As the International House's Annual Celtic/Appalachian
Celebration stages its 10th anniversary March 16,
three of the performers are Seamus Egan, Mick Moloney
and Eugene O'Donnell. Moloney, who lived at I-House during
his Penn student days, founded the House's Folklife Center
20 years ago. Photograph by Judy Sherman Moloney


On the Cover

Describing itself as an "independent though cordial neighbor of the University" (below), International House is also an exceptionally lively one, and one source of West Philadelphia's growing reputation as a center for film and performance--said to reach some 51,000 annually. (One of the recent ones is reviewed by Compass.)

This week a highlight is Girls Like Us, winner of the Grand Jury Prize for documnentary at the 1997 Sundance Film Festival; it runs March 6 and 7, with co-directors Jane C. Wagner and Philadelphian Tina DiFeliciantonio attending the March 6 performance.

Also springing into action this month: The hardy perennials Suspicion, Casablanca, The Wizard of Oz and Citizen Kane, in the Classic Academy Awards Weekend March 14-17; and the Folklife Center's musical celebration (above).

Next in sight: The Philadelphia Festival of World Cinema (PFWC) is a 12-day festival that will run April 30-May 11 and screen about 60 feature length films and 70 shorts. This is the sixth annual festival which also includes panel discussions, receptions, seminars, workshops, tributes and other festivities. For more information call 895-6542.

International House: A Short History

In the summer of 1908, Edward Cope Wood and the Reverend A. Waldo Stevenson came upon a group of Chinese students on the University of Pennsylvania campus. Striking up a conversation with the students, they learned that they were the first people to befriend the visitors since their arrival in the United States. Touched by the students' evident loneliness, Dr. Stevenson invited them to his home, where he learned more of their unhappy situation, including racial prejudice, inadequate housing and isolation from their professors and classmates. From these roots, International House was created--the oldest institution of its kind in the United States, an independent though cordial neighbor of the University of Pennsylvania.

By 1959, International House had outgrown two different buildings and in 1970, we built our permanent home in an award-winning structure at 37th and Chestnut Streets. In the late 1970s, International House developed two arts centers, the Folklife Center and the Neighborhood Film/Video Project, as part of our commitment to serve the broader community. In 1992, the House launched our most ambitious arts program: the Philadelphia Festival of World Cinema. The combined efforts of our residential and arts centers make us a unique resource for Philadelphia and the region.

--International House of Philadelphia

Almanac

Volume 43 Number 24
March 4, 1997

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