summer hosting a weekly radio program for WXPN, the Connie Club, which included live shows at Ardmore Music Hall. It was his way of channeling a recently departed local legend.

“Jerry Blavat was the impetus for that, the Geator with the Heater. He was my mentor. He was my musical godfather in Philadelphia,” Weiner said of the area giant who died in early 2023. “He believed in my music. He thought that I was going to be a star even when I was far from it. And as I started to get a little bit of success, he would say to me, ‘You know, you’re going to end up on the radio.’”

“I’m not an A-list pop star. And I’m not on the cover of any magazines,” Weiner said. “We’re a cult band. I’m a cult performer. And I wanted to show what that’s like, but also show how growing up in this area, there’s a certain personality resilience and attitude that you just sort of absorb. And it’s just part of who I am and how I approach my job, including running through the Italian market in my jogging suit.”

“Art Dealers” plays Sept. 12 at PFS East Theater, 125 S. Second St., Phila. The screening will be followed by a Q&A moderated by The Inquirer’s Dan DeLuca and a performance by Weiner. The film is set to land on video on demand on Oct. 1. Tickets can be purchased at filmadelphia.org/movies/art-dealers/