(WEST LONG BRANCH, NJ) -- Since 1981, the mission of the Black Maria Film Festival has been to promote, illuminate, and advocate innovation in the art of the moving image. The Festival has passionately embraced this mission for the past 38 years, and is named after the world's first motion picture studio built by Thomas Edison, where he made his short experimental films. The 38th Annual Black Maria Film Festival Tour comes to Monmouth University's Pollak Theatre on Thursday, March 28 at 6:30pm.
Here's a look at the films being screened that night.
moT – Narrative; 21 min. by Andrew Kastenmeier, Florianópolis, Brazil. An odd homeless boy with a mysterious past invades a stranger’s home, befriends him, and protects a goldfish with which he has a curiously powerful bond, in this quiet tale of love and mortality.
Ulises (Ulysses) – Narrative; 8 min. by Jorge Malpica, Catalonia, Mexico. Warned by Circe, the Goddess, Ulysses orders his men to tie him to his ship's mast. Thus, preventing him from surrendering to the enchanting mermaid's call, which devoured the unwary men seduced by it. - The Odyssey
Rabbit Tracks – Animation; 4 min. by Luke Jaeger, Northampton, MA. A journey through a mortality-infused landscape populated by mysterious chickens, inconvenient frogs, and other animated creatures.
Familiar Tale – Documentary; 20 min. by Sumie Garcia & Santiago De la Paz, Mexico City, Mexico. Yukio Saeki arrived in Mexico from his native Japan in 1955. He opened a photography store in the Santa Maria la Ribera neighborhood in Mexico City which he named FotoSaeki. At 83 years old, he recalls life in Mexico, family, relationships with his Mexican customers, and remembers the echo of a hot Monday morning in Japan, as he walked across a field toward the ocean as an atomic bomb fell in his homeland.
The Moor – Narrative; 13 min. by James Everett, London, UK. A man takes his daughter for a trip to the moor for a May Day celebration but when she disappears, he becomes convinced she's been snatched by a mysterious huntsman. As he searches for her, his quest becomes a psychological battle between his mind and the moor.
Bhairava – Experimental; 14 min. by Marlene Millar and Philip Szporer, Montreal, Canada. Produced and directed by veteran dance-filmmakers, Marlene Millar & Philip Szporer, (Mouvement Perpétuel, Montréal) with cinematography by Kes Tagney, this site-specific dance for camera was filmed on location in Anegundi and Hampi, India in February 2017.
Henrietta Bulkowski – Animation; 15 min. by Rachel Johnson, Los Angeles, CA. A determined young woman, crippled with a severe hunchback, will stop at nothing to fulfill her dream of seeing the world. This is the story of how she finds happiness.
About The 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.
