Pittsburgh Moving Picture Festival Brings Satire, Horror to Keystone State
Festival offers sci-fi, black comedy, horror and a peek at the A.I. invasion
I started the Pittsburgh Moving Picture Festival back in 2022 to celebrate the art and tradition of cinema.
Pittsburgh has been traditionally considered the home of the Nickelodeon theater from the very early 1900s. The festival name is derived from a trade periodical from that time called the “Pittsburgh Moving Picture Bulletin.”
The Bulletin started in 1914 (at the height of the Nickelodeon era) as a way for distributors to relay information to exhibitors about what films would be in the area at certain times, information that the exhibitors could use in making their schedules.
We have carried on that spirit as a way to bring independent film to audiences in a theatrical experience.
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“The Pittsburgh Moving Picture Festival” (PMPF) isn’t a single festival, but the brand name for several movie-related events.
The Pittsburgh Moving Picture Festival: Thriller Picture Show (TPS) is our “Wrestlemania” event. It was the first one, and it dovetails into our background with horror and genre films. It’s a competitive festival for both shorts and feature films and has a separate category for student films.
This year marks the fourth TPS event.
In 2023, we introduced our second PMPF festival: Trailer Bash and Raging Pages (TB/RP). This is our Double Feature festival dedicated to trailers and screenplays.
Romero Lives!
In addition to screening official selections and naming award winners, TPS has a tradition as a Romero Lives event commemorating the life and career of Pittsburgh’s godfather of cinema, George A. Romero:
- 2022: Romero’s “lost” films: THE AMUSEMENT PARK, JACARANDA JOE, and IRON CITY ASSKICKERS
- 2023: “the state of nature”: THE CRAZIES and DAY OF THE DEAD
- 2024 (at Trailer Bash): 45th anniversary screening of DAWN OF THE DEAD
- 2024: MONKEY SHINES.
This year, thanks to IFC and Shudder, we will be screening Tina Romero’s “Queens of the Dead” Oct. 3 (she is the horror maestro’s daughter). We’ll also screen director Kurtis David Harder’s “Influencers,” the follow-up to his 2022 hit “Influencer.” The former will close out the main weekend with an Oct. 5 screening.
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This weekend’s festival also will screen Lamberto Bava’s “Demons” on Oct. 4 – 40 years to the day that it first premiered in Italy.
For the third year, the Lindsay Theater and Conference Center in Sewickley, Penn. is the home for TPS.
The gala technically begins tonight with the screening of Mark Cantù’s “Grind.” Cantù is a local filmmaker, and this is his best to date.
On Saturday night, the 2025 Thriller Picture Show Awards Ceremony will occur at 7 p.m., preceded by a VIP reception.
Arthur Brooks is the Festival Director of the Pittsburgh Moving Picture Festival. You can follow the festival on Instagram @pittsburghpicturemovingfest.