Still from Monument 

Here is the 2025 New Jersey International Film Festival Experimental Film Panel featuring filmmakers Kamila Kuc, Jeremy Drummond, Marie Gayeski, the zorm collectief: Bo Verpoten, Jeff Sermon, Tesse Baardman and NJIFF Director Al Nigrin. Their films will be screening on Friday, June 6, 2025 – Online for 24 Hours and In-Person at 7PM as part of the NJIFF Shorts Program.

Get more info here. 

I Was There – Kamila Kuc (London, England) I Was There is a haunting exploration of familial bonds, intergenerational memory, and the enduring impact of shared narratives. Filmmaker Kamila Kuc steps into the emotional stream of inherited family history as the lines between documentary, testimony, and fiction blur. She performs acts of bearing witness not just for herself but also on behalf of her grandmother. Together, they testify to their experiences and the reverberations these stories have over time. I Was There is a palimpsest - a layered tapestry where past and present intertwine in the intimate process of activating memory and vulnerability as forms of resistance. I Was There honors the testimonial object inherited from ancestors and the living connection that binds generations in the shared pursuit of justice and healing. 2024; 12 min.

Monument – Jeremy Drummond (Richmond, Virginia) Monument pairs Super 8mm film footage of the decaying monuments of Presidents Park (Croaker, VA) with video footage captured at Marcus-David Peters Circle (Richmond, VA) during the Covid-19 pandemic and the George Floyd/Black Lives Matter protests of 2020. Themes of registration and re-calibration are explored through form and content. 2025; 17 min.

Still from Soft Wind Shells

Soft Wind Shells - Bo Verpoten, Jeff Sermon, Tesse Baardman (Bruxelles, Belgium) Soft Wind Shells is an audiovisual exploration that delves into the dynamics of transmission and echoes, weaving a narrative that captures the fluidity and fragility of communication and the inevitable distortions that occur through each act of transmission. The film draws inspiration from two classic children’s games that play with things getting lost and found when words are passed through. They are passed through the air, through water, our bodies, our hands, each material having different influences. The visuals depict abstract representations of sound waves, echoing patterns, and fragmented images that shift and morph as they are relayed from one frame to the next. The audio component, layered with whispers, echoes, and distortions, mirrors the organic evolution of the original messages. 2024; 17 min.

Still from elemental

elemental – Marie Gayeski (Panama City, Florida) elemental, a silent film, addresses the transitioning of the body in form and matter. After experiencing lifelong genetic illnesses and a Category 5 hurricane that destroyed my family’s home and business, I searched to find peace, acceptance, beauty and connectedness in life, death, the forces of nature and the Cosmos. My work emerged from trauma, the recognition of reorientation and survival. I asked myself: How do you cultivate a sense of belonging and re-association with nature in the face of natural disaster and death? How do you go back to what is primordial, the elements and forces that create and destroy everything in the Cosmos? How do you move past your physical body and accept yourself as a being in transition? I believe all is not destroyed by nature but continually enveloped and recreated by it.  The film includes universal natural patterning found in the coastal landscape of North Florida superimposed with fleeting images of my medical symptoms and hurricane damage that impacted my family. Seeing the relationship between our bodies and the Cosmos has been a healing force in my life. 2024; 7 min. 

The 30th annual New Jersey International Film Festival will be taking place between May 30-June 13, 2025. The Festival will be a hybrid one as we will be presenting it online as well as doing select 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 when both are offered. Plus, we are very proud to announce that acclaimed singer-songwriter Mike Kovacs will be doing an audio-visual concert on Friday, June 13 at 7PM! The in-person screenings and the Mike Kovacs 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; In-Person Only Student Ticket=$10 Per Program. 

For more info go here: https://2025newjerseyinternationalfilmfestival.eventive.org/welcome