What's on in Philadelphia
Open Video Call 2026 at ICA Philadelphia

Institute of Contemporary Art, PhiladelphiaUniversity City

Open Video Call 2026

Now showing26 September 2026 – 12 September 2027Free

ICA's relaunched biannual platform for moving-image work by Delaware Valley artists, screened on the mezzanine across a fall and a spring season.

Exhibition website

More in Philadelphia

On nowAll of November 2026

One of the films on ICA's mezzanine this fall is nine minutes about Mother Cavallucci, the New Hope drag queen who hosted wedding celebrations in the 1970s and 80s as fundraisers and community parties. Kristal Sotomayor cuts archival photographs of those parties against footage from a drag show today.

Open Video Call is ICA's open-submission screening for moving-image artists from the Delaware Valley. It started in the late 1990s and returns now as a permanent, twice-yearly programme. Three ICA curators picked 20 works: ten screen through 21 February 2027, and a different ten from 3 April to 12 September 2027. Earlier rounds showed Alex Da Corte, and Tim Heidecker and Eric Wareheim.

You can come back after 3 April and find a new programme on the same screen. The films are short: stephanie barber's Pressing, shot on 16mm, runs 3 minutes 19 seconds. Entry is free, Wednesday to Sunday 11am to 6pm, Thursdays until 8pm.

Look for

  • Mother Cavallucci's weddings

    In Don't Cry For Me All You Drag Queens, archival photographs of a New Hope drag queen's 1970s and 80s wedding fundraisers are cut against a present-day community drag show starring Phoebe Manntrappe and Miss Pumpkin.

Good for

  • Cheap Culture
  • Evening Visits
  • Locals Who've Seen It All

Skip if

You want one artist's vision: this is ten short films by different Delaware Valley artists per season.

Also at Institute of Contemporary Art, Philadelphia

On now nearby

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Marketing Medicine: The Art of Selling a Cure

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Creative Processing: Art in Therapy

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Creating a City of Medicine

Mütter Museum

All exhibitions in Philadelphia this month Coming up in December

Nearby

Exterior of the Penn Museum's Beaux-Arts building in Philadelphia

Penn Museum

Art8 min walk
Exterior of the College of Physicians of Philadelphia, home of the Mütter Museum, on South 22nd Street

Mütter Museum

History19 min walk

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