Founded in 1991 as the Philadelphia Festival of World Cinema, the Philadelphia Film Festival has become one of the fastest-growing film festivals in the country with nearly 70,000 attendees, earning the respect of the film industry and the notice of media as diverse as Filmmaker Magazine, Fangoria, and the The Wall Street Journal.

For two weeks in April, the Festival presents as many as 300 works on film and video, ranging from star-studded studio features to daring experimental student shorts. Anywhere from 40-50 nationalities are represented annually, with the latest works from such standard-bearers as France and Italy screening alongside new voices from Estonia, Lebanon, South Africa, and beyond.

Film celebrations range from screening premieres to event celebrations, hosting an array of guests that has included such luminaries as Susan Sarandon, Laurence Fishburne, Steve Buscemi, Patrick Swayze, Ed Burns, Malcolm McDowell, Mary Louise Parker, Morgan Freeman, Ken Russell, Robert Downey, Alan Rudolph, Larry Clark, Melvin Van Peebles, Susan Seidelman, and John Sayles.

Festival programming is arranged into thematic sections, including World Focus, American Independents, Documentary Traditions, Cinema of the Muslim Worlds, New Korean Cinema, Animation, and the utterly unique and often alarming Danger After Dark, a celebration of genre film from around the world.

The Festival also hosts an exclusive showcase of regional filmmaking, entitled Festival of the Independents. In 2001, the Festival instituted a Juried Competition for Best Feature, Documentary, and Short Film, and it distributes ballots to all ticket holders to determine Audience Awards. The Festival also hosts an annual "Set in Philadelphia" screenplay competition in collaboration with the Greater Philadelphia Film Office.