PhilaMOCA

Blood Sick Underground Cinema presents the Philadelphia Premiere of Hellmare & Zebra Hooves with directors Victor Gabriel and David Dawson! The Midwest Stampede double feature at @philamoca 6/8! @rfnpictures @brobocop77 With opening short film PODONUTS, a homage to mid-century fetish loops, with local actor/prodcer Mike Zaleski @mikezaleski . HELLMARE - by Victor Gabriel A fun but brutal horror comedy about seven friends who gather at the house of a recently deceased occultist (Lloyd Kaufman) to screen a fabled horror movie called HELLMARE. The band of seven find themselves transported into a nightmare when they start the movie and wind up fighting for their lives against the titular HELLMARE, as well as the villains of the trailers that preceded the film. Who will survive and what will be left of them?! Victor Gabriel leads RFN Pictures from Detroit. After making two gruesome short films, BLOOD GORGE and CRUEL, HELLMARE is Victor's first feature film. -- ZEBRA HOOVES - by David Dawson A hypochondriac heads to the Wisconsin Dells to get out of his head and relax. He's instructed by his doctor to record video diaries of his anxiety symptoms, but soon finds something sinister on the Midwestern air- his own demons and a bad time. David Dawson (Flesh Games, Leech) used his unique "uncle noir" style to tell a mature story about male loneliness, mental health and the isolation of Middle America. Zebra Hooves is on its theatrical tour before being released by nobudge this summer. -- Blood Sick Underground Cinema is a monthly screening series hosting independent filmmakers to premiere new work made outside the Hollywood system with the occasional deep dive into 90s video obscurities. Every 2nd Monday at PhilaMOCA with a different guest filmmaker each month.

Mexico City-based shoegaze outfit @mintfieldband performs live on Tuesday, May 19 with locals @knotfall2 and @sherrieband ! Mexico City based band Mint Field is one of these bands that make it shine. Guided by Estrella del Sol and Sebastian Neyra. Mint Field creates a unique blend of avant dream pop and shoegaze with some touches of trip hop that explores the nostalgia and melancholy of daily life with strong guitars and voices that are like sighs. Intrumentation and atmospheres are accompanied by delicate, harmonious and ethereal voices that are fundamental part of the sound. #philamoca

Robby Rackleff and Alan Resnick’s DANCE FREAK, one of our favorites of 2025, returns for a one-night-only screening on Thursday, May 21 with filmmaker/star @rackleffrobby in attendance! Swipe for trailer! A loser gets dumped. A weird experiment goes nuts. A deadly Dance Freak runs wild In a secret government facility, a team of scientists have done impossible, indescribable things. Genetic mutations, inter-dimensional experiments: nasty top secret stuff. They played GOD. And like GOD they are all probably dead. The filmmakers only had $45,000 to make this movie and they ran out of that money almost immediately so a lot of that stuff is just implied through dialogue. The dancing isn’t that crazy. Starring Robby Rackleff, Alan Resnick, Stavros Halkias, Jamel Johnson, Megan Koester, Sarah Sherman Tickets are on sale now! @alanresnick #philamoca

We're welcoming the summer on Monday, June 22 with a rare screening of the 1994 time capsule WILDWOOD, NJ with filmmaker Ruth Leitman in attendance! Swipe for trailer! Shot on dreamy Super-8 by an all-women crew led by co-directors Ruth Leitman and Carol Weaks Cassidy, this classic Nineties documentary shines a charming light on the lives of women from the last great New Jersey carnival town. From go-go dancers to pre-teen brats, to goths working as vampires in the boardwalk’s haunted house, WILDWOOD’s vox pop moves beyond big hair and Press-On nails to explore the souls of women raised on these neon lights, rides and beaches. It’s easy to see why Lana Del Rey included footage in her "Diet Mountain Dew" vid. Tickets are on sale now! @ruthlessfilms @wildwoodnjdoc @agfa #philamoca

Thrilled for this stacked bill at PhilaMOCA on Fri 6/5. Featuring performances from The Noisy, Michael Sanders (austin, tx), Laybrum, and Certain Luck. Tickets available at Philamoca.org @philamoca @veryverynoisy @_michael_sanders @_laybrum_ @certainluck

On Thursday, June 4th, we’re returning to PhilaMOCA to kick off this year’s Philly Sketchfest festivities with our annual Sketch Comedy Film Festival, featuring video sketches from both local comedians and funny filmmakers from around the world. We had an absolutely packed house last year, so grab your tix today! Link in bio.

Just announced: @jgthirlwell (Foetus, THE VENTURE BROS) performs Silver Mantis at PhilaMOCA on Saturday, June 13! Silver Mantis is a 50 minute instrumental electro-acoustic presentation, performed with software and sampling, theremin and audio objects. It is an immersive multi channel composition which allows for an elastic performance. The inspiration behind Silver Mantis was to create a work incorporating live re-composition and improvisation into its structure, one which could expand and contract fluidly with flow and spontanaeity from pre-ordained building blocks of sound. Incorporating musique concrète and electronic sound along with live instrumentation, the composition is dynamic, cinematic and diverse with stylistic left-turns, creating a tension between time and anxiety. It is performed with a projection created exclusively for the project by acclaimed Swedish visual artist Sten Backman. Silver Mantis has been performed at Roulette Intermedia in NYC, Cafe Oto in London, 2220 in Los Angeles, Big Ears festival in Tennessee, Timacua Arts Foundation in Orlando, Melbourne Recital Center, Audio Foundation in Auckland, Center for New Music in SF, and Elastic Arts in Chicago. This is a seated show, tickets are on sale now! #philamoca

“The best film about addiction since Requiem for a Dream.” - Film Threat Artistic lovers Viv and Jay are trapped in a vicious cycle of codependent heroin addiction. When Viv’s wealthy parents hire an interventionist to take her to rehab, the couple decides to go it alone with nothing but a suboxone prescription and each other. All they have to do is survive one harrowing night of withdrawal. As the hours tick by, physical, mental, and emotional torments send them searching through fractured memories, trying to figure out where it all went wrong. Raw, unflinching, and surprisingly funny, Withdrawal was shot on miniDV in Athens, GA for a budget of $60k. Winner of 12 awards on the festival circuit including Best Feature/Best Director at the Art of Brooklyn Film Festival and Best Actress at the Kanazawa Film Festival. Philly Premiere on Tuesday, June 16, Q&A with writer/director/editor Aaron Strand. @withdrawalfilm #philamoca

Comedian @samtaggart explains pretty much what’s been going on with him through the ancient art of standup comedy aka talking on Wednesday, August 12 at PhilaMOCA! Sam Taggart is an LA-based comedian, actor, and writer who has been described as “such a specific combination of silly and sweet, dumb and surprisingly earnest” by Vulture. He has written for The Las Culturistas Culture Awards, After Midnight on CBS, and the critically acclaimed Showtime/A24 series ZIWE. He is currently the co-host of the iHeart podcast @straightiolab , which was named the number one podcast of 2022 by New York Magazine. He has appeared on the series FANTASMAS, After Midnight, Los Espookys, Search Party, and ZIWE. He voiced and created an original animated feature MILLENNIAL HUNTER. Sam was selected as a member of the Comedy Central Digital Creators Program in 2020, performed at Comedy Central’s Clusterfest as part of their UpNext showcase, and was named one of Vulture’s Comics You Should and Will Know of 2021. Tickets are on sale now! #philamoca

This Sunday, @exhumedfilms is back at PhilaMOCA with a night of furious martial arts mayhem and a spectacular ShawScope double feature on 16mm! See the unstoppable Venoms gang in THE MAGNIFICENT RUFFIANS (1979), directed by the legendary Chang Cheh, plus SHAOLIN PRINCE (1982), starring Ti Lung, the directorial debut of master fight choreographer Tang Chia—on one hard-hitting, bone-snapping program! The show will begin with a collection of 16mm kung fu tv spots! #philamoca #exhumedfilms

Thursday, May 14th at @philamoca : @acountrywestern @h0o0ky @dousedphl @ruthinthebardo @nosistertogenocide x @fm.phl BENEFIT for @camp.ofhope Floored and honored to say that @fm.phl has teamed up with @nosistertogenocide to present this definition-of-stacked show with 100% of the proceeds benefitting @camp.ofhope , who are administering firsthand aid in and around Gaza. The night will feature performances by local legends @acountrywestern , @h0o0ky , @dousedphl , and @ruthinthebardo ! There’ll also be a raffle for tattoos, artwork, and merch donated by local artists and vendors. Tickets for the event can be purchased in advance without fees (link in bio). Music will start right at 7:30 and you obviously don’t wanna miss any of these bands so come early, bring a pal, and let your hair down for a good cause! Marvelous flyer by @ivy.psb Doors at 7, Music at 7:30 $15 adv / $20 dos, Tix in Bio (no fees) Plz respect the space and each other 🍉

The first stop on tour is our hometown show at @philamoca on July 11th where we’ll be celebrating the 5 year anniversary of “If Me Dies, Me Dies” by playing the record live in it’s entirety for the first time in honor of it’s release on vinyl with @failharmonicrecords Thank you so much to @nicolettesketching for making this amazing poster for us! Thank you @kurt.lindhult.photo for these awesome pics from our last show! So excited to share the stage with @crabwalkphl @bestbearmusic and @thegnomekelly !!! This show is going to be amazing!