There will be no Black Maria Film Festival this year.
But fear not, independent movie lovers, it’s not going anywhere. It’s just changed its name.
The newly monikered Thomas Edison Film Festival will premiere its 2021 season at 7:30 p.m. on Saturday, Feb. 20, with the free online screening of five short movies and a conversation with the filmmakers.
The program will be co-hosted by Princeton University’s Lewis Center for the Arts, which brings up another new twist to this year’s festival: While the 2020 fest was forced by the coronavirus outbreak to isolate itself to on-demand screenings only, the 2021 edition will “hit the road virtually” to team with various “host venues” for expanded online programming.
“Films will be continue to be hosted on our website throughout 2021, but we will not rely only on our website to promote and showcase this season’s films,” festival executive director Jane Steuerwald said. “We will continue to present custom curated programs virtually for our host venues throughout the year.”
This marks the 40th year the Hoboken-based Thomas Edison Media Arts Consortium has mounted its international juried short film competition. Traditionally, the winning entries would be screened at locations throughout the state and beyond.
That was before COVID-19 struck.
“In response to the pandemic, we launched the Black Maria Virtual Film Festival on April 6, 2020, showcasing award-winning selected shorts from the 2020 season and the festival’s archive,” said Steuerwald. “Filmmakers from all over the world agreed to have their films screened for free — no strings attached — for as long as the pandemic lasts.”
She noted the online version to date has “marked over 10,000 views from individuals around the world, including Poland, Canada, Columbia, Germany, Japan, France, Argentina, Spain, Hong Kong, India, Taiwan, Ukraine, Turkey, South Korea, UK, Netherlands, Portugal, New Zealand, Italy, Thailand, Ghana, Hungary, Israel, Australia, Austria, Mexico, Belgium, Nigeria, Brazil, Sweden, Denmark, Bolivia, Dominican Republic, Saudi Arabia, Philippines, Malaysia, South Africa, Ecuador, Ireland, Norway, Croatia, Honduras, Macao, Czech Republic, Greece, Finland, Switzerland, Venezuela and Russia.”
The festival also attracts worldwide interest from filmmakers wishing to partake. It received more than 500 submissions for the 2021 season from every continent around the globe save one (time to step up, Antarctica). Of those, 100 were chosen by a jury of film experts for the 2021 collection.
"De-Eschatology," an experimental short film by Charly Santagado and Eriel Santagado, is one of the works to be screened at the 40th Annual Thomas Edison Film Festival virtual premiere on Feb. 20.Photo courtesy of Charly Santagado and Eriel Santagado
The Feb. 20 “40th Anniversary Festival Premiere” in collaboration with the Lewis Center for the Arts will showcase the four films receiving 2021 Jury’s Stellar Awards along with an experimental short by Brooklyn filmmaker Lynne Sachs, winner of this year’s Edison Innovation Award. Here’s the lineup:
- “Maya at 24,” a 4-minute experimental film in which Sachs filmed her daughter Maya in 16mm, black and white film at ages 6, 16 and 24. At each iteration, Maya runs around her mother, in a circle — clockwise — as if propelling herself in the same direction as time, forward.
- “The Ephemeral Orphanage,” a 15-minute animated film by Lisa Barcy of Chicago, presents a group of tattered paper dolls as they daydream alternate realities and surreptitiously explore the hidden lives of their strict and secretive caregivers. It was created using paper dolls cut from a 1920s newspaper and others found in an attic.
- “The Toxic Pigs of Fukushima” is a 35-minute documentary film by Otto Bell of New York City relating how the Great East Japan Earthquake of 2011 triggered a tsunami, nuclear meltdown and mass evacuations in Fukushima Prefecture. Today, as part of a government push to encourage resettlement, local hunters have been enlisted to dispose of radiated wild boars that now roam the abandoned streets and buildings. The film follows a lone hunter into an isolated and changed landscape.
- “De-Eschatology,” a 5-minute experimental film by Charly Santagado and Eriel Santagado from Metuchen, seeks to draw attention to a heightened sense of touch that directly results from the lack of physical contact many in quarantine face. The film’s trajectory explores the gradual de-escalation of shelter-in-place orders and its psychological effects.
- “A Trip with Mom,” a 25-minute narrative film by Sophie Shui of New Taipei, Taiwan, tells the story of a man pressured by economic, physical and mental stress who decides to take his disabled mother on a journey.
The program will include discussions with filmmakers and presentation of the Edison Innovation Award to Sachs. Attendees are required to register in advance for the Zoom webinar link at arts.princeton.edu/Thomas-Edison-Film-Festival and will be provided with the link to view the films.
The premiered films will remain to view on-demand through Feb. 21. Select films from the season also will available on-demand on the festival’s website.
Upcoming virtual festival dates are 7 p.m. Friday, Feb. 26, co-costed by the Hoboken Historical Museum, the festival’s home base; 7 p.m. Saturday, Feb. 27, co-hosted by the Glen Rock Film Festival; and 6 p.m. Wednesday, March 10, co-hosted by the Berrie Center of Ramapo College of New Jersey.
Steuerwald said virtual screenings are also in the works with Syracuse University, Fairleigh Dickinson University, University of Delaware, University of the Arts in Philadelphia, the National Gallery of Art in Washington D.C. “and many more.”
“My belief is that virtual film programming will not disappear. Rather, once we are through this global health crisis it will remain as yet another option for the independent film community to grow and prosper,” the festival’s executive director said. “Nothing will ever replace a crowded film theater where we all sit together in the dark and share the intensity and joy of our collective experience. For now, we are pushing forward to celebrate film making with all the resources we have.”
As for the festival’s name change? It’s not the first time it’s happened.
The film competition was called the Thomas Edison Black Maria Festival when it debuted in 1981, before being shortened some years later to the Black Maria Film Festival. (”Black Maria” is a reference to Edison’s original West Orange film studio, which was dubbed the “Black Maria” because of its resemblance to the era’s black-box police wagons of the same name.)
Steuerwald said the festival’s board of trustees a number of years ago considered resorting to the original title, but concluded it was too clunky “and didn’t feel like a true representation of the festival’s inspiration and mission.”
“With that as a central guide, we revisited our idea to rebrand and consolidate the festival’s name to read as a simpler and more effective title, Thomas Edison Film Festival, which is in line with the legal name of the consortium,” Steuerwald explained. “Our relationship to Mr. Edison’s invention of the motion picture and his experimentation with the short film is at the core of all of our projects — why not make it abundantly clear?”
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Patrick O’Shea may be reached at poshea@njadvancemedia.com.
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