Customer Service:  Subscribe Now | Pay Bill | Place an Ad | Contact Us

BLACK MARIA FILM FESTIVAL 'The Mantis Parable,' a fable in the tradition of Aesop, was a highlight of the Black Maria Film Festival. Advertisement

Thomas Alva Edison never could have predicted that his humble Black Maria building --named after the equally small, cramped, stuffy, dark police paddy wagons of his time -- would become the birthplace of the glamorous, multibillion-dollar motion picture industry we know today.

However, the dilapidated shack in West Orange, erected in 1893, is now cited as the world's first movie studio. Its innovative design remains a testament to Edison's genius.

And today, it is Edison's creative spirit that continues to imbue the Black Maria Film and Video Festival, currently celebrating its 25th year of production with exhibitions throughout the entire United States.

The traveling festival comes to Playwrights Theatre, 33 Green Village Road, Madison, Saturday at 7 p.m.

According to festival director John Columbus, Thomas Edison's "singular vision, open-ended, exploratory spirit, and his ingenuity" first inspired the Black Maria Festival. By seeking to foster Edison's adventurous innovation and unconventionality in contemporary filmmakers, the festival truly has lived up to its motto, "Fueling the Independent Spirit."

Carefully selected from a pool of more than 700 entries from all areas of the nation, the 58 short films and videos exhibited by the Black Maria Festival this year delve into the intricacies of human nature and exploit the full creative potential of the movie medium.

Films recognized by the Black Maria festival are a diverse, colorful tapestry of works, in part because they represent multiple film and video forms, including documentary, experimental, animation and narrative. More important, Black Maria places an emphasis on innovation --making the awarded works avant-garde, provocative, controversial and bold.

Many of the highlights from the Feb. 18 showing at the Morristown Unitarian Fellowship in Morris Township exemplified the fresh, insightful, passionate and diverse independent filmmaking that drives the festival's work.

Perhaps the most brilliant display of pure cinematic art was David Russo's "I Am (Not) Van Gogh," a five-minute short shot in 35mm format. The film employs a novel combination of animation and fast-frame footage to create a strikingly surreal effect that tantalizes the eye.

The work was one of 10 films selected to receive Jury's Choice, the first prize honor in the festival -- and for good reason. Using a technique called pixilated photography, Russo created literally thousands of hand-painted cartoon images, which were embedded within each frame of the scenes to create such bizarre visual illusions as disembodied chattering mouths and swimming fish carried along by frantic "tides of humanity." Such rapid-motion scenes of vacillating crowds provide the backdrop for much of the film, and represent mankind, human progress and life itself.

But Russo's piece is not only a spectacular feat technically. It also employs playful, witty and truthful commentary. In the voice-over, the filmmaker explains his concept for the piece to the skeptical organizers of a local arts festival. There is more than a touch of irony as Russo's ideas flow seamlessly from word to screen while his critics dismiss him as just another incoherent eccentric. As the title implies, Van Gogh himself, of course, was viewed much the same way by the critics of his day.

Among the most poignant and thought-provoking films was "Flag Day," a seven-minute documentary that received a Jury's Citation as a second prize work. It follows the story of Tom Sadowski of Rockport, Maine, who was exasperated by the press's limited reporting on the rising death toll in Iraq. Desiring to make a visual representation of the current fatalities, he created the Flag Memorial: a garden of orange flags, each symbolizing a fallen U.S. soldier.

As a reminder of the ubiquitous reality of the soldiers'deaths, director Kristy Higby interweaves constant, sometimes overwhelming sensory representations of the losses into her film.

At times, streams of dead soldiers' names run across the screen, filling it until the background image is obscured. The unrelenting, steady reading of the names and visuals of the cemetery-like rows of orange flags often bombard the viewer emotionally.

However, most touching of all was the most unobtrusive symbol -- the single beat of a drum that followed the recitation of each name. Echoing the bell tolls of John Donne's "Meditation 17," the simple sound compels every viewer to remember that the drum beats for him as well -- that he, too, is personally affected by every soldier's death.

Of the visitors to the Flag Memorial, some are pro-war, some are anti-war. But, as Sadowski says, "There's not a lot of talk, there's not a lot of political rhetoric. There's just a lot of thought." Each person feels the emotional effect in his own way. Loss of fellow Americans transcends partisanship to affect all -- and therefore, everyone should be keenly aware of it.

Sadowski observes that sometimes, people "just go on with their life, and they don't think about what's happening around them." But war and the deaths that result are not just a faraway concern because the fighting is not on our soil. They are components of our everyday lives that must remain in the public focus.

Sadowski says that is why he displays the numbers -- to make people grapple with the magnitude of the deaths. He closes with an essential message for all citizens: "You don't have to have a political belief. You just have to realize what's going on. That's all you have to do."

The only pure animation film in this showing, and the selection for the Black Maria Viewer's Choice Award, was "The Mantis Parable." Produced by Josh Straub in video format, the work is a true fable in the great tradition of Aesop. In place of Aesop's Grasshopper and Ant, Straub uses a praying mantis and a caterpillar to weave a touching moral of humility and compassion. The technical precision of Straub's lifelike 3-D imagery enhances the fairy tale aura of human foibles embodied in tiny insects.

"I Am (Not) Van Gogh,""Flag Day" and "The Mantis Parable" represent just three of the many inspiring and magnificent works being exhibited in the festival. Just as Edison's Black Maria studio freed creative individuals to interpret and represent, opening a myriad of expressive creations to audiences, the Black Maria Festival continues to inspire viewers and filmmakers throughout the country.

Following a rigorous jurying process, the festival launched its national tour Feb. 3 at New Jersey City University. More than 70 institutions welcome the Black Maria Festival, including theaters, museums, colleges, libraries, film societies and community organizations from coast to coast. The productions are curated by experienced festival programmers in conjunction with representatives from the host institution.

Until July, the Black Maria Film and Video Festival will be in exhibition at venues throughout the United States. Several of these productions will be hosted in all areas of New Jersey, including Madison, Peapack, Paterson, Mahwah, Newark, and South Orange.

For upcoming showings in your area, visit www.blackmariafilmfestival.org.