The New Jersey Film Festival, which celebrates its 40th anniversary this year, is one of the longest running film festivals in the region. Its spring festival has screenings on select Fridays, Saturdays, and Sundays from now through February 20. Due to COVID-19, the festival is presenting virtual screenings with films available for 24 hours on their screening date.
Rutgers University Professor Albert G. Nigrin has been with the festival since its beginning in 1982. “I set up the New Jersey Film Festival because I wanted to see a lot of different types of films that I couldn't see anywhere else. I was a graduate student and a budding filmmaker back in the early 1980s. I wanted to see a lot of the films I was reading about, but there was no home video. There was no internet and no streaming.
“I wanted to see Dziga Vertov's Man With The Movie Camera, the original Cocteau version of Beauty and the Beast, I wanted to see Fritz Lang's Metropolis, and there was no place I could do that – I could only pray that Channel 13/PBS might show these,” explained Nigrin. “A lot of the time, when they did show classic movies on commercial TV, they would be interrupted by commercials and they would edit them. So I got tired of that.
“I realized the university had a wonderful film collection and I wanted to share it with the university community because they would only be seen in film classes. So that is how the New Jersey Film Festival started.”
The festival presents a mix of documentary, narrative, and experimental films. One of my favorite days in the spring festival is the Short Program #2 on Friday, February 11. It includes six films that showcase the human experience from around the world.
¡Llámame Chinita! by Stacy Chu is a tale about a 30-year old woman from China who travels alone to Mexico in the middle of the pandemic. She seeks refuge from her mother who is pressuring her to find a husband. Despite being thousands of miles apart, technology keeps the messages coming – to the point where viewers feel her frustration.
Chu is based in Los Angeles, but grew up in Milford, CT and Edison, NJ (and two years in Hawaii). She can definitely relate to the film’s main character, Lulu.
“My mother, as well as other people’s mothers, definitely pushed marriage just like in the film,” explained Chu. “My mom brought up the topic in my early 20s, and quickly realized that I was more interested in exploring my own life rather than settling down young and doing the ‘whole thing.’ Now that I am a bit older, she brings it up more.”
“When I was younger, I would just brush it off, find it funny, and sometimes annoying to hear the same statements again and again. I think, now being older, I have a much better understanding and empathy of her concerns and where she is coming from. In Chinese culture, where family is everything, the continuance of family is such a big deal.”
Lulu also faces the nightmare scenario of losing her phone in a foreign country where she does not speak the language. We watch as she is instantly thrust into isolation after being immensely connected to family and friends via their messages only minutes before.
“I think it’s more true than ever in our current society to be overly ‘plugged in,’” added Chu. “This is wonderful thing, as well a thing of stress and negativity. When I was younger, I would go to China in the summer for as long as two months at a time. During that time, I would often not have a working phone. I would only communicate with friends back in the states when I was at the house with Wi-Fi. This separation from the plugged-in world was really nice and humbling. Being able to focus with what was right in front of me would let me totally reset. I would come back to the states with much more patience and sensitivity.”
Threads of Desire by Bianca Di Marco is a beautiful film that shows Bettina, a lonely farmer in an Italian countryside town. She watches as a woman leaves an upscale clothing store only to drop her dress as she gets into a car that drives away. The town believes the dress was stolen and police begin an investigation, forcing Bettini to choose between following her conscience or her fantasy of owning a beautiful gown.
Di Marco does a wonderful job of quickly establishing an identity for Bettina. We see her performing various chores while working on the farm with a look on her face that tells us she lives a hard life.
“I think that with short films, one of the hardest things to do is to create a convincing world where you present your characters’ objectives and push them against a main conflict,” explained Di Marco. “It’s hard to set up; you don’t have much time and you have to get to the point fast, or else you risk losing your audience.”
“I don’t love backstory, and I find it more convincing to show who your characters are through their actions. The setting, actions, their costumes, and the world you place them in (amongst other things) create the backstory necessary for a viewer to understand who your character is and what they want. Or at least this is what I learned while making short films in the last couple of years.”
Covid Crusader: The Carla Brown Story by Randy Slavin spotlights a nurse who made it her mission to vaccinate the African American population of Baton Rouge, La. following the death of her husband to COVID-19.
Carla Brown not only lives with the grief of her husband’s death, she blames herself for bringing COVID-19 into their home. She was a frontline worker when little was known about the virus. Slavin’s film tugs at your heartstrings more than you’d ever believe could be done in a three-minute film, but makes you appreciate real life heroes like Brown. She’s not only vaccinated more than 5,000 people, but helped many overcome their long-time fears of the government testing on Black Americans.
Some of the most heartbreaking moments come from Slavin’s approach to filmmaking.
“I believe when it comes to documentaries, you have to overshoot - just shoot everything,” he explained. “Ultimately, I think when creating any kind of art, it’s important to push the boundaries and go too far and then dial it back.”
Slavin got into filmmaking several years ago and was a full-time editor before becoming a full-time director.
“I think that old adage that something is directed three times is totally true. It’s directed in the writing, in the directing, and in the editing.”
Joey Skaggs: Fish Condos by Judy Drosd and Joey Skaggs is a wonderful film that is the fifth in a series called “Joey Skaggs: Satire and Art Activism, 1960s to the Present and Beyond.” The film details how Skaggs got the idea to spice up fish aquariums with the use of doll furniture. He originally did it as a satire on the world-turning condo, but the public loved them and they soon became a viable revenue source for the artist.
“It’s really interesting to ponder exactly what caught the public’s imagination at the time,” said Drosd. “It probably was a combination of the hilarious juxtaposition of tropical fish swimming in human habitats and the social issues the fish condos represented – the gentrification of New York City and the fears of what climate change would bring in the future. As Joey said, ‘Fish will need better homes.’”
“Each film is like an episode, or webisode,” explained Drosd. “These are stories of Joey’s exploits and adventures as an artist whose work, for the most part, is unsanctioned, often outrageous, and takes place live in real life. Starting back in the ‘60s, Joey began collecting as much media coverage of the work as he could. Because it’s ephemeral, if he hadn’t, people might not believe his stories today.”
Just Like Water by Manos Triantafillakis transports us to Greece where we learn about the life of the director’s father, Spyros. The filmmaker describes the film as one that refers to birth, life, and loss. It pertains to the perpetual course of the cycle of life, and it raises questions about time, how it goes and never turns back.
Taking place on the island of Crete, the largest of the Greek islands, the film begins with the sounds of waves, wind, and seagulls. In addition to the narrator’s voice, beautiful music plays throughout the film.
“Nature has its own wonderful music,” explained Triantafillakis. “In the beginning of the film, a soul wanders in a path from heaven to earth. The director uses the sounds of nature to accompany the soul in this journey and to awaken the senses of the viewer. Personally, and as I direct this movie, music is my passion from an early age, as a hobby and profession. The original soundtrack for the film was composed for this purpose by music composer Giorgos Varsamakis, and it is an important and essential element of the film.
“The running of the toddler on the beach, combined with the sea and the presence of water almost throughout the film, creates the feeling of time constantly running at high speed,” he continued. “Each person's story is unique. So did my father's. The story about children may seem unwritten, but I am sure that they understand the meaning of time, even fleetingly, when they watch it. The script was formulated based on my father’s own words and his own suggestions as he had expressed them in his lifetime. The final version of the award-winning script was compiled by Elina Daraklitsa who was also responsible for the production management.”
Just Like Water has been shown in more than 150 film festivals around the world, winning 52 first-place awards and six honorable mentions, while proving that his father’s story touches viewers wherever it is shown.
The final film in the program is Memory Builds the Monument by Isaac Yowman. This film aims to connect generations to the dynamic legacy of the live music venue Club Matinee, which was located in Houston’s 5th Ward. It was known as the Cotton Club of the south - a club that brought many of the biggest African-American artists to the area.
In addition to the music, the documentary highlights the impossible-to-ignore cultural and social challenges of African-Americans in the 1940s, ‘50s, and ‘60s living in the South (such as the boy who couldn’t understand why there was a water fountain for black folks and a different one for white folks). The through-line of this story showcases how the music of these eras played a part in defining generations and bringing people of all ethnicities and backgrounds together and how memories, at the verge of being lost can be shared to influence the future.
The six films that make up the Shorts Program #2 take you across America (New York, Houston, Louisiana) and to Greece, Italy, and Mexico. You can purchase a pass for $15 that includes all six films on Friday, February 11th from 12:00 a.m. to 11:59 p.m. Once you begin, you’ll have 24 hours to finish watching.
“The New Jersey Film Festival has been in existence for more than 40 years and the main focus of our mission is to provide thought-provoking cinema for our state and our county residents,” added Nigrin. “Steve Snyder wrote a few years ago in the Star-Ledger that the NJ Film Festival ‘wants to use movies as a way of building bridges between cultures.’”
The Shorts Program #2 is a wonderful example of the festival accomplishing that goal.
