Showing film results: From 6 to 16
Within the world of animation, an artist can choose between many mediums of art in order to best create the piece they want to make. Some choose to stick within one form, and others experiment with multiple. No matter what an artist chooses, their decisions, along with similar filmmaking ones, will not only guide audiences through the work but also offer meaning and set the tone for viewer receptions and interpretations. It is for that reason that this decision is important and paramount within an artist’s process. Artists Nick Zweig, Elizabeth Schneider and Michael Covello, Esther Casas Roura, and Maureen Zent have all made this decision within their respective films, and the end results have no doubt succeeded in reflecting their creators’ thoughts and feelings. Despite this, the films are incredibly different and expansive within their creativity and uniqueness, cementing them as must-watch pieces.
Watching Burn Ceremony feels less like viewing a film and more like being pulled into a trance. It’s definitely not something you watch casually. It demands attention - focus - concentration. Alexander Girav’s experimental short is hypnotic and deliberate, offering no clear narrative but instead crafting an experience rooted in sensation and atmosphere.
A Place of Honor is a short documentary, directed by Vanessa Roth, that recounts the lived experiences of veterans and gold star family members from before, through and after the war who found renewed purpose and meaning in their lives when they decided to create the only memorial and museum dedicated to the lives lost in Vietnam.
In Child No. 182, filmmaker Camilla Roos turns the lens inward to explore the earliest years of her own life, spent drifting through Finland's child protection system in the 1960s and 70s. Over the course of this 50-minute documentary, we explore the emotional landscape of a child trying to reach stability within an inherently unstable situation. It’s a deeply personal and engaging portrait, one that is all the more intriguing as it is of the filmmaker herself.
In Ash Wednesday, writer and director Grace O’Brien delivers a vibrant, funny, and heartfelt portrait of teenage awkwardness, budding faith, and the bonds of friendship. Set in a Catholic school on one of the holiest days of the liturgical calendar, this coming-of-age short uses humor to explore how periods, rituals, and identity intersect in unexpected and entertaining ways.
Kerry Ann Enright’s Nobody Wants to Shoot a Woman is a noir crime drama with a feminist pulse and a Brooklyn soul. It opens with a funeral and a woman named Mary staring blankly at her husband’s body as other mourners surround her. The Lord’s Prayer is recited while her son stands beside her. She reaches out and clutches a white rose. That image alone tells us we’re entering not just a crime story, but a slow-burning, emotionally complex portrait of survival.
RL Stine's series of 'Fear Street' young adult novels served as a gateway for a lot of young readers to discover the horror genre in the '90s. In 2021 Netflix released a trilogy of movies based on Stine's books, with instalments set in 1994, 1978 and 1666 that heavily drew on Scream, Friday the 13th and the folk-horror sub-genre respectively. Long envious of MCU fans who get to enjoy three or more interconnecting movies from their favourite cinematic universe every year, I was excited for a horror equivalent. Sadly the Fear Street trilogy was a mess that suffered heavily from getting itself bogged down in clunky universe building rather than telling three engaging horror stories. It may have taken the form of three movies but 2021's Fear Street was really just a TV show in disguise.
Supporting Actresses (Secundarias) is bound to be a favorite in the 2025 New Jersey International Film Festival. Everything in this beautifully executed film directed by Arturo Dueñas, is centered around a play (Cartas al Emperador, “Letters to the Emperor”) and its ensemble’s representation of it. The film title references the marginality of our main characters who are secondary actresses inside the play. The production of Cartas al Emperador positions each woman in support of the king’s story as the tangential, dramatic or comedic foil to the straight-man; all of them merely women who marked his life by visiting on his deathbed.
In her intro for the New Jersey International Film Festival, director and scriptwriter Camilla Roos describes her new documentary Child No. 182, Barn nr 182 in Finnish and confirms that it is based on her own childhood. Child No. 182 follows Roos from her birth to her 8th year of life, as she was circulated through the foster and orphanage system in the 60s and 70s of Finland. The task of visualizing this past personal experience, and its wider implications for child protection, centers in archival print, photography & footage, and 8mm film shot by Roos’ team. The archival material includes municipal documents, letters and reports from social workers, as well as photos of Roos and guardians.
Here is the 2025 New Jersey International Film Festival Zoom Short Documentary Filmmaker Panel with Marine Field Station Director Thomas Lennon, Harlem to Harvard Director Zuzelin Martin, Down The Line Director Vinit Parmar and Festival Director Al Nigrin.
