The 42nd Bi-Annual New Jersey Film Festival will be taking place on select Fridays, Saturdays, and Sundays between January 26-February 18, 2024. The Festival will be a hybrid one as we will be presenting it online as well as doing in-person screenings at Rutgers University. All the films will be available virtually via Video on Demand for 24 hours on their show date. Each ticket or Festival Pass purchased is good for both the virtual and the in-person screenings. The in-person screenings will be held in Voorhees Hall #105/Rutgers University, 71 Hamilton Street, New Brunswick, NJ beginning at 5PM or 7PM on their show date.

Schedule

Friday, January 26, 2024 - Online for 24 Hours and In-Person at 7PM!

The Blues Society – Augusta Palmer (Brooklyn, New York)

In the segregated Memphis of the 1960s, blues masters and beatniks created a music festival that rocked the foundations of a conservative world. This documentary weaves together hypnotic and unforgettable performances with animation, archival images, and a chorus of diverse voices to create a moving image mixtape that both celebrates the music and re-evaluates the era. 2023; 76 min.

Saturday, January 27, 2024 - Online for 24 Hours and In-Person at 5PM!

Bear Hugs – Maggie May Brummer (Manahawken, New Jersey)

In this animated student film, A teddy bear goes through a small city in pursuit of giving a hug to a lonely girl while overcoming the holiday hustle-bustle. The thought of the lonely girl during Christmas leads Teddy to push through the obstacles in hopes of getting to his destination. 2023; 3 min.

The Curtain – Leslie-Ann Coles (Toronto, Canada)

Mother-daughter tensions bind one generation to the next in a seedy motel room, where love, sex, and a wish for redemption lurk beyond the curtain when Beatrice, 50, is confronted with her own mortality. She revisits an old haunt from her childhood to reconcile herself with those she loves, evoking the memory of her mother following a mastectomy. 2023; 15 min.

Jailhouse to Milhouse – Buddy Farmer (Southern California, California)

This is the courageous journey of Pamela Hayden, voice of the plucky, resilient Milhouse on "The Simpsons”: After surviving an abusive boarding school and juvenile jail, as well as other setbacks, Pamela now speaks to teen girls about overcoming obstacles and turning their dreams into reality. Her story is told with surprising humor and great candor. 2023; 67 min.

Saturday, January 27, 2024 – Online for 24 Hours and In-Person at 7PM!

Shorts Program #1

Irina - Amelie Magdalena Loy (Vienna, Austria)

A wall of trees. Her sudden urges to break out of the cold loneliness lead to nothing. When a sudden impact leads Irina to choose between owning or ending her life. 2023; 6 min.

Demi-Goddesses – Martin Gerigk (Krefeld, Germany)

Demi-Goddesses is the second essay about still dominant dark aspects of our modern society. It is conceived as a surreal anti-patriarchal thought experiment and raises important questions about gender, power, and social change, prompting us to reflect on how historical patterns of discrimination and oppression might be either repeated or overcome in a reversed gendered world. It challenges the viewer to confront their own assumptions and biases, and to consider the possibilities of a more equitable society. Overall, the intention of the film is that it will spark conversations and inspire the viewer to imagine a world where gender is not a limiting factor. At best, the audience will leave the theater with a greater awareness of the issues and a sense of possibility for a just future. 2023; 7 min.

Light, Protect Me From Oblivion – Bill Royer (Los Angeles, California)

A man hovering over his 50th birthday battles haunting memories and yearns to fade. When he realizes the fleeting beauty of life through someone else's eye, his vanishing wish transforms into a pilgrimage of self-discovery to embrace imperfection. 2023; 7 min. 

Bouscueil – Thomy Laporte (Rimouski, Quebec, Canada)

Bouscueil is a film where sounds and images collide, fragment, stream, relaunch and finally articulate in such a way as to reveal traces of history, something from our memoires and our fleeting experiences. Using discarded 16mm films found in trash bins, Super8 footage and digital images that have already become technically obsolete, this film hopes to share a sensory experience. Bouscueil is a Quebecois word describing the chaotic piling up of ice floes from the effect of wind, tides or currents. 2023; 10 min.

Muckville – Jeff Mertz (Kingston, New York)

Muckville examines the ongoing mental health and suicide epidemic on American farms through the eyes of a 4th-generation onion farmer in New York’s Black Dirt region. Chris Pawelski almost ran out of time. As a 4th-generation onion farmer on the post-glacial black dirt of Goshen, NY, Chris is just one of millions of farmers in America facing the unnecessarily Sisyphusian task of earning a living. Muckville takes us on a journey through time on the Pawelski farm, from Polish immigration in the early 20th century, through the onset of climate change-driven crop failures in the 1990s and subsequent pitfalls of US agriculture policy, to Chris's resulting existential crisis and suicidal ideation. This short documentary provides rare insight into the ongoing mental health epidemic on American farms, and paints a delicate and emotional portrait of resilience and love amid unbeatable odds. 2023; 19 min.

Electra - Daria Kashcheeva (Prague, Czech Republic)

Electra rethinks her 10th birthday, mixing memories with imagination and hidden dreams. Isolated in her fantasy world full of made-up busty dolls, plastic men’s body parts, juicy strawberries and dentist tools, she builds up her own relationships with her body and sexuality. Diving deeper and deeper into her childhood memories, she experiences again rebellion against her mother and mixed feelings for her father. Electra has to go through the most painful memories to let her suppressed feelings come out. In the end, she is ready to reveal what has really happened during her 10th birthday. 2023; 27 min.

Friday, February 2, 2024 – Online for 24 Hours and In-Person at 7PM!

The Disembodied Adventures of Alice – Cléa Elisa van der Grijn (Sligo, Ireland)

A dark adult fairy tale. A hallucinatory trip through the night. Exploring otherworldly scenes of kink, gender swapping, mental health, loss and loneliness through dance, song and gesture. 2023; 78 min.

Saturday, February 3, 2024 – Online for 24 Hours and In-Person at 5PM!

Shorts Program #2

Walls Running – Charlotte Griffin (Irvine, California)

Walls Running is an experimental screendance and part of a series of short "Impromptus" commissioned by Debra Noble, Director of Dance Repertory at California State University, Fullerton. Director Charlotte Griffin collaborated with visual effects designer Jaime Cano and artist Michelle Oosterbaan to immerse the dancers within layered abstract worlds with original music by composer/percussionist Aaron Chavez and harpist Natalia Yates. During the height of the COVID pandemic stay at home orders, the dancers assembled do-it-yourself green screen kits to capture their solo performances in isolation. Their dancing was collaged into shared 2D and 2.5D digital space playing with the push and pull of dimensional elasticity, kinetic exchange, and organic textures. Highly crafted, yet spontaneously felt, this series of impromptus brought many artists together during a time of prolonged separation. 2023; 2 min.

Sea of Shadows - Hüseyin Mert Erverdi (Istanbul, Turkey)

Sea of Shadows is a tribute to the transient nature of life, captured through the dance of waves. It delves deep into the microcosm of these waves; each shot, an intimate meditation, captures the waves crashing, flowing, and splashing - mirroring the undulating rhythm of life and death, joy and sorrow, beginnings and ends. In its visual verse, the film personifies the sea as a paradox: the bearer of life and harbinger of death. It paints a portrait of the passing of my mother, who was claimed by the sea two decades ago, while also chronicling my journey through loss, grief, acceptance and ultimately, reconciliation. 2023; 3 min.

Rooted – Charly Wenzel (Brooklyn, New York)

Our modern day lives can make us feel disconnected from our environment and even from ourselves. Rooted is an experimental dance film exploring the healing and grounding powers of nature. 2023; 5 min.

ywnhx – Nate Dorr (Brooklyn, New York)

We have intervened in the landscape, reshaped and fragmented it. Yet it outlasts us. Along the tide-swept shores and marshlands of a once-major city, people have gone but the artifacts of their era linger: rusted vehicles, heaped tires, crushed cement and glass. Old structures fall. Mechanical observation systems glitch. Wildlife roams these derelict lands anew. In the absence of human perception linear progressions falter and time moves in loops and skips, unpredictable. And over geologic time, even our most impervious creations will degrade and cease to exist. ywnhx hovers in a temporal uncertainty which is told from beyond us yet amidst our physical memory, shot on New York City shores marked by human activity but abandoned even in advance of their inevitable inundation due to climate change. We are here yet not here, already come and gone, outlived by junked cars and microplastics, under the alarm cries of foxes and fragmentary birdcalls. Composed of documentary footage and sound painstakingly processed to pry apart the assurances of recorded time -- nearly all images here were created by scanning and reconstructing video footage on a flatbed scanner as a diy slit scan -- ywnhx considers the legacy of our species from the vantage of an ambiguous post-Anthropocene. 2023; 5 min.

All of Us – Charlotte Griffin (Irvine, California)

Dancers across identities coexist within a common screen space transforming repetition into a parable of the human experience. An accumulation of domestic objects surrounds seated duets as the narrator Gus Solomons jr and dancer Corey Scott-Gilbert frame, disrupt, and propel the montage. The cyclical lyricism illuminates the collective experience of “alone, together” that occurred during prolonged COVID isolation. 2023; 7 min.

Unspooling Wind – Jessy **** (Brooklyn, New York)

Unspooling Wind is a visually stunning and thought-provoking short film that invites viewers to join three ensembles - The Amiable, The Spiritual, and The Willful - on a journey of self-discovery. Through the guidance of The Medium and a ritualistic exploration of traditional Chinese kite flying and Japanese Butoh dance, the characters confront questions about their true selves and the meaning of their predetermined parts. Their journey reveilles that the answers they seek lie within themselves and creates a spiritual awakening for the viewers. The concepts of good and bad become irrelevant to help the viewers discern the importance of HOW we choose to approach ourselves and our internal beings. Unspooling Wind is a beautiful and artistic exploration of the universal human quest for self-knowledge and understanding, utilizing a unique movement-based narrative to deliver its message. 2023; 10 min.

Sign Action Space - Mersolis Schöne (Vienna, Austria)

Sign Action Space is a short experimental film about the musical actions of the hands of the Vienna Improvisers Orchestra. Led by Michael Fischer, who conducts the orchestra on an ad hoc basis using a vocabulary of hand signs, the orchestra creates unique compositions in the moment. The film explores the relationship between musical hand movements, sound, and space, deconstructing and condensing the orchestral communication process in graphic close-ups that focus on the hands of the conductor and the musicians. Using 14 cameras and various layering, animation, and stylization methods, the film aims to delve into the fascinating world of the ephemeral communication process that results in the creation of momentary compositions. 2023; 12 min.

Conjoined – Charly and Eriel Santagado (Metuchen, New Jersey)

Conjoined is a narrative duet inspired by the chronic exploitation of conjoined twins, especially in relation to the world of entertainment. Two dancers wear one large skirt, exploring maximal physicality within this limitation. 2023; 14 min.

Saturday, February 3, 2024 – Online for 24 Hours and In-Person at 7PM!

Wild Fire – Jennifer Cooney (Spring Brook, Pennsylvania)

Seven acquaintances get radically honest about their lives. Wild Fire explores love, lust, and loyalty through the lens of three couples of various sexualities and a recent widow. It challenges traditional ideas of desire and commitment over the course of a single 24-hour period as our seven acquaintances shine a light on the frightening truths, lies, and secrets in their closest relationships.2023; 100 min.

Friday, February 9, 2024 – Online for 24 Hours and In-Person at 7PM!

Shorts Program #3

Boobee Cheet Sheetz – Adrienne Fowler (Lumberton, New Jersey)

Funny animation on the sun’s “dampening” effect on the woman’s body during the summertime. 2023; 2 min.

Innocent Observer – Evelyn Reese (Bridgewater, New Jersey)

Innocence, as beauty is in the eye of the beholder, but what happens when the eye is blind to wrongdoing? If all is fair in love and war, then who's to say one has gone too far? Who's to blame when a person is fighting against standards seemingly unattainable, yet so painfully in reach? Innocent Observer follows the rapid decaying of one girl's sanity as she pursues her "true love" without limitations. Her crooked mind lends to violence yet avoids liability. She grapples with her practical perception of her life, though it is quieted behind the desperate thoughts driving her desire. Her wish to be cinematic like the ones she watches quickly turns her feelings of guilt into those of worthiness., though others may not agree. Her quandary is simple: does he love her; does he love her not? 2023; 7 min.

No More Love - Zafar Mehdi (India)

No More Love follows a heartbroken woman burdened by recurring breakups, embracing cynicism as a shield against her true sadness. In a pivotal phone call with her friend Tugba, she reluctantly reveals her disillusionment with love. Tugba's surprise visit sparks a transformative realization – embracing life means acknowledging suffering's role. Together, they embark on a poignant journey of self-discovery and acceptance. No More Love explores the delicate balance between heartache, friendship, and the innate resilience of the human spirit. In French, subtitled. 2023; 8 min.

Seeing Other People - Amanda Prager (Los Angeles, California)

A woman trapped in a toxic relationship scrambles to find a way out. Anne and Jesse are celebrating their anniversary. However, Anne quickly realizes there is something unusual about this bar... in fact, it seems like Jesse has some sort of mind control over the patrons... but when Anne tries to break up with him, he reveals the true extent of his power. He escalates with charm, using his hivemind to try to convince her to stay with him. Then, he gets violent, blocking all chances of fleeing. Can she survive, or will she give in rather than reveal her truth? This film is a metaphor for living in an emotionally tumultuous relationship, and how difficult it is to escape from the hold it has on your friends, family, and mind. It's a metaphor about relationships, why we're in them, and what we get out of them. 2023; 9 min.

Bluebird – Sara Crow (New York, New York)

After an unexpected death in the family, a well-behaved Catholic schoolgirl explores authority, mortality, and the limits of her own belief system with the help of an eerie classmate. 2023; 12 min.

Wiener – Natalie Peracchio (Los Angeles, California)

A meaty comedy about a college admissions tour gone wrong. 2023; 16 min.

Joey Skaggs: The Solomon Project – Judy Drosd, Joey Skaggs (New York, New York)

In 1995, Dr. Joseph Bonuso, Ph.D. (a.k.a. Joey Skaggs), announced that he, along with 150 computer scientists and attorneys specializing in artificial intelligence, had developed a solution to the crisis of American jurisprudence and was poised to radically revamp the entire judicial system. Enter Solomon, a distributed program running on a set of super computers that could deliberate on evidence and render swift, unassailable, equal justice for all, putting judges in the back seat and relegating juries to history. This is the tenth film in the oral history series entitled, "Joey Skaggs Satire and Art Activism, 1960s to the Present and Beyond" in which the irrepressible Skaggs recounts the captivating tale where innovation meets the unthinkable. 2023; 16 min.

Please Hold the Line – Tan Ce Ding (Puchong, Selangor, Malaysia)

A young scam call operator is thrust into a moral dilemma as she navigates a life-changing situation. In Chinese, subtitled. 2023; 19 min.

Saturday, February 10, 2024 – Online for 24 Hours and In-Person at 5PM!

Body Issues – Marjorie Conrad (Seattle, Washington)

As Jane struggles to establish a connection with her body, she gradually loses herself in a labyrinth of inner confusion. In “Body Issues,” the exclusive use of bodycam footage lends a visceral quality to the experimental narrative, allowing an intimate connection with Jane as she guides us with her voice. The lens becomes an extension of her physical experience, capturing her movement and amplifying the significance of her body as a vessel for emotion, sensation, and growth. The absence of visible human faces creates an ambiguous space where Jane doubts her reality as much as we question her intentions. By shifting the focus to the inner and outer landscapes unfolding on screen, the film invites us to reflect, empathize, and introspect as Jane embarks on the strangest vacation in human history. 2023; 72 min.

Saturday, February 10, 2024 – Online for 24 Hours and In-Person at 7PM!

Join or Die – Rebecca Davis (Falls Church, Virginia)

Join or Die is a film about why you should join a club — and why the fate of America may depend on it. In this feature documentary, follow the half-century story of America's civic unraveling through the journey of legendary social scientist Robert Putnam, whose groundbreaking "Bowling Alone" research into America's decades-long decline in community connections could hold the answers to our democracy's present crisis. Flanked by influential fans and scholars — from Hillary Clinton, Pete Buttigieg, and Surgeon General Vivek Murthy to Eddie Glaude Jr., Raj Chetty, and Priya Parker — as well as inspiring groups building community in neighborhoods across the country, join Bob as he explores three urgent civic questions: What makes democracy work? Why is American democracy in crisis? And, most importantly…What can we do about it? 2023; 104 min.

Saturday, February 17, 2024 – Online for 24 Hours and In-Person at 7PM!

2024 United States Super 8 Film & Digital Video Festival Day 1

View the winning films and digital videos of the International United States Super 8 Film & Digital Video Festival, selected by a jury of filmmakers, Rutgers University student interns, and media professionals. The festival--now in its 36th year—will feature finalist works by independent filmmakers from the United States and around the world. Co-sponsored by Pro 8mm!

Roses, Pink and Blue - Julia Yezbick (Detroit, Michigan)

An elegy for a lost balloon. 2023; 4 min.

Kristin dan Kuching Kuchingnya – Michael Kam (Singapore)

Shunned by her family, a 60-year-old trans woman seeks solace and balance between her faith, her identity and her beloved cats. 2023; 6 min.

Elevator to Stardom – Danny Plotnick (San Francisco, California)

Crackling with the energy of a 1980s punk rock, seat-of-the-pants, totally wired DIY production, Elevator to Stardom is a reminder of how films got made back in the day. Come up with an idea, use the small footprint and immediacy of Super 8, and knock out a crowd-pleaser in a month’s time. Grain-be-damned, thread up the projector, and let’s get viewing. 2023; 8 min. 

George – Gregg Chilingirian (London, England)

Momentarily distracted from his existential crisis by the enigmatic Kiyoni, 30-year-old George is suddenly forced to confront his past to process a life-altering event. 2023; 11 min.

The Rocket Movies – Carl Weingarten (Alameda, California)

Filmmaker and musician Carl Weingarten recounts growing up in St. Louis in the 1970s and his teenage hobby of shooting aerial movies with a Super8 camera mounted on top of model rockets. Decades before video cameras, GoPros and Drones, the film shows vintage Super8 footage and photographs, all shot, developed and edited with music composed by Weingarten for his DIY NASA inspired rocket launches and regional aerial photography explorations. 2023; 9 min.

Silent chirping of invisible Digits – Vera Sebert (Austria)

Like a single film frame, insects flash for the fraction of a second, only to immediately withdraw from the field of vision again. In between their flickering body fragments, the film shows undefinable voids. What can be seen when familiar filters of vision and the narratives associated with them are missing? 2023; 10 min.

how to outline grief – Kym McDaniel (Milwaukee, Wisconsin)

Different water worlds - sea, snow, tears, bodies - collide as grief is poetically explored through movement and landscape. In English, Korean, subtitled. 2023; 6 min.

you thRill me – Phil Docken (Minneapolis, Minnesota)

you thRill me is a montage that in a very oblique way suggests a narrative. So, one hopes it is engaging one’s intuition rather than, say, cognition. Coming from the world of visual art, I embrace the imperative that visual art is a sovereign language. Ideally, a person reacts to a painting free of instructions, information, or intent on the part of the artist. The painting speaks to you … or it doesn’t. Information accompanying a work of art corrupts the moment one becomes engaged with the art. While I was working on you thRill me, I was thinking: this is either a baroque fairy tale or a drawing. 2023; 16 min.

artifacts of you, artifacts of me. – Brecht De **** (Brussels, Belgium)

In a reconstruction of his father's death, the director combines animation, live action and photogrammetry, among other techniques. This intensely personal film deals with the universal topic of loss in a way that shows the power of contemporary artist animation and pushes the medium to its limits. 2023; 9 min.

Errors and Trials – Brook Pruitt (Pharr, Texas)

Errors and Trials is a 13-minute experimental project shot on Kodak Super 8 mm film. The audio is weird, strange, unique, and original. The film does not have a narrative story. Errors and Trials was recorded in Pharr, Texas; a park in Edinburg, Texas; and at South Padre Island, Texas. 2023; 13 min.

Shitfaced – Jack E.K. Collier (Shoreline, Washington)

An aspiring artist attempts to sketch her boyfriend only to find the dissatisfaction in her own work does more harm than good. 2023; 4 min.

Lager Hogger – David Thomas Dibble (Hanford, California)

Trains! Libations! Super 8! Isn't that what model railroading is all about? 2023; 2 min.

Sunday, February 18, 2024 – Online for 24 Hours and In-Person at 5PM!

2024 United States Super 8 Film & Digital Video Festival Day 2

View the winning films and digital videos of the International United States Super 8 Film & Digital Video Festival, selected by a jury of filmmakers, Rutgers University student interns, and media professionals. The festival--now in its 36th year—will feature finalist works by independent filmmakers from the United States and around the world. Co-sponsored by Pro 8mm!

Dream Screen - Albert Gabriel Nigrin (Somerset, New Jersey)

Shot on Super 8mm film and digital video, Dream Screen is an experimental dream film. As a woman dreams about herself dreaming, she brandishes a mirror that reflects and refracts sunlight onto alternate versions of herself who, in turn, begin to shine mirrored sunlight towards each other. The reflected sunlight summons the dreamer’s selves to wake from their own nocturnal slumbers and move through a dreamscape fractured by rivers, canals as well as other surreal elements. 2024;10 min. This film is not part of the Festival Competition.

Witchblossom – M. Wild (Los Angeles, California)

Witches disrupt plans to build a base on the dark side of the moon. 2023; 90 min.

Tickets:

General Admission Ticket= $15 Per Program

Festival All Access Pass=$100

In-Person Show Student Tickets=$10 Per Program

Buy Tickets

Date: January 26-February 18, 2024

Location: Voorhees Hall #105/Rutgers University, 71 Hamilton Street, New Brunswick, NJ

Click here for more information