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Altona, Shame on You – Online for 24 Hours and In-Person at 5PM!

Saturday, June 01, 2024 @ 5:00pm



New Jersey International Film Festival
71 Hamilton Street, New Brunswick, NJ 08901

Shame on You – Jeffrey Himpele (Princeton, New Jersey)

This film exposes the untold personal costs of victims of the debt collection industry that is enabled by fear of the judicial system and hidden shame about debt. In this animated documentary, we recreate our telephone interviews and the personal stories of people trapped in debt collection lawsuits. We want audiences to openly discuss how shame is used in relation to debt, and to assertively talk about their own debt collection cases. The low value/high volume debt collection business is massive - 1 in 4 people have been pursued by a debt collector. But the stories are untold and cases are unopposed because of shame. Consequently, in some states 90% of debtors are unrepresented in courts and many of those end in default judgements against debtors. Here, our interviewees start a conversation about an industry that uses shame and the courts against people who have everything to lose. This is the shame that should be carried by those who put them in these debts in the first place. 2023; 11 min.



Altona – The Affolter Brothers (New Westminster, BC, Canada)

His throat was slit. He was set on fire. Left for dead. Yet his greatest challenge... was learning to forgive. This true crime documentary examines the far-reaching effects of a deadly attack that shattered a community and the survivor who needed to face his demons in order to overcome them. The debut feature from the award-winning Affolter brothers, Altona combines stunning animation with never-before-told eyewitness accounts to ask the question, can you forgive what you'll never forget? 2023; 94 min. *This film contains extremely graphic and sensitive material that may be triggering to some audiences*




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New Jersey Film Festival: IT’S A to Z: The ART OF ARLEEN SCHLOSS & Demi-Demons

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71 Hamilton Street, New Brunswick, NJ 08901
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71 Hamilton Street, New Brunswick, NJ 08901
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New Jersey Film Festival: Shorts Program #2 - The Hollowing, Brooklyn, Disoriented, Phantom Limb, Help Yourself, Dinner at Manny’s

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71 Hamilton Street, New Brunswick, NJ 08901
category: film

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New Jersey Film Festival: No Somos Maquinas: We Are Not Machines

Sunday, February 02, 2025 @ 5:00pm
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71 Hamilton Street, New Brunswick, NJ 08901
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New

New Jersey Film Festival: God Teeth & The Traumatist

Friday, February 07, 2025 @ 7:00pm
NJ Film Festival
71 Hamilton Street, New Brunswick, NJ 08901
category: film


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EVENT PREVIEWS

Amazing

Amazing Feature God Teeth screens at the New Jersey Film Festival on February 7!

For many, the process of finding footage online and crafting a well-thought-out plot and connection between these shots may seem incredibly daunting and time-consuming. For musician and filmmaker Robbie C. Williamson, it is an exciting opportunity to craft something extremely unique and intriguing. Williamson’s found footage film God Teeth represents this excitement and exemplifies the exceptional results of his long-term efforts and passion for storytelling.



Immersive

Immersive The Hollowing screens at the 2025 New Jersey Film Festival on February 1st!

The Hollowing, directed by Steven Weinzierl, follows a couple as they try an experimental therapy to test the compatibility of their relationship. They are placed into a sleep state and are put into a false reality together. This dream-like version of their life showcases the mundane, everyday scenarios of a relationship to the more supernatural and grotesque elements that are unearthed by this therapy. It starts off with relatable feelings of relationship trouble while introducing and building up who the characters are and their relationship to each other, before taking dramatic turns and heightening the stakes of the relationship between the two as the therapy procedure continues. The film plays with the line between reality and dream in a way that is both noticeable and unnoticeable, creating a sense of suspense that is only heightened by the events unfolding onscreen. The film also showcases stellar cinematography and lighting that make the false reality just as immersive for the audience as it is for the characters.



Emotive

Emotive short Phantom Limb plays at the New Jersey Film Festival on February 1!

Alice Jokela’s Phantom Limb is an experimental short film that immerses the audience in the emotional journey of navigating trauma and the search for autonomy. The short film centers on Violetta (Shay Yu), a young woman who lost her right arm in an electrical shock accident while tagging in an underground railroad with her boyfriend. With her body forever altered, Vi wrestles to build a sense of identity while coping with the emotional impact of her trauma. In an interview with The New Jersey Film Festival, Jokela expressed her intention to create a film focused on female rage and the overt trauma that often goes overlooked or misunderstood because of the internal, invisible nature of pain. This is reflected in the short film, as those around Vi misperceive her emotional scars. Vi’s story emphasizes how internal trauma can be complex for others to recognize, especially when it’s not immediately visible.



Two

Two riveting shorts The Hollowing and Brooklyn screen at the New Jersey Film Festival on February 1!

How a filmmaker utilizes certain filmmaking techniques holds the power to change the film in immeasurable ways. Achieving the best look and flow of the film requires evaluating things such as lighting, color, and composition and determining how they can be applied. The outcome of these evaluations is a carefully articulated and well-done film that crafts an interesting narrative told not just through storytelling but through every part of the film. Two examples of this are The Hollowing, by Steve Weinzierl, and Brooklyn, by Timur Guseynov, both films that tell their stories well through various cinematography and filmmaking language techniques such as color, lighting, and frame composition.



It’s

It’s A to Z: The Art of Arleen Schloss New Jersey Film Festival Filmmaker Video Interview

Al Nigrin, Executive Director and Curator of the New Jersey Film Festival, sits down with Stuart Ginsberg, Director of It's A to Z: The Art of Arleen Schloss, for a filmmaker video interview at EBTV.




 

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