Get your Philly film fix with Filmadelphia

“It’s a feel-good movie, it’s Philly, it’s home. It’s an underdog story,” writer/director Brandon Eric Kamin said of Rittenhouse Square, his new film that will have its world premiere Oct. 23 at the Philadelphia Film Festival.

Kamin, a Havertown native, also directed The Nomads, based on the story of the North Philly Nomads U19 rugby club. The film premiered at the Philadelphia Film Festival in 2019, winning the Filmadelphia Audience Award. Three years later, Kamin is back with Rittenhouse Square, starring Dharon Jones and Nick Nolte as two men who, due to very different circumstances, lose their homes and end up in the titular square.

The film is part of the fest’s Filmadelphia lineup, which features films based in Philadelphia or have other local ties. Andrew Greenblatt, executive director of the Philadelphia Film Society, is one of the producers of Rittenhouse Square.

In Rittenhouse Square, Jones is KJ, a Main Line native who, after a falling out with his mother, takes up residence on a park bench in Rittenhouse. This is where he meets Barry (Nolte), a veteran who has been unhoused for decades. What follows is an inspirational film that recalls CODA, last year’s Best Picture Oscar winner.

“This really stems from a lot of relationships that I have; my own story, friends, people I’ve met over the years, in the Square, throughout Philadelphia. [All of that] just merging and blending it into one fictional, silver-linings story,” Kamin said. In addition to Rittenhouse Square, the production utilized neighboring alleyways, while filming most of the suburban scenes in Ardmore.

Kamin was mentored by WIP host Glen Macnow, who was his neighbor. As an homage, he cast Macnow in bit roles in both The Nomads and Rittenhouse Square.

“He’s a really self-made kid,” Macnow said of Kamin. “He’s worked hard both as an artist, to raise money, and to figure out how to do this. And I admire the hell out of him. I admired him since he was a little boy, and I admire him now that he’s a man in full.”

Kamin is a hard-core Philly loyalist. “If I have the opportunity to keep making movies, I’ll be damned if it’s not about amplifying hometown stories, hometown voices, that either are underrepresented, or just projects that connect back to the origin of Philadelphia,” he said. Both Kamin and Nolte will be attending the film’s premiere.

Another film in the fest’s Filmadelphia lineup, Not for Nothing, is a crime film based in South Philly, that premieres Oct. 22. The first scene features Ruby Buffet on Columbus Boulevard. Later on, we see Pat’s and Geno’s, and then a crucial scene takes place at the Mummers Parade.

Described in the festival’s program as an “unabashedly gabagool thriller,” the film balances humorous moments of local color with heavier themes like gun violence and opioid overdose.

The film’s co-writers and co-directors, Frank Tartaglia and Tim Dowlin, met as classmates at the Philadelphia High School for Creative and Performing Arts. A third classmate, Mark Webber, appears in the film as the main antagonist.

“[Making the film] led us to a larger sort of identity crisis, with what these guys might be going through as a metaphor for Philadelphia changing,” Dowlin said. “The old Philly and the new Philly, new people coming into old neighborhoods, new drugs, new drug dealers, all sorts of things.”

When asked about how they balanced lightness and gravity in the film, Dowlin said it came “sort of organically … Frank leans a little bit more into the comedy, I lean a little bit more into the drama and the serious … so we just had a great working relationship where we just found our paths.”

The production used The Pub on Wolf as a main indoor location. As for the Mummers, the filming entailed the production “embedding” with The Funny Bonez, in what Dowlin called “guerrilla … run-and-gun documentary style” at the parade.

The Filmadelphia section has seven films. Gradually, Then Suddenly: The Bankruptcy of Detroit, whose co-director is two-time former Philadelphia mayoral candidate Sam Katz. A Woman on the Outside, directed by Lisa Riordan Seville and Zara Katz, is a documentary about women whose partners are incarcerated. Land of Gold is directed by suburban Philadelphia native Nardeep Khurmi, who also stars in the film.

This is My Black, directed by Stephen Adetumbi and Jarrett Roseborough, is the story of the lives and art of a group of Black students at Berks County’s Pine Forge Academy. And Your Friend Memphis, directed by David P. Zucker, is a documentary about a man with cerebral palsy who dreams of a movie career.

The Philadelphia Film Festival runs from Oct. 19-30. For schedule and tickets, visit https://filmadelphia.org/program/