The 42nd season of the renowned Thomas Edison Film Festival (TEFF) will premiere with an in-person screening, a virtual live-streamed discussion with filmmakers, and seven award-winning films available to view on-demand through the ongoing collaboration with the Lewis Center for the Arts at Princeton University. On February 17 at 6:30 p.m. a reception at the James Stewart Film Theater kicks off prior to the 7:00 p.m. screening of five Festival Stellar Award-winning films at 185 Nassau Street on the Princeton campus, followed by a Q&A with filmmaker Janelle VanderKelen. On February 18 the live-streamed discussion with the filmmakers will begin at 6:00 p.m., hosted by Festival Director Jane Steuerwald, Festival Associate and juror Henry Baker, and Curator Emerita, of the National Gallery of Art, Margaret Parsons. From February 18 through 25 the five Stellar films and two additional award-winning films will be available to view on-demand. All activities are free and open to the public with no tickets or advance registration required. The Film Theater is an accessible venue.
The Thomas Edison Film Festival is an international juried competition celebrating all genres and independent filmmakers across the globe. For more than 40 years, the festival has been advancing the unique creativity and power of the short film by celebrating stories that shine a light on issues and struggles within contemporary society. The festival was founded in 1981 as Black Maria Film Festival and originally named for Thomas Edison’s West Orange, New Jersey, film studio dubbed the “Black Maria” because of its resemblance to the black-box police paddy wagons of the same name. Renamed in 2021, the festival’s relationship to Thomas Edison’s invention of the motion camera and the kinetoscope and his experimentation with the short film is at the core of the festival.
The Thomas Edison Media Arts Consortium also showcases the New Jersey Young Filmmakers Festival and the Global Insights Collection, an archive of films focusing on the environment, LGBTQ+ subjects, people with disabilities, international issues, race and class, and films with themes of social justice.
This is the fifth year the Lewis Center has collaborated with the Consortium to host the festival premiere. In addition to premiering the season, the Consortium programs other screenings for Princeton audiences and brings Festival filmmakers together with Princeton students and faculty.
The festival received 585 submissions for the 2023 season from every continent except Antarctica. Following an extensive pre-screening process by experts in the field of film curation, media studies and production, the highly regarded festival jurors Margaret Parsons, curator emerita of film, National Gallery of Art, and Henry Baker, Emmy Award-winning filmmaker and former director of Synapse Video Center, chose 117 films for the 2023 collection and awarded the top prizes. Following the premiere at Princeton, these films will be made available for screenings in the U.S. and abroad.
The five Stellar Award-winning films being screened on February 17 are:
Cornucopia, an animated film by Ani Antonova and Dimiter Ovtcharov of Vienna, Austria, in which a man wanders in constant search and pursuit, driven by the longing for a magical cornucopia. His vicissitudes are brought to life on an ancient vase’s surface.
A still from “Inside the Beauty Bubble,” a documentary film by Cheri Gaulke and Cheryl Bookout, one of the works to be screened at the 42nd Annual Thomas Edison Film Festival’s in-person premiere. Photo credit: Courtesy of Cheryl Bookout and Cheri Gaulke
Inside the Beauty Bubble is a documentary by Cheryl Bookout of Joshua Tree, California, and Cheri Gaulke of Los Angeles. The film follows a renowned collector of hair artifacts fighting to keep his desert dreams alive. The Beauty Bubble Salon & Museum in Joshua Tree is the magical and kitsch-filled brainchild of Jeff Hafler. The film covers a year in the life of Jeff and his roadside attraction as the salon faces lockdowns, protests, and massive societal change. It is a film about family, fabulousness and folk art, a film that is a reminder that it’s sometimes the strong people on the margins that hold a community together.
Language Unknown, an experimental film by Janelle VanderKelen of Milwaukee, Wisconsin, embraces plant sentience as fact and speculates how beings of the vegetal variety might approach interspecies communication with humans (who are far more sensorially limited). Leaves, mycelium, and roots playfully examine how humans experience the world, and the (supposedly) silent watchers consider what language those swift blurs of human might possibly understand.
The Boy Who Couldn’t Feel Pain, a narrative film by Eugen Merher of Berlin, Germany, is set in Grants, New Mexico, and tells the story of small-town legend, Chester, a street fighter who can’t feel any pain. When Annie, a bowling alley employee who just moved into town challenges him to a fight, things begin to change.
The Shimmering Extraordinary is a film in the genre of screen dance by FX Goby and the Scottish Ballet in Glasgow. Commissioned as part of the Scottish Ballet’s Safe to Be Me™ Festival, a digital festival of dance that celebrates diversity, this film is inspired by themes of acceptance, identity, and respect. Bringing together artists from various backgrounds, six short portraits focus on the stories of six individual dancers: Annie Edwards, Hayaat Zahra Shah, Madeline Squire, Mukeni Nel, Nikita Gold and Saul Nash.
These five films are among those also available to screen on-demand from February 18 through 25. Two additional films available on-demand are:
A still from “In Love with a Problem,” a documentary by Julie Kim, Global Insights Stellar Award winner, one of seven films available on-demand February 18-25 as part of the 42nd Annual Thomas Edison Film Festival. Photo courtesy of Julie Kim
In Love with a Problem, a documentary film by Julie Kim of Vancouver, Canada, is the recipient of the festival’s Global Insights Stellar Award. The film relates the story of Miranda Wang and Jeanny Yao, who were still in high school when they discovered plastic-eating bacteria in Vancouver’s Fraser River. Passionate about the problem of plastic waste, the two millennial innovators are now on an inspiring journey to solve it. Their dedication has taken them all the way from Vancouver to Silicon Valley. From bacteria to cutting edge chemistry, their story has illuminated one of our earth’s biggest eco disasters.
Chicken, winner of the festival’s Diversity, Equity, Access and Inclusion Award, is a narrative film by Lucy McNulty and Emma Pollard of Vancouver, Canada. When Sam splits up with her partner, she is forced to move back into her childhood home with her mother and Emmett, her neurodivergent brother. When depression sinks in, her brother gets in her face trying to cheer her up and in doing so makes everything worse. But when Emmett is confronted with a situation at a baseball game where he is called a chicken, Sam rises to the challenge to come to his aid and is reminded of what is truly important. Chicken features a neurodivergent cast and crew and is written and directed by women.
To view all seven films on-demand go to the Thomas Edison Film Festival website and click on “Watch the premiere on-demand.”
To join the livestreamed discussion with the filmmakers on February 18, visit the Lewis Center event page for the Zoom link; no advance registration is required.
Venues interested in scheduling a screening should contact Festival Director Jane Steuerwald at Jane@TEFilmFestival.org. The festival offers programming options ranging from a custom-curated program to an online film presentation by the festival director, including a Q&A and dialog with the audience.
In addition to the support provided for the 2023 season by the Lewis Center for the Arts, the Thomas Edison Film Festival receives support from New Jersey State Council on the Arts; the Charles Edison Fund – Edison Innovation Foundation; the Hudson County Office of Cultural and Heritage Affairs and Tourism; the Hoboken Historical Museum; Big Sky Edit; Sonic Union; NJ Arts & Culture Renewal Fund; Puffin Foundation; WithumSmith+Brown; Lowenstein Sandler, LLP; the NBA; Monster Remotes; Syracuse University; Fairleigh Dickinson University; Digital Film, East Brunswick Magnet School; Adobe Systems, Inc.; and Microsoft through TechSoup.org.
For the in-person screening, all visitors are expected to be either fully vaccinated, have recently received and be prepared to show proof of a negative COVID test (via PCR within 72 hours or via rapid antigen within 8 hours of the scheduled visit), or agree to wear a face covering when indoors and around others.
Visit the Thomas Edison Film Festival website to learn more about the Festival and Thomas A. Edison Media Arts Consortium. To learn more about the Lewis Center for the Arts, the premiere screening, and the more than 100 public performances, exhibitions, readings, screenings, concerts and lectures presented each year, most of them free, visit the Lewis Center website.
