(HOBOKEN, NJ) -- On Sunday afternoon September 18, 2022, the Hoboken Historical Museum and the Thomas Edison Film Festival (TEFF), will present a selection of family-friendly short films. The afternoon kicks off at 4:00pm when attendees will receive a Sabrett hot dog with condiments (or fresh popcorn) and soda. Hot dogs will be served in the walkway from the Museum’s 120 year-old push cart hotdog wagon. At 4:30pm they'll move inside for the TEFF screening. There will be a Q&A with filmmaker David Baram and festival director Jane Steuerwald as well as special guests. Admission is $5 per person and donations are much appreciated. 

The screening features, “One All The Way,” the award-winning documentary by NJ native David Baram. Baram was born in Paterson and grew up eating more than his fair share of Hot Texas Wieners. He has executive produced over 100 episodes of television. This is his first time directing a documentary about hot dogs. Baram’s film follows three elderly New Jersey men, including his father Harry, in search for the world’s greatest Hot Texas Weiner. Along the way, they discover what has happened to their hometown, Paterson, New Jersey. The film is a poignant journey that any hot dog lover will never forget. The filmmaker’s father Harry Baram and his fellow hot dog crawler Larry will also be present for a Q&A following the film program. Documentary. 4 min. by David Baram, LA, CA, US.

Shooom’s Odyssey – Animation. 26 min. by Julien Bisaro, Paris, France. Shooom, a baby owl, hatches just as a storm turns the bayou surrounding her tree upside down. No sooner has she fallen from her nest, then the little fledgling totters off into the mangrove, pushing a second egg from the brood along with her. Come hell or high water, she’s determined to find a mother… even if that mom turns out to be an alligator or a raccoon!

My Brother is Deaf – Documentary. 10 min. by Peter Hoffman Kimball, Bethesda, MD, US. A moving and personal film told through the heart and mind of a boy with a deaf younger brother. When his family learns that his younger brother is deaf, he and his family try their best to get to know his younger brother, and what it means to be deaf.

A Hand to Hold – Animation. 2 min. by Stacey Davis and Ali Clark, Homewood, AL, US. Told from alternating points of view, “A Hand to Hold” explores the connective thread of handholding between parent and child. When mother and child release hands – and enjoy the freedom that comes from letting go – they do so knowing they will always be joined.

For 41 years, the Thomas Edison Film Festival has been advancing the unique creativity and power of the short form. The festival is an international juried competition open to all genres and filmmakers across the globe. The festival’s touring program reaches out to diverse audiences in diverse settings with screenings of cutting-edge, cross-genre films including narrative, experimental, animation, and documentary.

The festival’s home base is the Hoboken Historical Museum where we work together to enrich the community. This program is made possible in part through the generous support of the Hudson County Office of Cultural and Heritage Affairs and Tourism, and the Hoboken Historical Museum.  The museum is located at 1301 Hudson Street in Hoboken, New Jersey.

Since 1981, the mission of the Thomas Edison Film Festival (TEFF) has been to promote innovation in the art of the moving image, and the films that are the centerpiece of the festival honor Edison’s vision.

Edison’s films did for the eye what his phonograph did for the ear. He made 75, twenty-second-long films in his West Orange studio. His earliest films presented magic shows, plays, vaudeville shows with dancers and strongmen, cowboys, and boxing matches.

The festival’s relationship to Thomas Edison’s invention of the motion picture camera and the kinetoscope and his experimentation with the short film is an essential part of our mission. Shorts are the essence of the festival – not a sidebar to feature films. TEFF is not a conventional destination film festival, or a single city festival, or a gala driven event. It is a socially conscious, modern, fiercely independent traveling showcase for shorts, reaching out to diverse audiences with provocative, timely, edgy and compelling new works by both accomplished and emerging filmmakers. 

TEFF is an international juried film competition. We advance and support the work of diverse filmmakers from across the US and around the world. These artists often represent an under-served constituency who may not have the opportunity for live public exhibition. 

 The Thomas Edison Film Festival welcomes all genres including narrative, experimental, animation, documentary, screen dance and hybrids. We celebrate films which address the environment, race and class, immigration, the LGBTQ+ community, people with disabilities and issues of social justice. The films we celebrate are artistic, empathetic and engaging works which simultaneously teach and entertain.