Here below is the line-up for the opening weekend of 2026 New Jersey International Film Festival which starts today Friday, May 29! 
Friday, May 29, 2026 – Online for 24 Hours and In-Person at 7PM!
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.
Saturday, May 30, 2026 – Online for 24 Hours and In-Person at 5PM!
Shorts Program #1
Miracle Under 34th Street - Owen Andrejco (Jersey City, New Jersey) Deep in depths under 34th Street Herald Square subway station, two meager rats spark an explosion of joy, warmth and material goodness. Miracle Under 34th Street is a hand-drawn with pencil on paper, created while I was living in Astoria, Queens. During my daily commute, I would sometimes bring my drawings to animate while on the W Train, the MTA line that plays a starring role in this short animation. 2025; 2 min.
Godzilla’s Day Off - Myra Sito Velasquez (New York, New York) Even monsters need to chillax! 2025; 3 min.
Paper Crane – Michael Amter (Somerset, New Jersey) A humble effort to honor Sadako Sasaki for the 80th anniversary of the historic events in Hiroshima and Nagasaki forever changing the world. Profoundly moved by her tremendous story. The creation of 1000 paper cranes to obtain a special wish, an attempt to save one’s life. An extraordinary display of grace, courage, dignity, and creativity in human history. This experimental animation is intended to be childlike as a reflection of Sadako Sasaki’s youth - as well as short in duration to contemplate this brief life. A memorial study inspired by the devotion to the traditional origami art form. 2025; 3 min.
Prison and Time – Evan Bode (Syracuse, New York) Filmmaker Evan Bode animates excerpts of an essay by writer & activist Marvin Wade, who speaks personally about his 25 years of incarceration—and the growth he achieved in spite of, not because of, the inhumane prison system around him. This collaboration was produced by Project Mend, an organization in Central New York which celebrates the lives and creative work of incarcerated and formerly incarcerated people as well as other individuals impacted by the criminal legal system. 2025; 7 min.
35 Days – Heidi Kumao (Ann Arbor, Michigan) 35 Days is an experimental, stop motion animation about what happens when a coalition of strangers answers the call to locate a missing cat during the pandemic lockdown of 2020. Created frame-by-frame using fabric cutouts and thread. 2025; 7 min.
I Exist – Martin Del Carpio (New York, New York) Jordan wakes up in a hospital after another night full of decadence and finds himself facing two very mysterious strangers who are not what they appear to be. Will it be too late for him? An existential horror film. 2025; 15 min.
Pizza Man – Sebastian Hunt (New York, New York) Overwhelmed by the evil forces of apathy and ennui, a struggling cartoonist is visited by his first (and greatest) creation: The Phenomenal Pizza Man. 2025; 16 min.
Dustsceawung – Matues Luna (Rio de Janeiro, Brazil) A frustrated and heartbroken writer discovers that his robot vacuum shredded his rejected book into his own poetry, dedicated to the house’s Alexa. Fascinated, the man feeds the new author with the classics, but claims the work as his own, sparking a surreal clash between authorship, love, and cleaning. In Portuguese, subtitled. 2025; 21 min.
Saturday, May 30, 2026 – In-Person Only at 7PM!
Sundays – Ashley Gerst (Stoney Point, New York) In this intimate, 2D animated, memoir, a daughter navigates the aftermath of loss as she reflects on the weekly rituals she once shared with her father. 2026; 7 min.
Counterfeit Kids – James Sclafani (Washington, D.C.) Set in Baltimore in the 1980s, Counterfeit Kids is told through Nic, an eighteen-year-old who finds friendship and refuge with her foster brother Jude. Jude is a gifted artist and a counterfeiter. Instead of nurturing his talent, his foster parents Trisha and Jerry mock him, calling him Rain Man and inbred. Nic is trapped between her toxic mother Trisha and Trisha’s sleazy boyfriend, Jerry. Trisha constantly reminds Nic that she cared for her during Nic’s childhood leukemia. That sacrifice hangs over everything. Trisha tells her, “remember who loves you.” Nic is forced to work at the family restaurant, Jerry’s Big Ones. A hot dog stand staffed by girls in short shorts and high heels. It is the best gimmick in Charm City. It is also humiliating. Nic and Jude counterfeit money. They pass the bills through vending machines, flea markets, and small businesses, including Jerry’s Big Ones. When Trisha and Jerry discover the counterfeit equipment and fall for Jude’s trap, the house erupts. Nic is forced to make a choice. 2026; 11 min.
Middle Life – Pavan Moondi (Glendale, California) Middle Life follows Andie (Leah Fay Goldstein), a perfectionist wedding planner in her mid-thirties and new mother, who has meticulously crafted her life but still feels unfulfilled. Fresh off maternity leave, she saves Ryan (Peter Dreimanis, SINNERS), a blue-collar plumber, from a roadside accident. As their paths intertwine over the next year, her craving for change and his newfound perspective on life spark an unexpected connection, leading them to discover that life could be great. Middle Life stars July Talk singers/bandmates Leah Fay Goldstein and Peter Dreimanis. 2025; 84 min.
Sunday, May 31, 2026 – Online Only for 24 Hours!
Theater of the Absurd – Fran Forman (New York, New York) Theatre of the Absurd is a short mixed-media film that examines the insidious nature of totalitarian regimes. Drawing on the historical realities of pre- and post-World War II Eastern Europe, it reflects on our contemporary political landscape, where echoes of authoritarianism continue to reappear. 2026; 13 min.
Phenomenon of Ivan Marchuk - Lana Delaroche (Vienna, Austria) Ivan Marchuk is an art legend, but Lana Delaroche’s new documentary - the conclusion of her trilogy on Ukrainian identity - is not a biography. It is an autopsy of a myth. Filmed over eight years, it traces Marchuk’s journey from painting with flower juice in rural Ukraine to a shocking legal battle in his 89th year. He fights to annul a contract that granted exclusive rights to reproduce and license his images for 100 years - for the price of a dinner. A story about the women erased from history, the children left behind, and the screws that hold a monument together. 2026; 60 min.
Sunday, May 31, 2026 – Online for 24 Hours!
What We Dreamed of Then – Taylor Olson (Hatchet Lake, Canada) Then, Gideon was a vibrant young father and husband. Now, he is invisibly houseless, trying to hold onto his relationship with his estranged daughter. Told through a non-linear narrative, What We Dreamed of Then weaves between past and present, revealing the fragility of hope and the resilience needed to survive isolation. 2025; 104 min.
The Rutgers Film Co-op/New Jersey Media Arts Center, in association with the Rutgers University Program in Cinema Studies, is proud to present the 2026 New Jersey International Film Festival which marks our 31st Anniversary. The NJIFF competition will be taking place on the Fridays, Saturdays, and Sundays between May 29 - June 7, 2026 and 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 screenings. 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 and to check out the line-up go here:
FESTIVAL WEBSITE
