In the film, award-winning film director John Carstarphen explores racial violence, the MOVE bombings, and the power of the Black family in this dramatic memoir about the Eastwick neighborhood in Southwest Philadelphia in the 1960s and 1970s. Told primarily through the experiences and voices of Black mothers, The Last Philadelphia shows us that Black History is everyone’s history, and that ultimately, one American’s story is every American’s story.

Winner of the prestigious Ken Burns Fellowship, The Last Philadelphia is a deeply personal historical documentary about black families coming of age in America's first city around the time of the 1976 Bicentennial.

Director and Director of Photography of hundreds
of films over a long career as a filmmaker and
journalist, Carstarphen is a former Directing Fellow
at the esteemed American Film Institute
Conservatory in Hollywood. He was also a graduate
of Temple University's film program in his
hometown of Philadelphia Pa. His work in film has
been honored for decades, by organizations such
as The Associated Press and The Cannes Film
Festival. He began his career as a network
television cinematographer and editor, screening
on ABC, CBS, PBS, MSNBC, other major networks
and dozens of Fortune 500 companies. 



Based in Dallas, he is married to Susan, a Korean-
American artist.

About the Filmmaker

"...and incredible moving experience...invoked a good deal of thoughts and questions that lingered long after the credits rolled."---Ann R.


"Philadelphia has given this nation countless blessings and blemishes: the Declaration of Independence and devastating epidemics, the Liberty Bell (slightly cracked) and urban blight, Independence Hall and Eastern State Penitentiary, the “Penn Station” of the Underground Railroad and slave catchers galore, Ben Franklin and the Philadelphia Mafia. Its rich history calls for documentation.
        Filmmaker John Carstarphen, native son of America’s “first city,” pays fitting homage in The Last Philadelphia to a locale that has played a central role jointly in his family and national history. Summoning his rich family biography from the Deep South to the urban North and integrating it into historic scenes in the annals of the city, all illuminated by well-spoken commentary by friends and relatives, he brings Philadelphia vividly to life as a paradigmatic American setting. His Philadelphia becomes ours in this deeply moving documentary." Dr. Ezra Greenspan, historian/author, William Wells Brown, An African American Life

The Last Philadelphia

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