In addition to visiting a traditional commercial movie theater or taking advantage of the increasing availability of online entertainment, regional film lovers have access to a growing number of independent and nonprofit film presenters offering curated films and occasions to interact with filmmakers and cinema historians — as the following list shows:
New Jersey Film Festival
The 41st New Jersey Film Festival’s fall session will be taking place on select Fridays, Saturdays, and Sundays between September 9 to October 16.
While the festival includes several in-house presentations, all screenings will be available online 24 hours from their 7 p.m. show dates.
The fall festival runs as follows:
“The Sun Rises in the East” by Brooklyn, New York, director Tayo Giwa chronicles the birth, rise and legacy of The East, a pan-African cultural organization founded in 1969 by teens and young adults in Bedford-Stuyvesant, Brooklyn. The film examines the group’s successes as well as the challenges that led to the organization’s eventual dissolution, including its gender politics, financial struggles, and government surveillance. 58 minutes. Friday, September 9.
“A Crack In The Mountain,” from Tokyo, Japan, focuses on the largest cave passage in the world, the scenic Hang Son Doong cave in Vietnam, and the unfolding story of plans to build a cable car through it and the ensuing fight between conservationists and financiers. 100 minutes. Online only. Sunday, September 11.
“Little Satchmo” is Florida director John Alexander’s personal portrait of jazz great Louis Armstrong through his relationship with his virtually invisible daughter, Sharon. 61 minutes. Sunday, September 18.
“Soldier Island” is Metuchen, New Jersey, director Charly Santagado’s 65-minute feature film based on Agatha Christie’s mystery novel “And Then There Were None.” It’s joined by two shorts, “Howl,” a 3-minute experimental college film from New York City, and “Cabeco,” an 8-minute romantic tango-dance fantasy from California. Friday, September 23.
“Commodity Trading: Dies Irae” is an experimental feature film of angry spirits escaping time and going on a destructive search. 86 minutes. Sunday, September 25.
An Evening of Shorts including “The Hauntings of New Hope,” resident Kasey Vincent’s documentary exploring the town’s haunted locations, 7 minutes. Other scheduled films include “Urania Leilus,” a 21-minute cautionary tale from New York City that uses a female journalist’s plight after witnessing ICE detention to examine how a democracy can succumb to fascism, and “Wine and Fox,” a 30-minute Chinese love story of a middle-aged couple whose memories are stirred by wine and poetry. Friday, September 30.
“Sign the Show: Deaf Culture, Access & Entertainment” is a 96-minute feature-length documentary from Las Vegas, Nevada, that examines the world of the Deaf and Hard of Hearing community and its entertainers and audiences. Sunday, October 2.
“Rebuilt from Broken Glass” is former Times of Trenton writer Larry Hanover’s 40-minute story of Holocaust survivor Fred Behrend, a witness of Kristallnacht who escaped Europe, joined a United States military de-Nazification program, and eventually reunited with friends from his broken past. It will be shown with New Brunswick’s Michelle Dragun’s “Saving Strays,” her soulful journey to saving stray cats, and “Frontier,” a 15-minute film from Ukraine that follows a young woman to her militant-occupied hometown days before Russia’s full-scale invasion. Saturday, October 8.
“Vertigo” is a Japanese film following contemporary Japanese poet Gozo Yoshimasu’s visit to New York City and the creation of a poem that marked the anniversary of poet and experimental filmmaker Jonas Mekas’ death — which happened to coincide with the advent of COVID-19. 188 minutes. Online only. Sunday, October 9.
The Best of the Summer 2022 New Jersey International Film Festival selection is the Brooklyn-made feature film “The Mental State,” the story of an artistic loner struggling to cope with the true identity and intentions of a dangerous town shooter in rural Kentucky. 105 minutes. Online only. Saturday, October 15.
Best of the Summer 2022 New Jersey International Film Festival closes offerings with three short films: Composition, a 13-minute Texas-made film of a grieving mother whose connection to art has taken a dark turn; “Eureka,” a 15-minute film from California focusing on an indentured Chinese prostitute’s attempt to break from a Eureka, California, brothel on the eve of the 1885 anti-Chinese riots; “Self Defense,” a poetic performance art piece from a neurodivergent Oregon filmmaker; and “Bendix: Sight Unseen,” Lodi, New Jersey, director Anthony Scalia’s film on the blind owner and operator of the Bendix Diner in Hasbrouck Heights, New Jersey. 26 minutes. Online only. Sunday, October 16.
The in-person screenings will be held in Voorhees Hall #105/Rutgers University, 71 Hamilton Street, New Brunswick, New Jersey. Tickets are $15 per showing or $100 for an All Access Pass. For more information visit watch.eventive.org/newjerseyfilmfestivalfall2022.
New Jersey Film Festival, Voorhees Hall, Hamilton Avenue, New Brunswick. www.njfilmfest.com.
Film Houses
The Princeton Garden Theater
Downtown Princeton’s oldest movie theater — now a nonprofit venue — offers a varied schedule that mixes first run, classic, and international films as well as theatrically broadcast and cultural tours.
One of the projects the theater is highlighting is its Deep Focus Series, a program that the organization says looks at “a variety of film genres while also creating opportunities for sustained conversations built around certain topics and themes. This fall, we will offer several thematic series, each consisting of four different events led by expert speakers, ranging from professors, to film critics, to members of the industry. While the format will vary slightly depending on the speaker, audience members will always be invited to ask questions and share their opinions. Events will be run in an online format, allowing us to partner with other local independent art house cinemas and to reach an even broader audience.”
Events are free to members while nonmembers are asked to pay a $5 donation. Films that are the topics of fall seminars include “Citizen Kane,” “The Birds,” and others. Visit the website for a full schedule.
Princeton Garden Theater, 160 Nassau Street, Princeton, www.princetongardentheatre.org.
ACME Screening Room
This nonprofit weekly independent and documentary film series founded by Friends of Lambertville Library in 2008 in partnership with the Lambertville Free Public Library and the City of Lambertville takes place in the city’s “Justice Center,” formerly the ACME Supermarket.
According to its mission, “the series regularly features guest speakers (authors, directors, activists), post-film discussion programs and/or exhibitions held in conjunction with a film. Our programs bring the world of film to life for our audience members and create a space to thoughtfully reflect on films by artists at all levels: from local filmmakers to nationally recognized professionals. Films are screened using a state-of-the-art digital projection and surround sound system.”
Coming up is “PechaKucha Night.” PechaKucha is Japanese for “chitchat” and the program involves community members with a practice or passion to share with the community by presenting 20 representative images for 20 seconds each. Tickets are $7.
Also coming up is the Lambertville Halloween Film Festival that will showcase filmmakers and “other talented artists” and create three of events that include horror films, a masquerade party, monster makeup demonstration, and artists and vendors. The fun runs October 20 through 23.
View the website for its regular schedule of weekend film screenings. Upcoming selections include “Anonymous Club” and “Hallelujah: Leonard Cohen, a Journey, a Song” on Saturday, September 10, and “I Am a Town” and “My Old School” on Sunday, September 11. Tickets for most screenings are $10.
The ACME Screening Room, 5 South Union Street, Lambertville, www.acmescreeningroom.org.
Hopewell Theater
The downtown Hopewell venue continues to mix its series of live events with special film offerings. Coming up are the following:
“18½” is a thriller/comedy that takes its title from its subject, the number of minutes missing from President Richard Nixon’s Watergate Tapes recorded between 1972 and 1974. The feature length is set for Tuesday and Thursday, October 11 and 13.
To get in the Halloween spirit the theater is offering both a “Halloween Fright Fest,” with seasonally appropriate movies for adult audiences, as well as a “Family Fright Fest,” offering kid-friendly screenings. Films screening between October 26 and 30 include “Dracula,” “The Shining,” and “Psycho” for adults and “Beetlejuice,” “The Goonies,” and “Ghostbusters” for families.
The “Kendal Mountain Festival” Tour will be shown at Hopewell as part of the festival first North America showing. The event features a dozen short adventure documentaries, including the New Zealand film “Spellbound,” a study of wingsuit Base jumping; “Touching the Water,” following poet and veterinary surgeon’s 100-mile run around the English Lake District; “Leo Rodgers,” the determination of a one-legged bicyclist; and more. The showing is part of The Art of Living Well series, Thursday, November 10.
5 South Greenwood Avenue, Hopewell. 609-466-1964. www.hopewelltheater.com.
Sneak Previews
The 23rd annual Rutgers Jewish Film Festival is preparing its schedule of international and Israeli films and guest speakers and discussions set for October 30 through November 13. To stay up to date, go to bildnercenter.rutgers.edu/events/film.
The Princeton Environmental Film Festival is currently accepting entries through January 23, 2023, for its next annual presentation, set to run at the Princeton Public Library from March 24 through 31, 2023. Learn more at princetonlibrary.org/peff.
Trenton Film Festival recently finished its summer 2022 schedule and will be updating its website soon. For more information, visit trentonfilmsociety.org.
The 8th annual Nassau Film Festival is set for spring 2023 with filmmaker submissions opening around December 1, 2022. For more information, go to nassaufilmfestival.org.
The New Hope Film Festival will be accepting films and scripts in early January but not hold its next festival until April 4 through 14 in 2024.
Fade to Black
The Princeton Independent Film Festival announced that it has stopped presenting because of problems related to the pandemic.
