New Jersey Film Festival screening
Electra - Daria Kashcheeva (Prague, Czech Republic)
Electra rethinks her 10th birthday, mixing memories with imagination and hidden dreams. Isolated in her fantasy world full of made-up busty dolls, plastic men’s body parts, juicy strawberries and dentist tools, she builds up her own relationships with her body and sexuality. Diving deeper and deeper into her childhood memories, she experiences again rebellion against her mother and mixed feelings for her father. Electra has to go through the most painful memories to let her suppressed feelings come out. In the end, she is ready to reveal what has really happened during her 10th birthday. 2023; 27 min.
Irina - Amelie Magdalena Loy (Vienna, Austria)
A wall of trees. Her sudden urges to break out of the cold loneliness lead to nothing. When a sudden impact leads Irina to choose between owning or ending her life. 2023; 6 min.
Muckville – Jeff Mertz (Kingston, New York)
Muckville examines the ongoing mental health and suicide epidemic on American farms through the eyes of a 4th-generation onion farmer in New York’s Black Dirt region. Chris Pawelski almost ran out of time. As a 4th-generation onion farmer on the post-glacial black dirt of Goshen, NY, Chris is just one of millions of farmers in America facing the unnecessarily Sisyphusian task of earning a living. Muckville takes us on a journey through time on the Pawelski farm, from Polish immigration in the early 20th century, through the onset of climate change-driven crop failures in the 1990s and subsequent pitfalls of US agriculture policy, to Chris's resulting existential crisis and suicidal ideation. This short documentary provides rare insight into the ongoing mental health epidemic on American farms, and paints a delicate and emotional portrait of resilience and love amid unbeatable odds. 2023; 19 min.
Light, Protect Me From Oblivion – Bill Royer (Los Angeles, California)
A man hovering over his 50th birthday battles haunting memories and yearns to fade. When he realizes the fleeting beauty of life through someone else's eye, his vanishing wish transforms into a pilgrimage of self-discovery to embrace imperfection. 2023; 7 min.
Demi-Goddesses – Martin Gerigk (Krefeld, Germany)
Demi-Goddesses is the second essay about still dominant dark aspects of our modern society. It is conceived as a surreal anti-patriarchal thought experiment and raises important questions about gender, power, and social change, prompting us to reflect on how historical patterns of discrimination and oppression might be either repeated or overcome in a reversed gendered world. It challenges the viewer to confront their own assumptions and biases, and to consider the possibilities of a more equitable society. Overall, the intention of the film is that it will spark conversations and inspire the viewer to imagine a world where gender is not a limiting factor. At best, the audience will leave the theater with a greater awareness of the issues and a sense of possibility for a just future. 2023; 7 min.
Bouscueil – Thomy Laporte (Rimouski, Quebec, Canada)
Bouscueil is a film where sounds and images collide, fragment, stream, relaunch and finally articulate in such a way as to reveal traces of history, something from our memoires and our fleeting experiences. Using discarded 16mm films found in trash bins, Super8 footage and digital images that have already become technically obsolete, this film hopes to share a sensory experience. Bouscueil is a Quebecois word describing the chaotic piling up of ice floes from the effect of wind, tides or currents. 2023; 10 min.
