TLA Entertainment Group and the Philadelphia Film Society, which co-present the Philadelphia International Gay and Lesbian Film Festival, announced this week that they have reconciled their differences and will again be working together.
The two organizations will collaborate on the Philadelphia Film Festival/CineFest, March 26-April 6, and the newly named LGBT event Philadelphia QFest, July 9-19.
The decision to collaborate comes one month after the two groups decided to split and present their own mainstream and LGBT festivals.
TLA announced in January that “recent disagreements between PFS board leadership and TLA over the management and artistic vision of the festivals has necessitated a breakup of the business relationship.”
Matthew Ray, director of media relations for the festival, said at the time that Raymond Murray, TLA founder and president, and other TLA programmers could not come to a consensus with PFS board members about certain festival decisions, particularly what role the board members should play in the programming of the festivals.
TLA launched PIGLFF in 1995 and, in 2002, created PFS to oversee both this and the mainstream film festivals, although TLA representatives maintained creative control over both events.
Ray said the organizations decided to join forces again to avoid potentially staging four film festivals — two mainstream and two LGBT.
“Even though this was a rather public spat, it was important to both organizations to be able to serve the cinephiles and film fans of Philadelphia,” he said. “We reached an agreement and the film festivals will be continuing as a co-production between both organizations, so we won’t have competing film festivals in 2009.”
After 2009, however, the partnership is less clear.
Ray said the two groups could branch off in different directions following this year’s festivals.
“I think that is a possibility,” he said. “Both groups are growing and becoming different organizations, so we’ll be collaborative but may also have our own individual projects. I can’t stress enough that no one is really considering anything beyond this festival right now. This is requiring a totality of energy from everyone here and everyone at the Film Society. Everyone is focused on this festival and focused on QFest, so we’ll explore partnerships and collaboration after that.”
TLA filed a lawsuit against PFS on Jan. 13 to recover money allegedly owed to the organization, but Ray said TLA will no longer pursue the suit.
In a statement released Feb. 24, J. Andrew Greenblatt, PFS executive director, expressed optimism about the collaboration.
“We are thrilled that we are able to work together with Ray [Murray] and TLA to produce this year’s Philadelphia Film Festival,” Greenblatt said. “Throughout the negotiation process, it was PFS’ desire to deliver to our members and to Philadelphia the festival it deserves. This agreement enables us to fulfill that promise while also advancing PFS’ mission of providing Philadelphia with year-round film programming.”
Murray concurred that the partnership between the two organizations should contribute to the success of the upcoming festival.
“Our only goal during these negotiations with the Film Society was to present a quality festival to the city of Philadelphia,” Murray said. “This combined production guarantees that CineFest is an incredible event unmarred by any other problems.”
Jen Colletta can be reached at [email protected].