(NEWARK, NJ) -- On July 12, 2018, Newark Mayor Ras J. Baraka and Newark International Film Festival Founder Kenneth Gifford announced that the third annual Newark International Film Festival will be held this year at a press conference in the City Hall Press Room. The festival will run from September 6-9.
The festival will begin on Thursday, September 6, and conclude on Sunday, September 9, and will be held at venues across the city, including 744 Broad Street, the Hahne & Company Building, New Jersey Institute of Technology, The Newark Museum, Essex County College, Rutgers University-Newark, and CityPlex 12 on Springfield Avenue, with the Awards Show being held at Newark Symphony Hall.
"The Newark Film Festival has, in three years, become one of the premier such events in the film world. It empowers and enables filmmakers of color and female filmmakers to showcase their creativity before a worldwide audience. Newark's famous movie figures include such lustrous names as Jack Warden, Joe Pesci, Eva Marie Saint, Queen Latifah, John Amos, and Michael B. Jordan of "Creed" and "Black Panther." More than a century ago, Newark's Reverend Hannibal Goodwin patented the flexible roll film that Thomas Edison used at his lab a short distance from here to create motion pictures. After that, our state was called the 'motion picture capital of the world.' While today that title has moved to Hollywood, our film festival is strengthening Newark as a source of and destination for new generations of creative filmmakers, thus continuing our city's long history as a center for the performing arts," said Mayor Baraka.
Last year's festival welcomed more than 10,000 attendees. This year's festival has received more than 1,300 submissions from 78 nations around the world. Notable film makers and musicians Vivian Scott Chew and Ray Chew and famed comedian Rob Stapleton have also submitted their works in this year's festival.
The returning cast of celebrities for the 2018 Film festival includes the Tate Brothers, Lance Gross, Kim Hawthorne, Lamman Rucker, Julian Brittano, Tobias Truvili0n, and JD Williams. Eva Marcielle and Rob Stapleton will return to host the Awards Show on Sunday.
Among the movies that will be screened will be "Two Beats, One Soul," "The Stuff," "Sneaker Kings," "A Paris Love Story," and "Never."
