Al Nigrin, Executive Director and Curator of the New Jersey International Film Festival, sits down with Vincent Turturro, director and writer of Sonia and Lisa on Mushrooms, for a filmmaker interview at EBTV. Sonia and Lisa on Mushrooms will be screened on May 29, 2026.
Sonia and Lisa on Mushrooms screens with a bunch of shorts at the New Jersey International Film Festival on Friday, May 29, 2026 – Online for 24 Hours on this date and In-Person at 7PM in Voorhees Hall #105/Rutgers University, 71 Hamilton Street, New Brunswick, NJ 08901! Sonia and Lisa on Mushrooms Director Vincent Turturro and Lead Actor Taylor Lhamon will be doing a Q+A with the audience at the in-person screening. Get more info and buy tickets here.
Here is more info on the films that will be shown at this screening.
Bottom Feeder – Vito Trabucco Bottom Feeder is an experimental thriller that takes place in a dream. Or, more like a nightmare. Bottom Feeders are the lowest form of humans or the lowest form of species at the bottom of the sea. Bottom Feeder takes a look at how we must appear to anything looking down at us or how we look inside the fishbowl just being watched. It's no mistake the main character's name is Pageant, a person who's constantly being watched. Shot on 16mm and filmed in a square 4x3 format, the black and white film aims to help heighten the dreamlike state. 2025; 3 min.
Chemical Meadows – Nate Dorr (Brooklyn, New York) Chemical Meadows is an experimental documentary linking water chemistry and photochemistry in the post-industrial wilds of the New Jersey Meadowlands. A paradoxical estuary wilderness three miles from Manhattan and more than half its size, marred by landfills and chemical corporations yet a recovering haven for wildlife, the Meadowlands are an unexpected breach in the dense development of the mid-Atlantic. This is the story of its waters: a film created by washing 16mm footage in corroding drainage ditches and suspect holding ponds to reveal hidden contaminants, soundtracked largely with underwater hydrophone recordings. 2025; 21 min.
Impivaara – Patrik Söderlund (Helsinki, Finland) Brothers escape to the virgin forests of Impivaara to create a new world. An experimental imagining of Finnish national author Aleksis Kivi’s novel Seven Brothers (1870) for the 21st Century, focusing on the energetic basis of a Northern welfare state and a possible future emerging from the climate crisis. 2025; 26 min.
Sonia and Lisa on Mushrooms – Vincent Turturro (New York, New York) Besties Sonia and Lisa get together on Sonia's weekly day off as a single mom. In a valiant attempt to help her friend "be more present", Lisa extols the prevailing virtues of microdosing. When micro inadvertently goes macro, Sonia and Lisa must rely on the bond of their lifelong friendship to brave a trip more intense than they bargained for. 2025; 43 min.
The 31st Annual New Jersey International Film Festival will be taking place on select Fridays, Saturdays, and Sundays between May 29-June 7, 2026. The Festival will be a hybrid one as we will be presenting it online as well as doing in-person screenings at Rutgers University. Most of 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. The in-person screenings 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 on the Film festival go here: https://2026newjerseyinternationalfilmfestival.eventive.org/welcome
