Coming up in repertory film: Cinedelphia, Israeli history, and more

Philadelphia hosts more than a dozen film festivals each year, but none are stranger or more esoteric than the Cinedelphia Film Festival. Now in its fourth year, Cinedelphia (named after the local blog) goes for the kind of low-budget genre paeans and outsider documentaries that you won’t see at, say, Tribeca or Cannes. This year’s festival, which kicks off on April 7 at PhilaMOCA, will include several music and culture docs, a Nigerian remake of Purple Rain, and an “experimental presentation” of 1977’s Terror of Frankenstein. Film purists, consider yourselves warned. (Each event is ticketed, although a limited number of all-access passes are available for $144 apiece.) The festival runs through April 23.

For more conventional but no less important work, the Israeli Film Festival is bringing comedies, crime thrillers, and domestic dramas to various theaters in the Philly metro area through April 3. Oh, yeah: on March 20 it will screen Natalie Portman’s directorial debut, A Tale of Love and Darkness, about the turbulent beginnings of the state of Israel. See the festival’s full lineup here.

Municipal shorts

The business of running a city government doesn’t tend to yield a whole lot of cultural byproducts. One exception: promotional films, those parody-ready shorts advertising how to get the most out of the amenities in your hometown. On March 25, Secret Cinema will team up with the Department of Parks and Recreation to show a series of promos from 1960s, ’70s and ’80s, all of them about the Fairmount Park system and rec centers throughout the city. Secret Cinema helped restore the reels, which will screen at the Fairmount Park Horticultural Center — so you can enjoy the park while you learn about it.

One-off screenings

A pair of campy cult favorites will help you get in the mood for spring. On St. Patrick’s Day, Cinema Ray will take to the Ruba Club to show Leprechaun, the 1993 horror-comedy that introduced the movie-going public to Jennifer Anniston (not to mention the most irate version of Lucky ever put to film). And on March 24, just in time for Easter, CineMug will amp up the sacrilege with 2001’s Jesus Christ Vampire Hunter.

If you missed The Big Short during its theatrical run, don’t worry: The Trocadero will show the Oscar-winning film, adapted from a Michael Lewis novel about the 2008 financial crisis and directed by Philly-area native Adam McKay, on March 21.