This story originally appeared in The Centre County Gazette.
The 2025 Centre Film Festival will begin in State College on Nov. 9 with a search for a lost slice of pizza and end on the Nov. 16 at Philipsburg’s Rowland Theater on a journey with a Palestinian boy in an Oscar nominated foreign feature film.
In between, moviegoers can experience almost every type of film, including narrative and documentary features, shorts, experimental, arthouse, kid-friendly, horror and thrills, comedy and world cinema.
There are films produced by high school students, Penn State students, Pennsylvanians, international artists and major studio productions such as Nuremberg. There will also be many visits and discussions held by the filmmakers themselves involved in the production of the films.
Jesse Short Bull, co-director of “Free Leonard Peltier,” will hold a discussion about the film’s issues on Nov. 10 at The State Theatre following the screening of his movie.
On Nov. 11 at the UEC 12, Jack El-Hai, author of the book “The Nazi and the Psychiatrist,” will hold a question and answer session after the screening of the feature “Nuremberg,” which was based on his book. The movie, starring Russell Crowe, Rami Malek and Leo Woodall, is about the American psychiatrist Douglas Kelley’s examinations of Nazi Leaders held in Nuremberg Prison as they awaited trial. It focuses particularly on Hermann Goring, played by Crowe.
After the 7 p.m. screening of Denmark’s submission to the Oscars, “Mr. Nobody Against Putin,” a film about people in Ukrainian schools, Dr. Yuliya Ladygina will hold a discussion on Nov. 12 at the UEC 12.
“Beyond the Gaze: Jule Campbell’s Swimsuit Issue” is a documentary feature about how Campbell, “shattered glass ceilings, transforming a struggling sports magazine into a media empire: the Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Issue. The documentary chronicles Campbell’s 32-year reign, where she championed intelligence and empowered supermodels like Tyra Banks, Christie Brinkley, and Elle Macpherson.”
After the 1 p.m. showing at the Rowland Theater, director Jill Campbell and producer Gregory Gerhard will hold a conversation about “Beyond the Gaze.”
That list of visitors goes on and includes as many as 20 artists, directors and producers.
“The Sea”, one of the festival’s final presentations, is about Khaled, a Palestinian boy who, “embarks on a dangerous journey to the sea for the first time in his life, despite Israeli
authorities denying his entry. His father, Ribhi, is trying to trace his whereabouts, risking arrest and job loss.”
Showing at the Rowland on Nov. 16 at 3:30 p.m., the film has been submitted to the Oscars as a candidate for Best International Feature. After the showing, director Shai Carmeli-Pollak will hold a question and answer session.
The 2025 festival is the seventh reincarnation of the event, and according to festival artistic director and founder Pearl Gluck, the most ambitious.
And this year, Gluck said, there will be some new highlights added to the experience.
“The overall highlight is there are movies all day,” she said. “So when the Festival is in town, just know that at any point in the day, there is a movie going. And sometimes two. We want this to be an annual experience that you can rely on and one that brings films that people are going to talk about. But the point is that this year, it’s going to be all day, every day. Like a real festival.
“The second highlight is that this is the 35th anniversary of the American Disabilities Act, so we are partnering with the Penn State student disability resources and showing three for four films that honor their achievements. And these films are incredible. One of them is ‘Life After,’ and the filmmaker is coming. His name is Reid Davenport, so to me that is a major highlight.”
“Life After” is a documentary about the moral dilemmas and profit motives surrounding assisted dying, and Davenport is himself disabled. The film will be shown on Nov. 10 at 2 p.m. at the UEC 12, and Davenport will be available for a question and answer session after the screening.
There will be six in-person venues for the films this year. They are the Tempest Studio, the Carnegie Cinema, the Foster Auditorium, the State Theater, the Rowland Theater in Philipsburg and the UEC 12, as well as a “watch anytime” online schedule.
There will be screenings honoring veterans on Veterans Day, including “Nuremberg.”
The Festival Awards Ceremony will be held on Sunday, Nov. 16 at 6 p.m. at the Rowland Theater. Award-winning television director and Penn State alumnus Don Roy King will receive the Lifetime Achievement Award at the ceremony.
Fellow Penn State alum, Jerrie Johnson, award-winning actor and writer, will receive the Chandler Living Legacy Award. And state Sen. Camera Bartolotta will receive the inaugural Keystone Visionary Award which honors vision and leadership in championing the arts, workforce development and creative industries across Pennsylvania.
The awards ceremony will be co-hosted by the Penn State School of Theatre in the College of Arts and Architecture. The entire schedule of the films and venues, as well as a description of each and the presentation times, can be found on the festival’s website, centrefilm.org.
So, anywhere from Nov. 9-16, if you feel like catching a film, there will be one showing. All day, every day.
Maybe two.
