New Jersey International Film Festival Kicks Off May 31
The event, which features online and in-person screenings, is scheduled for Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays from May 31 to June 9
Thirty-five films from around the globe will be screened at Rutgers University–New Brunswick during the 2024 New Jersey International Film Festival, which is marking its 29th anniversary.
The festival, presented by the Rutgers Film Co-op/New Jersey Media Arts Center and the interdisciplinary Cinema Studies Program at the School of Arts and Sciences, will be held on Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays between Friday, May 31, and Sunday, June 9.
“We have a really excellent line-up of films,” said Al Nigrin, executive director, curator and founder of the Rutgers Film Co-op/New Jersey Media Arts Center. He added that Fencing for the Edge, a feature documentary by Holly Buechel, follows several New Jersey high school fencing teams.
“Plus, there are quite a few other New Jersey filmmakers showing their work, too,” Nigrin said.
The festival is a hybrid event: Films may be viewed online as well as during in-person screenings at Rutgers–New Brunswick. Each general admission ticket or festival pass purchased is good for both the virtual and the in-person screenings, the organizers said.
All films will be available online via video on-demand for 24 hours on their show date. Most in-person screenings will be held in Room 105 of Voorhees Hall, 71 Hamilton St., New Brunswick, N.J., beginning at 5 p.m. or 7 p.m. on their respective show dates. In-person screenings on June 1 will be held in Room 100 of Milledoler Hall, 520 George St., New Brunswick.
In addition, festival organizers announced that singer-songwriter Marissa Nadler will perform at 7 p.m. Saturday, June 15, in Room 105 of Voorhees Hall.
“I have been a huge fan and collector of Marissa Nadler's music and art for many years,” said Nigrin, adding that he became friends with the performer a couple of years ago and asked Nadler to do a show at Rutgers as she will be playing in the area to celebrate the 10th anniversary of her album July. “To be honest, it is a dream come true that she will be performing at the festival.”
General admission tickets for the concert are $25 each.
For the films, general admission tickets are $15 per program; student tickets for in-person screenings are $10 per program. An all-access festival pass is available for $120. Festival organizers added that ticket buyers will have access to filmmaker introductions and question-and-answer sessions for many of the films. Visit the festival’s website for more information.
In addition to features and documentaries, animated, experimental and short films are part of the festival’s lineup, which includes:
- Joe Wallace’s documentary, Cowgirls and Synthesizers, which follows the synthesizer pop duo Hyperbubble
- Peter Flynn's feature documentary Film Is Dead. Long Live Film! explores the vanishing world of private film collecting
- Crossing The River, Allan Novak’s short documentary about the Fink family, the oldest Holocaust survivors in the world
- Lynn Lukkas’ girl buddy film Claire Facing North
- I Want to Live on Mars, Mariya Somova’s coming-of-age feature
- Jeffrey Himpele’s animated documentary, Shame on You!, which focuses on the debt crisis in America
- Robert Kolodny’s The Featherweight, which presents a gripping chapter in the true-life story of Italian American boxer Willie Pep
- Fire Tower, Tova Krentzman’s documentary about fire lookouts in Canada
Nigrin, who is a cinema studies lecturer at Rutgers, said festival finalists were selected from more than 700 works submitted by filmmakers worldwide. The winners will be announced via social media sites on June 9.
