Still from The Insides of Our Lives by Misja Pekel
The second and final day of the 2025 United States Super 8 Film + DV Festival is this Sunday, February 16. Here is the line-up for the two programs slated for this date.
Sunday, February 16, 2025 – Online for 24 Hours and In-Person at 5PM!
2025 United States Super 8 Film & Digital Video Festival Day 2 - Program 1
View the winning films and digital videos of the International United States Super 8 Film & Digital Video Festival, selected by a jury of filmmakers, Rutgers University student interns, and media professionals. The festival--now in its 37th year—will feature finalist works by independent filmmakers from the United States and around the world. Co-sponsored by Pro 8mm and OVID!
a film with sound (take three) – Josh Weissbach (USA) A father and daughter make a new movie after the daughter requests to make a film with sound after making a silent one the previous year. 2024; 3 min.
Fighting Sleep - Kevin Obsatz (USA) A super-8 documentary that grapples with the sometimes grim realities of parenting a newborn, and my personal need for a violent outlet for all the accumulated frustrations. Featuring voiceover recorded through a baby monitor accompanied by music played on a child's xylophone. 2024; 6 min.
Take Care, Tar Creek – Aaron Gibson (USA) Located in far northeast Oklahoma, the area generally known as Tar Creek is considered one of the most toxic places in the US. In the early 1900s and for decades thereafter, the region known as the Tri-State Mining District, encompassing Oklahoma, Kansas, and Missouri was heavily mined. Lead mined here was used for ammunition in both WWI and WWII. When the mines were abandoned in the 60s and 70s, some of them caved in, some filled with water which became extremely toxic over time. Mountainous piles of spent mine tailings called "chat" were left littering the landscape. These mountains of waste, though they look like sand dunes, are concentrated with heavy metals. High concentrations of metals including lead, cadmium, zinc, and others, can be found in the land and water. Since the 1980s the region has been designated an EPA Superfund site. Over time, towns have been abandoned, and infrastructure left to wither away. Take Care, Tar Creek is a message; a letter, a poem, as told from Tar Creek to all humans. This short film, authentically photographed in Super 8, encapsulates the perspective of the region from the water, from Tar Creek. The film asks us to consider the implications of human behavior, the intrinsic value of water, and the impact our decisions, have on the future. 2024; 7 min.
The Insides of Our Lives – Misja Pekel (Netherlands) The Insides of Our Lives is a poetic blend that combines fiction with found footage. A selection from thousands of hours of found footage - mostly 8mm material - tells the coming-of-age story of two girls growing up along a border in Europe, as the border gradually drives them apart. The story sensitively portrays what it means to grow up in a world where one day fences appear, creating an 'us' and a 'them'. The film, though composed with footage of hundreds of different lives that have been filmed, is crafted in such a way that it feels like the life of one person. 2024; 50 min.
Still from Memory Film: A Filmmakers Diary by Jeni Thornley
Sunday, February 16, 2025 – Online for 24 Hours!
2025 United States Super 8 Film & Digital Video Festival Day 2 – Program 2
Memory Film: A Filmmakers Diary – Jeni Thornley (Australia) Memory Film is an immersive, poetic documentary by Jeni Thornley based on her silent Super 8 archive (1974-2003), filmed during the decades of her personal and political filmmaking. Accompanied by a sweeping score by Egyptian-Australian oud maestro, Joseph Tawadros, Memory Film is a lovingly crafted, lucid meditation on resistance, legacy and carving out one’s place amid constant transformation. Documenting the activism of three decades, amidst the intense sexual politics of radical feminism and social change, Memory Film is also a road movie of an inner journey of liberation – gender fluidity, utopian feminism, love and its tribulations, the pleasure and pain of motherhood, violence against women and the desire for a world free of war and colonizing. Thornley’s ‘Farewell film poem to life’ unfolds with haunting tactility: along with the celluloid’s visible grain, foregrounding both impermanence and the inexorable passage of time. 2023; 81 min.
The 2025 United States Super 8 Film & Digital Video Festival which is part of the New Jersey Film Festival will be taking place on Saturday, February 15 and Sunday, February 16.
The 4 film programs will be Online for 24 Hours on their show dates and there will be 2 In-Person screenings at 7PM on February 15 and at 5PM on February 16 in Voorhees Hall #105/Rutgers University, 71 Hamilton Street, New Brunswick, NJ.
Each General Admission Ticket is good for both the virtual and the in-person screenings when both are offered. General Admission Ticket=$15 Per Program; In-Person Show Student Ticket = $10 Per Program. For more info go here: https://watch.eventive.org/newjerseyfilmfestivalspring2025
The 43rd Bi-Annual New Jersey Film Festival will be taking place on select Fridays, Saturdays, and Sundays between January 24-March 2, 2025. The Festival will be a hybrid one as it will be presented online as well as doing in-person screenings at Rutgers University. All the films will be available virtually via Video on Demand for 24 hours on their show date. VoD start times are at 12 Midnight Eastern USA. Each General Admission Ticket or Festival Pass purchased is good for both the virtual and the in-person screenings. Plus, acclaimed singer-songwriter Renee Maskin will be doing an audio-visual concert on Friday, February 21 at 7PM and there will be a special benefit in-person screening of the film Bucha on March 2 at 5PM! The in-person screenings and the Renee Maskin concert will be held in Voorhees Hall #105/Rutgers University, 71 Hamilton Street, New Brunswick, NJ beginning at 5PM or 7PM on their show date. General Admission Ticket=$15 Per Program; Festival All Access Pass=$120; Bucha Benefit Screening=$20; In-Person Only Student Ticket=$10 Per Program.
For more info go here: https://newjerseyfilmfestivalspring2025.eventive.org/welcome
