by Tessa Swehla, Associate Editor

Anyone paying the slightest attention to my writing here on MovieJawn or my social media knows that I have been excited about the Sci-Phi Festival at the Hiway Theater in Jenkintown, Pennsylvania. The theater itself is a local treasure, a non-profit with one screen that works hard to play both new releases and repertoire programming. I’ve made the drive (forty minutes from my home) to the Hiway several times and always found it to be an energizing experience for a fan of the cinema. Playing nine sci-fi films over the course of three days seemed like a happy intersection of my love of the genre and my love of independent movie theaters, and I’m happy to say that the experience exceeded my expectations.

For anyone new to the local repertoire film festival concept, the general idea is to play films featuring a specific genre–such as sci-fi or horror–filmmaker, or performer. Sometimes, theaters chose to play these films as an ongoing series–such as Hiway’s Billy Wilder series playing over the course of the summer or Fathom Events’ yearly Studio Ghibli series–or in a festival format over the course of a few days or weekend. The best film repertoire film festivals to attend contain a mix of favorite films and new-to-the-viewer films, balancing the comfort of rewatch with the growth of experiencing new films and filmmakers.

One of the best parts of the Sci-Phi festival was the communal experience of watching classic films in a crowd, films I had never seen on a big screen and never with more than another couple of people in the room. The festival opener, Mel Brooks’ Spaceballs, was a particularly good example: I’ve always found the film funny but actually hearing the waves of laughter from the crowd ebb and flow during that first scene with the seemingly endless spaceship shot made me appreciate the artistry of Brooks’ comedic timing.. Extended family units–grandparents, parents, and children–were in attendance at the sold out screening, a testament to both the ongoing nostalgia for the film and to the enthusiasm of older generations in sharing their love of the film with younger generations. This seemed to be one of the biggest themes of the weekend: many of those who stayed for most of the nine films had their children with them, and the first screening on Saturday–Invasion of the Astro-Monster (dir. Ishirô Honda, 1965)– was advertised by Hiway as part of their $5 Family Matinees, designed to promote the cinema for the entire family.

Before the last screening–Invasion of the Body Snatchers (dir. Philip Kaufman, 1978)–Brenden Joyce, the film programmer, announced that 31 people had attended all nine films of the festival. MovieJawn’s Editor-In-Chief Rosalie, our Managing Editor of the Zine Ben, our Managing Editor of the Website Ryan, and I attended all nine screenings, manning the MovieJawn table between each. While it will take my back a couple of days to recover from sitting in a theater from 10am to after midnight, it was well worth the cost of admission (I’m contemplating starting impromptu yoga classes for film festivals). I had seen about half of the films previously, and none of them on a big screen, which, in my mind, is the perfect ratio for this kind of repertoire film festival. Revisiting my favorites yielded new observations about each: Brad Fiedel’s score for Terminator 2: Judgment Day (dir. James Cameron, 1991) stood out in the theater’s sound system, while the incredible detail of the model work in Invasion of the Astro-Monster was even more pronounced. For the first time watches, I felt that each film added something to my understanding of the genre, even films I didn’t love like Event Horizon (dir. Paul W. S. Anderson, 1997) or Paprika (dir. Satoshi Kon, 2006). Films I did love, like The Thing From Another World (dir. Christian Nyby, 1951) and Invasion of the Body Snatchers will be added to my personal sci-fi canon list, but they will forever be associated with the experience of watching them in a crowd, a crowd that, like me, loves sci-fi films. I cannot recommend the experience of repertoire festivals like the Sci-Phi at the Hiway Theater; find one near you and attend a screening (or nine). I’ll certainly be attending Sci-Phi next year.

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