(NEW BRUNSWICK, NJ) -- The Rutgers Film Co-op/New Jersey Media Arts Center, in association with the Rutgers University Program in Cinema Studies, presents the Fall 2021 New Jersey Film Festival from September 10 through October 10, marking the festival's 40th Anniversary. Showcasing new international films, American independent features, experimental and short subjects, classic revivals, and cutting-edge documentaries, Fall 2021 New Jersey Film Festival will feature over 20 film screenings - presented live at Rutgers University and available online as well. 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 the live and virtual screenings. The live screenings will be held in Voorhees Hall #105/Rutgers University, 71 Hamilton Street, New Brunswick, NJ beginning at 7:00pm for each program on their show date. Ticket buyers will also have special access to Filmmaker Introductions and Q+A Sessions for many of the films. Tickets are $15 per program with a festival all access pass available for $100. Tickets are available for purchase online.
Twenty films will have their New Jersey or Area Premiere (Middlesex County) screenings as part of the New Jersey Film Festival. Some of these include: Martin Del Carpio haunting experimental transcendental fable The Dark Forest; 92-year-old Willa Cofield’s The Nine O’clock Whistle – a timely feature film which documents the racial indignities, segregation practices, and labor exploitation in North Carolina during the 1960s; Vivianne Perlmutter and Isabelle Ingold’s amazing Ailleurs Partout (Elsewhere Everywhere) which follows the journey of Shahin, a 20-year-old Iranian boy who, flees his country alone; and Nasim Naghavi and Amir Ganjavie’s COVID thriller from Canada Into Schrodinger’s Box.
There's Lana Berndl’s The New Blockheads as a private case – a spirited documentary on the crazy Russian performance artist Sergei Spirikhin; 3 great experimental/animation films by Richard D. Lopez, Vasilios Papaioannu and Kostiantyn Mishchenko; Thomas Verrette’s Zero Gravity – a documentary on middle-school students go on the journey of a lifetime when they compete in a nationwide competition sponsored to code satellites aboard the International Space Station; Giorgio Litt’s The Dirt Whisperer – about a systems program manager and his wife trade their corporate lives for one of biological farming, permaculture, and a sustainable way of living driven primarily by the health of their soil; Brianna Stimpson’s A Moment on Main Street which explores the impact of COVID-19 on one Main St. in the New Jersey; Johnny Sweet’s Last Call looks at the impact of COVID on the hospitality industry; Lakshmi Devy’s important short feature When The Music Changes produced by John Turturro and many others.
All the works being screened are part of the Fall 2021 New Jersey Film Festival Competition and were selected by a panel of judges including media professionals, journalists, students, and academics. These judges selected the 20 finalists which will be publicly screened at our Festival. The finalists were selected from over 401 works submitted by filmmakers from around the world. In addition, the judges will choose the Prize Winners in conjunction with the Festival Director. Prize winners will be announced after the screenings on October 10, 2021.
The New Jersey Film Festival is funded and/or sponsored in part by The Rutgers Film Co-op/New Jersey Media Arts Center; The Rutgers University Program in Cinema Studies/School of Arts and Sciences; Middlesex County, a partner of the New Jersey State Council on the Arts - Funding has been provided by the Middlesex County Board of County Commissioners through a grant award from the Middlesex County Cultural and Arts Trust Fund; The Rutgers University Office of Summer and Winter Sessions; OVID/Icarus Films, The Rutgers University American Studies Department; Rutgers University School of Arts and Sciences Honors Program; Johnson & Johnson; WRSU; New Jersey Stage, The Home News Tribune; The Asbury Park Press; New Brunswick City Center; The Rutgers University Office of Community Affairs; Design Ideas; Advanced Printing; Steven C. Schechter, Esq.; Share and Harris.
