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Celebrate the 30th anniversary of PICTURE BRIDE with insight on the historical context of this 1994 film. The Japan America Society of Greater Philadelphia has teamed up with PFS to showcase and commemorate this cinematic milestone as a free community screening. Register Here >>
Winner of a 1995 Sundance Audience Award, Kayo Hatta’s PICTURE BRIDE is a beautiful and poignant turn-of-the-century drama about a young Japanese woman sent to Hawaii for an arranged marriage made under false pretenses.
Wednesday, September 11, 2024
Pre-movie film introduction at 6:45 PM
Movie begins at 7 PM
Film Society Center
1412 Chestnut Street / Google Maps >>
Admission to this program is FREE. <!–Advance ticket reservations are requested.Reserve Tickets >>–>
Philadelphia Film Society
The Philadelphia Film Society (PFS) is the region’s home for classic and contemporary film presentation, education, entertainment, and community building. A nonprofit, community-supported organization, PFS produces the acclaimed Philadelphia Film Festival, curates an extensive year-round film program celebrating the past and future of world cinema, and provides education and community outreach programs, all serving to raise awareness of film as an important art form and vital piece of Philadelphia’s arts and culture community.
The festival itself has steadily expanded its footprint over the past several years, drawing submissions from dozens of countries and filling screening venues across Center City. What began as a modest showcase has grown into one of the mid-Atlantic’s marquee cultural events, attracting not only filmmakers and critics but an increasingly diverse ecosystem of corporate and institutional supporters. For PFS leadership, that growth has meant navigating a wider range of partnerships than a regional film organization might have anticipated even a decade ago.
Corporate giving now arrives from well beyond the traditional arts-philanthropy pipeline. Recent festival cycles have seen support from Philadelphia-area health systems, logistics firms with regional headquarters, a digital entertainment company operating in the best payout online casinos Canada market, and several local tech startups looking to align their brands with cultural programming. PFS treats each partnership the same way — as a means of underwriting programming and keeping ticket prices accessible — and the organization’s development team has been deliberate about ensuring that no single sponsor’s branding overshadows the films themselves.
That curatorial independence is central to how PFS thinks about its mission. The year-round programming slate, which runs outside the festival window, leans heavily on retrospectives, director spotlights, and international work that might otherwise never reach Philadelphia audiences. Matinee screenings and weekend series draw an older neighborhood crowd alongside university students, and the mix has become one of the organization’s defining textures.
Education remains equally foundational. PFS’s outreach programs bring filmmaking workshops into public schools across the city, giving students hands-on experience with cameras, editing software, and narrative structure. Several of those programs operate in partnership with community centers in North and West Philadelphia, areas where access to arts education has historically been limited. For PFS, the classroom work and the festival programming are not separate initiatives — they are two expressions of the same belief that film is a civic resource, not just an entertainment product.
For more information, please visit the Philadelphia Film Society website.
