Friday in Week Cuatro: Fleisher Brings Tales of Adventure

PHLAFF 2025 Week Cuatro’s Friday programming at Fleisher Art Memorial (719 Catharine St, Philadelphia, PA 19147) delivers an immersive evening that journeys from the communal resilience of Latin America’s largest artist squat to surreal explorations of memory, family, and belonging. This carefully curated slate of features and shorts doesn’t shy away from complexity — instead, it leans into it, offering viewers a cinematic terrain that is as restless as it is revelatory.

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5:30 PM — Ouvidor
(LOLA Award - Features | 90 minutes)
The evening opens with Ouvidor, a bold and charged documentary set inside São Paulo’s famed Ouvidor, Latin America’s largest art squat. Inhabited by 120 artists from around the world, Ouvidor is not just a building — it’s a cultural microcosm, a battleground of creativity, politics, and precarious survival.

As Brazil's far-right government threatens constant eviction, the residents must also contend with internal conflict triggered by corporate infiltration: a Red Bull-sponsored art biennial that tests the limits of resistance, autonomy, and artistic integrity. Ouvidor is a sharp, layered portrait of what it means to live and create on the edge of collapse — a meditation on art as both refuge and revolution.

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6:00 PM — Discovery Shorts Block (Los Shorts | 45 minutes)
This trio of shorts unpacks discovery in many forms — emotional, generational, and surreal — each revealing the quiet tensions of memory and identity.

• Una Casa Disfrazada (Argentina, U.S.)
During lockdown in Buenos Aires, a filmmaker digs into family lore, uncovering a house full of ghosts both literal and figurative. Through whispered rumors and grainy textures, this short becomes a personal excavation — the kind that changes the way you remember.

• Symphonie Fantastique (U.S.)
A haunting chamber piece set in an empty concert hall. As a lone wind musician photographs the scene, an unexpected reunion with a past lover turns introspective and uncanny. This is a surreal meditation on love, performance, and the echo chamber of one’s thoughts.

• Driftin’ on a Memory (U.S.)
Three brothers, a father in crisis, and a late-night standoff at a bus stop. Through layered dialogue and rich emotional beats, this short explores masculinity, addiction, and what remains when the weight of control gives way to care.

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7:00 PM — IDADE DA PEDRA (Stone Age)
(Los Features | 75 minutes)
Written, directed, and performed by Renan Rovida, Stone Age is an experimental odyssey through São Paulo, led by a man known only as Third World — a migrant, a memory, a ghost of the working class.

The film’s logic is dreamlike, its structure poetic. As Third World wanders the ruins of a society that no longer sees him, he becomes both witness and warning. Stone Age isn’t about survival — it’s about what’s lost when survival becomes the only option. This is cinema as provocation, where narrative dissolves and feeling takes over.

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8:30 PM — Adventure! Shorts Block
(LOLA Award - Shorts + Los Shorts | 30 minutes)
The night ends with an energetic burst of imagination and emotional gravity. Two shorts conjure new worlds while grappling with the challenges of friendship, grief, and purpose.

• CHUCK & FERN (U.S.)
Inside a fantastical video game, a sword-wielding hero and a bumbling villain face more than just monsters — they confront their own existential dilemmas. Packed with humor and heart, this short flips gaming tropes on their head to explore what really matters when the stakes get real.

• The Man with a Buffalo Head (U.S.)
Stranded in the woods of a border town, two cousins encounter a shapeshifting spirit who forces them to confront deep-seated pain. A rich blend of folklore and emotional honesty, this short is equal parts adventure tale and meditation on grief, told through lush visuals and a folkloric lens.

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Whether it’s the resistance of artists under threat, the quiet ache of family secrets, or a fantastical detour into the unknown, Friday at Fleisher is a call to remain awake — to our histories, our imaginations, and the voices that won't be silenced.

Tickets are available now at phlaff25.eventive.org/schedule.
Secure your seat for an unforgettable evening of truth-telling and transformation.