Philadelphians on the Big Screen at Sundance and Hollywood

King Georges Perrier and Wall Street women in Park City, Jane Austen’s zombies in California

With our 22-inches of snowfall this weekend, Philadelphia is looking a lot like snowy Park City, Utah, home to the 10-day Sundance Film Festival running through January 31.

Tonight in Park City, Philadelphia’s Georges Perrier is on the bill preparing a five-star dining experience for ChefDance, the annual charity event that runs during the film festival and features gourmet dining and a roster of celebrity chefs. (Philly filmmaker Erika Frankel’s new doc, King Georges, about Perrier and the closing of his iconic restaurant, Le Bec-Fin, screens February 26 through March 3 closer-to-home at Sansom Street’s Roxy Theater.)

Equity, a film shot in Philadelphia last summer about women on Wall Street premieres at Sundance tomorrow night. Born and raised in Philly, Sarah Megan Thomas, acted and produced Equity, alongside of Alysia Reiner. Together they co-founded Broad Street Pictures in 2014. They may also be familiar to readers from the 2012 rowing feature film, Backwards, shot around Philadelphia, the Main Line, the Schuylkill River and its boathouses. At a Greater Philadelphia Film Office event held this past September at the Prince Theater, the two women said that they hoped that Equity gets picked up and expanded into a television series. It would be a nice gender counterpoint to Showtime’s new Wall Street television series, Billions, which stars Damian Lewis and Paul Giamatti.

A little further West in Hollywood last Thursday night, the movie Pride and Prejudice and Zombies premiered at the Harmony Gold Preview House. The PG-13 film opens nationwide February 5. The film is based on the best-selling 2009 mashup book of the same name, written by Seth Grahame-Smith and published by Old City-based publishing house Quirk Books. Quirk’s publisher Jason Rekulak came up with the title and concept and passed it off to Grahame-Smith to write the manuscript that fused the Jane Austen drama with zombies and mayhem. Thursday night’s premiere included leading lady, Lily James, as well as cast members, Lena Headey, Bella Heathcote, Ellie Bamber, Douglas Booth, Matt Smith and director Burt Steers.