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After crossing the Pennsylvania state line 15 years ago with bright eyes toward the future, Dominick DeFino has never looked back. The 11th-and-Ellsworth-streets resident took awhile to settle on a permanent block — bouncing from 11th and Lombard to Seventh and Christian — but has always felt comfortable south of South Street.
"I think South Philadelphia has been able to preserve its homegrown appeal. There is always something new and fresh happening on the streets and in the neighborhood," DeFino said. "The relatively low cost of living makes it easier for young people to continue to move in and bring fresh ideas."
One of those creative blossoms — DeFino’s own brainchild — is the area’s first independent film school, which saw its inaugural class walk over the threshold at 2019 S. Juniper St. last week.
"The goal of Filmtech is to offer a given class a few times a year," DeFino, who serves as the school’s executive director, said. "It’s a reliable place to find the class you want at the time you want to take it."
After studying all aspects of film production and history in a year-long intensive at the Seattle Film Institute, DeFino returned to his adopted hometown in 2006 and threw himself head-first into the bourgeoning film community. Consulting with those in-the-know, he found a need for a non-matriculating school where everyone from 9-to-5ers to busy high-schoolers to the creatively unfulfilled could test their hand behind the lens or learn how to scout a location for a big-budget production — and knew just where to set up home base.
"We like the neighborhood. We like being where it’s kind of quiet and off the beaten track and you still have a lot of people in the neighborhood who work and live here," DeFino said of Filmtech’s headquarters.
The first eight-week session offers 10 evening and weekend courses in areas of cinematography, screenwriting, filmmaking, film history and working in the industry taught by a faculty of eight who are instructors and working professionals handpicked by DeFino. Offering a great learning experience and being a positive force in the community were the largest considerations for the 40-year-old founder.
"[We are interested in] just drawing people that are making films to South Philly and all it has to offer," DeFino said. "We will be going out on the street with a video camera and shooting on the street."
Opening a film school was not in the original plans of the Lehigh University English literature major and journalism minor. Armed with his bachelor’s degree and some time as the general assignment writer for the Delaware Valley News, the Central Jersey native moved to South Philly with "a couple of college buddies."
DeFino soon found work as a freelancer for Philadelphia Weekly writing the column "Corner Story," through which he learned his way around town by traveling to different intersections and seeing what he came across.
"More often than not there was an interesting person or business to be found and written about and it was a good way to tell the readers about Philadelphia," he said.
The mid-’90s atmosphere was a time of change in the City of Brotherly Love and the creatively inclined DeFino liked what he found.
"At that time, the city was kind of coming up, with the restaurants and coffee shops and those kind things," he said. "It was offering a lot more to young people."
In tune with his surroundings and wanting to capitalize on the situation, DeFino — who by age 10 was washing dishes in his mother’s northern New Jersey luncheonette — felt his entrepreneurial gene flare up. He soon opened Mezzo Fico, which served paninis and cappuccinos to the Center City lunch crowd and hosted cabaret, music and poetry by night.
"I was still dabbling in the arts community and produced and wrote a few plays for the Fringe Festival," DeFino, whose ’00 play "The Waiting Game" was acted out on an Old City street corner, said.
The six-year restaurant venture at Seventh and Walnut streets was shuttered in ’02 when DeFino got the itch for a career change and moved to Washington so he could study film.
"I thought I might want to go into film criticism cause I had the journalism background and it would combine the two. I like the film medium and the screenwriting process," he said. "It’s like exploring that part of the person, the part that likes to work alone, and then you hope it gets produced and you get to work with a large crew."
Taking to the outdoor lifestyle offered in Seattle, DeFino remained for two years doing marketing for the nonprofit Northwest Film Forum. But he couldn’t stay away long.
"What I like about Philadelphia is the livability of it and the variety of people and cultures that you see in the city and neighborhoods and I think that adds to the richness — and the great food here, which I love," he said.
DeFino returned and immediately got involved with the local film scene by submitting a feature-length script he’d been working on to the "Set in Philadelphia" contest as well as serving as a juror for the ’07 Philadelphia Film Festival.
Plans began to take shape for Filmtech as DeFino settled back into the area, but he moved into the 300-square-foot space only a month ago. The brand-new, open, multipurpose room will be the setting for lectures, screenings and a built-in studio currently under construction. DeFino also hopes it will be utilized by the community and serve as headquarters for a summer film festival still in the concept stage.
With word still trickling out about what lies beyond the inconspicuous door marked with a blue sign on Juniper Street, the school’s founder has high hopes for a warm reception.
"South Philly has the ability to accommodate something new and young coming into it — whether it’s a new business or a new restaurant — while still maintaining its more established roots," DeFino said. "Let’s say you walk down Passyunk Avenue and there are new restaurants opening and there are also people who have lived here for most of their lives. It keeps people who really care about the neighborhood and want to keep it a really good place to live.
"It never gets really trendy like Old City or Northern Liberties. It keeps its roots and knows what it is … it doesn’t have the fake façade that could happen," he said, adding with a laugh, "It keeps it real."
