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2023 Trenton Film Festival to take place June 9-11

originally published: 05/24/2023


(TRENTON, NJ) -- The Trenton Film Society presents the 2023 Trenton Film Festival from June 9-11 at the Mill Hill Playhouse, showcasing films from around the world and from our local area as well. Fifty-one films in eleven separate programs range from local to international settings, features to shorts, fiction films to documentaries, using traditional to experimental techniques.

Opening the festival on Friday at 6:00pm will be a humorous animated short about arachnophobia and a narrative feature from Germany, Everybody Wants to Be Loved, about a woman trying to balance her career with the demands of a selfish boyfriend, a difficult daughter, and an ailing mother. Then at 8:00pm is a narrative short and a feature, Another Day and Nargesi, both from Iran, that deal sensitively with the yearnings of young men with disabilities.

The Saturday, June 10, programs begin at 11:00am with two documentary shorts from Brazilian filmmakers, The Traditional Brazilian Family KATU and Urubá, centered on resistance to current challenges, and a documentary feature from Canada, Bay St. Healer, about an iconoclastic psychiatrist. At 1:15pm they will show a combination of narrative shorts and experimental films from Iran, Ukraine, and the United States. The Ukrainian short is a film diary from, amazingly, an eleven-year-old girl. The program at 3:15pm will start off with two animated films, Sarafour and Kiss ’n’ Ride, followed by narrative shorts from Iran and India. The Indian contribution, Lailaa Manju, profiles a young woman trying to keep her lesbian relationship from her traditional mother. The 5:30pm show opens with experimental and narrative shorts from Turkey and Brazil, and ending with a narrative feature, This Is Where I Meet You, from Germany. Lastly, the evening screening on Saturday at 7:30pm will include adult-themed narrative shorts Ice Blonde Hair, Passing, Animalia, and The Truth from Iranian and Italian filmmakers.

A program of international and domestic shorts ranging from Germany, Italy, and Canada along with California, New York, and North Carolina will be in the first showing on Sunday at 11:00am, from the slapstick Frederick’s Unforgiving Flatulence to The Split, a science fiction film. Films from the US and the region are the focus of the next three programs. The 1:00pm program starts off with experimental films, including the beautiful and innovative Estuary. Six narrative shorts follow, of special note for locals a project from Rider College, Strands of Light, based on stories by Jorge Luis Borges. Documentaries return at 3:15pm, with two shorts and a feature, The Sun Rises in the East, about a Pan-African cultural organization founded in 1969 that encompassed schools, food coops, and political action. Finally, at 5:00pm, the festival will end with a documentary feature, Seven Square Miles, on Trenton’s Violence Strategy, paired with a narrative short, Pressed, both from local filmmakers. Filmmakers are invited to attend and conduct a Q&A after the showings. In the past this has been a very rewarding experience for both audiences and filmmakers.

Each program runs approximately an hour and a half. Films are not rated, but mainly suitable for teen to adult audiences. Tickets available through the Trenton Film Festival website are $8 ($5 students) for a single program or $25 ($15 students) for an All-Access Pass to all eleven programs—a great deal! See the TFS website for the schedules and details on the programs.




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The last screening Sunday will be followed by the awards ceremony for best documentary feature, best documentary short, best narrative short, best narrative feature, and best animation/experimental/spoken word short, plus an award for the audience favorite, voted on by you!

The Mill Hill Playhouse is located at 205 E Front Street in Trenton, New Jersey.




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