First Person Arts

Mt. Airy memoirist Lori Tharps just released a book—Kinky Gazpacho: Life, Love & Spain, part travel essay and part love story—that recounts her sojourn from her hometown of Milwaukee, Wisconsin, to the coast of southern Spain, where she would meet her husband. Lori will be reading and signing books in Chestnut Hill on April 10 and at Temple University on April 15.

And unless you’ve been living under a rock for the last few weeks, you’re aware that the seventeenth annual Philadelphia Film Festival is now underway. Documentary pieces helmed by both veteran and up-and-coming local filmmakers are playing at locations throughout the city. Take, for instance, first-time director Katrina Bowen’s eye-opening doc Traces of the Trade, which unearths the history of her ancestors, the largest slave traders in the northern United States. (The film will screen at a special post-festival event at the National Constitution Center.)

Other Philly-related docs include Richie Ashburn: A Baseball Life, which follows the titular Phillies legend; Rocketman, an endearing portrait of the trials and tribulations of 70-year-old local folk singer Jerry Burrus; and Eleven Minutes, which follows “Project Runway” winner and Lehman, Pa.-native Jay McCarroll as he launches his first fashion line.

And don’t forget some of the festival docs we’ve already covered here on Found in Philly, including native Joe Barber’s Electile Dysfunction and Temple U instructor Eugene Martin’s Bloodlines Video Diary Project.