Black Maria Film Festival

The films that become the centerpiece of the Black Maria Film Festival honor the vision of Thomas Edison, New Jersey inventor and creator of the motion picture. It was his New Jersey studio, the world’s first, which he called the “Black Maria” from which we take our name. The Festival reaches out to diverse audiences in diverse settings including universities, museums, libraries, community organizations, and arts venues. The cutting edge, cross-genre work that makes up the Festival’s touring program, has been traveling across the country every year for decades. We focus on short films – narrative, experimental, animation, and documentary – including those, which address issues and struggles within contemporary society such as the environment, public health, race and class, family, sustainability, and much more. These exceptional works range from animation, comedy, and drama to the exploration of pure form in film and video and are the heart and soul of the festival.

The Consortium is grateful for generous funding and support from: New Jersey State Council on the Arts The Hudson County Office of Cultural and Heritage Affairs and Tourism New Jersey City University, Jersey City, NJ Private foundations, corporations, and private donors.

Learn more at www.blackmariafilmfestival.org

HENRY BAKER works in video, television, film, sound, print and interactive media. In 1987, he founded his video company BXB in NYC. Clients include HBO, Cinemax, SONY, Panasonic, Four Seasons Hotels and many others. At BXB he received numerous awards for his creative work in video and television including: Houston International Film Festival, Broadcast Designer’s Association, ACE and IFTA awards.

His work has been screened at various locations including: Leslie Lohman Gallery, National Museum of LGBT History, Simon Watson Gallery, Vancouver College, Hallwalls, Intermedia Arts Center, Matrix Gallery et al. His works are in the collections at The NY Public Library and the Everson Museum. He administered the Video Artist Grant Program at Synapse Video Center, Syracuse NY, serving ultimately as Director of the Center from 1978-81. At Synapse he also curated their video exhibitions and distribution programs. He served as a panelist at the National Endowment for the Arts, the WNET-TV Lab, the Broadcast Designer’s Association and the Ithaca Video Project. In 2015, he served as a pre-screening juror at Black Maria Film Festival. Henry has given lectures at the International Television Society, Video Free America, Greenwich High School, Boston Film and Video Foundation and the San Francisco Art Institute. He co-founded the New York State Media Alliance.

A consummate sound aficionado, he produced regular radio broadcasts for over a decade at WAER-FM and WONO-FM. Henry has worked in film since the 1950s and video since the 1970s. He received a BFA in Media Communications and an MFA in Synaesthetic Education at Syracuse University. He later received an MS in Information and Library Science at Pratt Institute. He is currently Chief Creative Officer at BXB LLC, Washington DC.

MARGARET PARSONS is curator of film and media programs at the National Gallery of Art in Washington DC. Besides an international film exhibition program, the Gallery maintains an archival collection of documentary media on the arts. Parsons has organized media events for other organizations including the Corcoran Gallery of Art, American University, the National Archives, and the Smithsonian Museum of American History. She has served as a trustee for film organizations ranging from the Robert Flaherty Film Seminar to CINE, and she has been on the editorial boards for The Moving Image and the Getty Trust’s experimental Art on Film in association with the Metropolitan Museum of Art. She has served as festival juror for numerous international film festivals including Washington, Nashville, Syracuse, Turin (Italy), and Tulcea (Romania).

Currently, Parsons is a member of the advisory board for the Washington DC Environmental Film Festival and curator for Glimmerglass Film Days, a festival she founded in central New York State. She has recently received awards for her work in film preservation from the governments of France, Georgia, and the Czech Republic, and in the U.S. has been the recipient of awards from the Black Maria, the Washington DC Independent Film Festival, and from Women in Film and Video. Her other interests include photography (35mm film and dark room), as well as naïve and outsider art which she collects. Her writing has been published in the journals Raw Vision, Folk Art, The Folk Art Messenger, New York Folklore, Curator, and The Moving Image.

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The James M. Stewart ’32 Theater is located on the first floor at 185 Nassau Street in Princeton.

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