New Jersey International Film Festival

The 30th Annual New Jersey International Film Festival

Schedule:

Online for 24 Hours and In-Person at 7:00 p.m.

Shorts Program

The Creative Process - Nick Zweig (Bernardsville, New Jersey)
Making art is difficult, sometimes its frustrating, sometimes its infuriating. 2025; 2 min.

Toil and Spin - Maureen Zent (Atlanta, Georgia)
Cast off from shore. Into the dim, the dark. Away, away. Adrift in an oarless boat. And deep, deeper below the mirror surface. Then snap. Caught in eddies of regret, past slights, tasks undone, worries fresh and aged. Ever searching for a channel back to the elusive elsewhere. Toil and Spin uses the visual language of minimalism to describe sleep and sleeplessness. 2024; 5 min.

Becoming an Oyster - Elizabeth Schneider, Michael Covello (Kutztown, New York)
Becoming an Oyster is an animated short film by Michael Covello and Elizabeth Schneider. It explores the intersection of two significant generational crises: climate change and opioid addiction. Told through the eyes of a young boy, the allegorical narrative touches on themes of consumption, excess, and trauma. The metaphor of an oyster’s life cycle reflects the vulnerability of human and ecological systems. These filter animals become a two-way mirror through which one may glimpse ecological failure and the consequences of climate disruption as well as the broader struggles and individual trauma of addiction. Becoming an Oyster blends ecological metaphors with human narratives to create a surreal landscape of boyhood adventure, heartbreaking loss, and the legacy we each leave to future generations. 2025; 7 min.

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.

Butterfly Manoeuvres - Gor Margaryan (Babelsberg, Germany)
Butterfly Manoeuvres is an experimental essay film based on old, private film footage of fighter planes. The film documents the preparations and training for war, recorded as historical evidence. An artful fusion of images and sounds creates a unique cinematic experience. It is interesting to note that the soundtrack does not always correspond exactly with the visual impressions. This deliberate discrepancy between image and sound was chosen to create new associations and perspectives. A central motif of the film is the contrast between the destructive fighter planes and the fragile, seemingly lost images of butterflies. This juxtaposition symbolizes the transience and irreversible destruction caused by war. Butterfly Manoeuvres is therefore not only a documentary record, but also a profound reflection on war, loss and the fleeting beauty of life. 2024; 7 min.

Flocky - Esther Casas Roura (Brooklyn, New York)
Flocky is an animated allegory navigating pregnancy, exploring the connection between a mother and her unborn child. Set in a melancholic and enchanting world, the film beautifully captures the essence of love, and the poignant nature of loss. 2024; 12 min.

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.

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.

Burn Ceremony - Alexander Girav (Chicago, Illinois)
An unsanctioned observation of [redacted]’s largest oil refinery, processing 440,000 barrels of crude oil a day. By night, the complex becomes a heaving edifice of flame and fog. We observe its operation from afar as the inferno slowly engulfs the frame, accompanied by an original hypnotic soundscape by UK club experimentalist Loraine James. A vision of industrial desolation in which dread turns to awe. 2024; 17 min.

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