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2016 Teaneck International Film Festival Preview

originally published: 10/24/2016

The Teaneck International Film Festival returns November 3-6, 2016.

The first film festival was held in November of 2006 at the Cedar Lane Cinemas and DanceArt Creative Center on Cedar Lane as well as at the Puffin Cultural Forum in Teaneck, N.J. It drew more than 1,200 filmgoers over the course of the weekend.

Presently, the film festival draws over 3,000 filmgoers each year and has expanded its venues throughout the Teaneck area. The film festival has developed a niche in the film festival circuit by establishing Activism/Making Change as a permanent theme.



Thursday, November 3 - 7:30pm

Pray The Devil Back To Hell with short by Vivian Sessoms on Billie Holiday’s Strange Fruit. The remarkable account of the Liberian women who came together to end a bloody civil war and bring peace to their shattered country. A story of sacrifice, unity and transcendence, Pray the Devil Back to Hell honors the strength and perseverance of the women of Liberia. Inspiring, uplifting, and most of all motivating, it is a compelling testimony of how grassroots activism can alter the history of nations.




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Documentary - 72 minutes; Directed by Gini Reticker. Talkback with Counselor Christiana Tah, former Attorney General/Minister of Justice for the Republic of Liberia; Macsu Hill, Liberian eyewitness to terror; Khuraira Musa, celebrity make-up artist & Bring Back Our Girls activist.



Friday, November 4

7:35pm Teaneck Cinemas

Olympic Pride, American Prejudice - Documentary explores the experiences of 18 African American Olympians who defied Jim Crow and Adolf Hitler to win hearts and medals at the 1936 Olympic Games in Berlin. Narrated by Blair Underwood.

Documentary - 82 minutes; Directed by Deborah Riley Draper. Talkback with Director Deborah Riley Draper.

8:00pm Puffin Cultural Forum

The Best Democracy Money Can Buy - Follow gonzo investigate reporter Greg Palast as he busts the new Ku Klux Klan - the billionaire bandits that are behind a scheme to purge one million voters of color in November and tracks down the secret billionaires behind Donald Trump!

Documentary - 100 minutes; Directed by Greg Palast and David Ambrose.

Saturday, November 5




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11:30am Puffin Cultural Forum

Trapped - From 2011 to 2013, hundreds of regulations were passed restricting access to abortion in America. Trapped interweaves the personal stories behind these regulatory battle from physicians to those who run clinic to lawyers and the women in need of help.

Documentary - 90 minutes; Directed by Dawn Porter.

11:40am Teaneck Cinemas

Waiting - An elderly man whose wife has been in a coma for eight months meets a terrified young wife whose husband has slipped into coma after a sudden accident. Will grief drive them both insane, or can two lonely strangers support each other?

India - Drama - 92 minutes; Directed by Anu Menon; Hindi, English/English subtitles

1:40pm Teaneck Cinemas

Bajrangi Bhaijaan - A man with a magnanimous spirit tries to take a young mute Pakistani girl back to her homeland to reunite her with her family. The film pulsates with heart and has a story to tell. It makes you laugh. It makes you cry.

India - Comedy/Drama - 163 minutes. Directed by Kabir Khan; Hindi, Urdu, Panjabi/English subtitles

2:00pm Puffin Cultural Forum

Ugly - An urban, coming-of-age story of a boy looking for love in the wrong place - his own environment.

Short - Comedy/Drama - 20 minutes. Directed by Leron Lee

3:00pm Puffin Cultural Forum

American Reds - Examines the history and the contemporary relevance of the party. The battlefields on which American communists fought inequities, remain the sites on which the exact same conflicts rage today: racism, anti-unionism, unequal distribution of wealth, sexism and incipient fascism.

Documentary - 85 minutes; Directed by Richard Wormser

4:55pm Teaneck Cinemas

The Innocents - In 1945 Poland, a young French Red Cross doctor who is sent to assist the survivors of the German camps discovers several nuns in advanced states of pregnancy during a visit to a nearby convent.

Poland/France - Drama - 115 minutes.  Directed by Anne Fontaine; French, Polish,Russian/English subtitles

5:20pm Puffin Cultural Forum

Dukale’s Dream - Hugh Jackman flies to Ethiopia and spends an entire day in the fields with coffee grower Dukale who is working hard to lift his family out of poverty. He learns first-hand about the value of fair trade coffee. Inspired by Dukale, Hugh launches Laughing Man Coffee.




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Documentary - 70 minutes; Directed by Josh Victor Rothstein.

8:00pm Temple Emeth

Sold - Through one extraordinary girl’s story, Sold illustrates the brutality of child trafficking, which affects millions of children around the globe every year. Produced by two time Academy Award winner Emma Thompson, starring Gillian Anderson and David Arquette.

India/England/US - Drama - 94 minutes; Directed by Jeffrey D. Brown

11:00pm Teaneck Cinemas

Abattoir - A real estate reporter named Julia Talben unearths an urban legend about a house being built from rooms where horrific tragedies have occurred. The investigation ultimately leads Talben and a detective to the enigmatic Jebediah Crone and the answer to the question: How do you construct a haunted house?

Horror - 98 minutes; Directed by Darren Lynn Bousman. Talkback with Director Darren Lynn Bousman.  Sponsored by Black Box Performing Arts Center.



Sunday, November 6

10:45am Puffin Cultural Forum

Kid Flix Mix 2016 - Thanks to a grant from the Puffin Foundation, children will be admitted free when accompanied by an adult. Once again, TIFF presents the acclaimed New York International Children’s Film Festival assortment of its best animated and live action films from around the world. Hosted by Bob McGrath of Sesame Street. Live action and animation: 60 minutes.

11:30am Temple Emeth

A Man And A Woman - A man and a woman meet by accident on a Sunday evening at their childrens’ boarding school. Slowly they discover that each is a widow/widower. Much of the film is told wordlessly in action or through hearing their thoughts as they go about their day.

France 1966 - 102 minutes. Directed by Claude Lelouche; French/English subtitles.

11:45am Teaneck Cinemas

Strange Victory - Collaging nonfiction materials, newsreel footage, and Hurwitz’s brilliantly-shot scenes, Strange Victory powerfully documents the racism and anti-Semitism of postwar America. Images of stickers saying “Save America – Don’t Buy from Jews,” signs that read “For Whites Only,” and photos of Ku Klux Klan lynchings are juxtaposed with footage of Nazi rallies and concentration camp inmates. This seldom-shown work, now beautifully restored from the producer’s original 1948 nitrate interpositive, landed its director on Hollywood’s blacklist.

Documentary - 1948 - 71 minutes; Directed by Leo Hurwitz.

Plus Miss Diamond (5 minute short) - The story of survival in a world that often rejects transgender people.

Directed by Juan Mejia.

2:15pm Temple Emeth

Making A Killing: Guns, Greed, and the NRA - Documentary features personal stories from people across the country who have been affected by gun violence, including survivors and victims’ families - exposes how the powerful gun companies and the NRA are resisting responsible legislation for the sake of profit.

Documentary - 103 minutes; Directed by Robert Greenwald



 

2:30pm Teaneck Cinemsas

Last Cab To Darwin - Rex is a loner, and when he’s told he doesn’t have long to live, he embarks on an epic drive through the Australian outback from Broken Hill to Darwin to die on his own terms. His journey reveals to him that before you can end your life, you have to live it, and to live it, you’ve got to share it.

Australia -123 minutes; Directed by Jeremy Sims.

2:45pm Benjamin Franklin Middle School

Life, Animated - A coming of age story about a boy and his family who overcame great challenges by turning Disney animated movies into a language to express love, loss, kinship and brotherhood. Based on the bestseller an autistic son’s astonishing journey back to the world.

Documentary - 89 minutes; Directed by Roger Ross Williams.



 

5:05pm Temple Emeth

Carvalho’s Journey - A real life 19th century American western adventure story, tracing the extraordinary saga of Solomon Nunez Carvalho 1815-1897, an observant Sephardic Jew born in Charleston; his life as a groundbreaking photographer, artist, and pioneer in American history.

Documentary - 100 minutes; Directed by Greg Palast and David Ambrose.

5:35pm Teaneck Cinemas

After Spring - By following two refugee families in transition and aid workers fighting to keep the camp running, viewers will experience what it is like to live in Zaatari, the largest camp for Syrian refugees.




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Documentary - 101 minutes.Directed by Steph Ching/Ellen Martinez; Arabic, English, Korean/English subtitles

6:00pm Puffin Cultural Forum

Maya Angelou and Still I Rise - This documentary will reflect on how the events of history, culture, and the arts shaped Dr. Angelou’s life and how she, in turn, helped shape our own world view through her autobiographical literature and activism.

Documentary - 114 minutes; Directed by Bob Hercules and Rita Coburn Whack

7:30pm Temple Emeth

The Last Laugh (and the closing night awards presentation) - Feature documentary about humor and the Holocaust, examining whether it is ever acceptable to use humor in connection with a tragedy of that scale, and the implications for other seemingly off-limits topics in a society that prizes free speech.

Documentary - 88 minutes. Directed by Ferne Pearlstein.

8:30pm Teaneck Cinemas

Projects Of America - Robert Riskin headed up a secret film unit that sought to redefine America in the eyes of the world during the darkest days of World War II. The filmmakers created powerful short documentaries that showed America’s strength in rather unusual ways.

Documentary - 52 minutes; Directed by Peter Miller; English, German, French/English subtitles

 


FEATURED EVENTS

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or region of New Jersey
click here for our advanced search.


New

New Jersey Film Festival: God Teeth & The Traumatist

Friday, February 07, 2025 @ 7:00pm
NJ Film Festival
71 Hamilton Street, New Brunswick, NJ 08901
category: film

Click here for full event listing

 

Mahoning

Mahoning Drive-In Road Show

Saturday, February 08, 2025 @ 5:30pm
Union County Performing Arts Center (UCPAC) - Main Stage
1601 Irving Street, Rahway, NJ 07065
category: film

Click here for full event listing

 

New

New Jersey Film Festival: Giant’s Kettle

Saturday, February 08, 2025 @ 5:00pm
NJ Film Festival
71 Hamilton Street, New Brunswick, NJ 08901
category: film

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New

New Jersey Film Festival: The Storm & The Boats, Crowboy, Embryo

Saturday, February 08, 2025 @ 7:00pm
NJ Film Festival
71 Hamilton Street, New Brunswick, NJ 08901
category: film

Click here for full event listing

 

2025

2025 United States Super 8 Film & Digital Video Festival Day 1 – Program 2

Saturday, February 15, 2025 @ 12:00am
VIRTUAL
category: film


Click here for full event listing

 

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EVENT PREVIEWS

New

New Jersey Film Festival God Teeth Q+A with Director Robbie C. Williamson

Here is the New Jersey Film Festival Spring 2025 God Teeth Q+A with Director Robbie C. Williamson, Festival Assistant Director Morgan Kalmbach, and Festival Director Al Nigrin:



New

New Jersey Film Festival Giant's Kettle Q+A with Co-Directors Markku Hakala and Mari Käki

Here is the New Jersey Film Festival Spring 2025 Giant's Kettle Q+A with Co-Directors Markku Hakala and Mari Käki, as well as Lead Actor Henri Malkki and Festival Director Al Nigrin:



Exciting

Exciting short Embryo screens at the 2025 New Jersey Film Festival on February 8th!

Embryo, directed by J. Eliza Wall, follows the development of an embryo across the period of a surrogate pregnancy, showing the preparation of the mother and father as they prepare for the arrival of their daughter Fern. The film shines in its editing style, intercutting short videos from the two with images of fruits and vegetables equal to the size of the baby each week, as well as drawings and paintings of ferns and other plants. The interesting and unique style of editing brings a special charm to the situation, making the audience feel as though they are a part of the journey alongside the couple. As the weeks go on, anticipation builds as they celebrate the embryo’s health and growth over time.



Captivating

Captivating short The Traumatist screens at the 2025 New Jersey Film Festival on February 7th!

The Traumatist is a captivatingly spun story of intense catharsis. As Avery Vaughn goes through the process of “Immersive Retribution Trauma Therapy” the audience is pulled into the past alongside her, forced to relive flashbacks of the most impactful moments in her life. It’s almost impossible not to connect with Avery, her story made so tangible and the results of her trauma evident in every sentence, movement, and glance that she makes throughout her story.



New

New Jersey Film Festival Interview with God Teeth director Robbie C. Williamson!

God Teeth – Robbie C. Williamson (Puntaneras, Costa Rica) God Teeth is a wildly original and fantastical odyssey about four recently deceased souls who find themselves on an abandoned ship at sea. Part confessional, part elegy, the narrators must recount the circumstances which led to their untimely deaths, before a marauding gang of sting rays destroys their memories, banishing them to an eternity in purgatory. Created entirely from found internet footage, God Teeth offers the viewer a new and profound experience culled from the infinite digital world and turns it into a thought provoking, cinematic song of mourning and acceptance - The glory of life and death. Boom, a 10-year-old swimmer endeavors to make sense of the loss of her father in a world of dragons, magical sea creatures and underwater superheroes, but will she be destined to repeat history? Albert, leather clad and speeding through a tunnel, flashes back to his life wandering the streets of Hong Kong in search of desire and connection, but with an increasing sense of unease and isolation, he must finally confess to a long-held and shameful secret. Rose, an ambitious sports agent is on the cusp of experiencing a career defining moment, when out of the blue, she takes a bold left turn - with horrific and unintended consequences. Devoted family man, Campbell, speaks only in third person as he reluctantly recalls a raging forest fire that would forever change his existence, leaving him stuck atop a thousand-foot pole. 2024; 60 min. Here is my New Jersey Film Festival Interview with God Teeth director Robbie C. Williamson:










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