Tim Blake Nelson will accompany his TIFF-premiering prison drama The Life And Deaths Of Wilson Shedd to the Philadelphia Film Festival later this month to be honored with the Artistic Achievement in Directing Award.

PFF’s 35^th edition is set for Oct. 15-25 presented by nonprofit Philadelphia Film Society.

The Life And Deaths Of Wilson Shedd stars Amanda Seyfried as a creative writing teacher at a maximum security prison who falls for a charismatic inmate played by Scoot McNairy.

Also at the festival, Jesse Eisenberg will introduce the closing-night screening of his film The Debut after joining Terry Gross for an in-person Fresh Air Live conversation, the festival’s first partnership with the long-running interview show produced by Philadelphia’s WHYY.

Noah Segan will present The Only Living Pickpocket In New York with a Q&A after, as will Tony Gilroy for Behemoth!.

A mix of international cinema, independent films, documentaries, animation and repertory screenings includesCannes Palm d’Or-winnerFjord by Cristian Mungiu; James Gray’s Paper Tiger; Ava DuVernay’s 14^th; Jordan Firstman’s Club Kid; Brad Bird’s Ray Gunn; All Of A Sudden by Ryûsuke Hamaguchi; Elsinore by Simon Stone; Cristian Mungiu’s Fjord; Josephine by Beth de Araújo; La Bola Negra by Javier Calvo and Javier Ambrossi, winner of the TIFF People’s Choice Award; and Martin McDonagh’s Wild Horse Nine.

PFF will screen North American premieres of Julien Gaspar-Oliveri’s The Blow and Warwick Thornton’s Wolfram; the U.S. premiere of Michaël R. Roskam’s Le Faux Soir; and East Coast premieres of Félix de Givry’s Goodbye Cruel World, Jay Silverman’s Yale, Neto Villalobos Brenes’ Love Is The Monster and Ken Kwapis’ We Are The Shaggs.

Festival sections include Filmadelphia, showcasing local filmmakers, State of the Union, Cinema de France, Sight & Soundtrack, After Hours, Masters of Cinema and From the Vaults.

Michael Lerman is the festival’s Artistic Director and chief creative officer, and Trey Shields is Director of Programming

PFF drew just over 30,000 attendees 2025. This year is looking higher. The fest’s website crashed twice after being inundated when it opened for ticket sales Thursday, organizers said.

The Film Society hosts about 250,000 people year-round across its cinemas, the historic 450-seat Film Society Center, which completed a $1.6 million renovation last year, as well as Film Society Bourse and Film Society East, both former Landmark locations.

The Pentagon announcement that it plans to livestream the execution of the Fort Hood shooter in December has generated an outcry from public officials and religious figures, including the president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops.

None of the networks have yet to comment publicly on whether they would air such an event, and there is substantial doubt that they would do so. It undoubtedly would get news coverage surrounding the stream of the execution, which Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has made clear he wants to be public.

On Friday, FCC Chairman Brendan Carr was asked on CNBC if the execution is “something you would allow on broadcast if they wanted to.”

“Ultimately we’re going to defer to Secretary Hegseth and his decisions on how to move forward with this,” Carr said.

A Pentagon spokesperson said that the Dec. 3 execution of Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan would be live streamed and that “details will follow.” Hasan was convicted of killing 13 people and injuring dozens of others in shooting rampage at the Fort Hood military base in 2009.

A livestream falls outside of the FCC’s regulatory power, but the Pentagon feed is something that, absent restrictions, broadcasters could pick up. The FCC’s obscenity, indecency and profanity guidelines do not directly address executions, but under his tenure, Carr has launched investigations of networks on the grounds that they may not be meeting their public interest obligations. FCC guidance earlier this year emphasized, among other things, that stations must air programming that is “responsive to the needs of their local communities.”

“My understanding is it’s not on broadcast TV, so I don’t think there’s a role for the FCC one way or the other there,” Carr said on CNBC. “But I trust Secretary Hegseth. I mean, he’s implementing the laws and regulations that are relevant to the Department of War, and I think he’s doing a great job, and I trust that he’s making the right call on these issues.”

The execution by firing squad is planned for 1 p.m. on that day and will take place at Fort Hood, Hegseth said.

“It hasn’t been since World War II that we have done that, and I kind of like the mentality that we had in World War II,” Hegseth told Real America’s Voice, a pro-Trump network, in an interview this week.

“We will make sure that people are able to watch it, that it is public, because people need to understand there are serious consequences for these types of things,” Hegseth said.

There has been a tradition of state executions allowing a handful of journalists to witness executions, including in Texas, but with a prohibition on photos and video. It’s possible that Hasan’s legal team will try to block those plans as well.

The announcement was condemned by some lawmakers on both sides of the aisle, as well as Archbishop Paul S. Coakley, president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, called the plans for a livestream “a barbaric promotion of a culture of death” and said that it “must be reconsidered.”

“The public execution even of one who has done grave harm will only further undermine the moral fabric of our nation and be a blight on the conscience of its people,” Coakley said.

Networks have been cautious about any airing of a public death, issuing viewer advisories or having general policies against airing the moment of death. YouTube also has a policy prohibiting “violent or gory content intended to shock or disgust viewers,” but has exceptions for educational, documentary, scientific or artistic content, “including content that is in the public interest.” A YouTube spokesperson did not immediately return a request for comment.

Another issue will be in how children will be restricted from a livestream. The U.S. Army Corrections System guidelines on military executions does not allow anyone under 18 to be a witness to such an event.