EDISON FILM FESTIVAL: A still from “On the Sidewalk, at Night,” a narrative short film by Alexander Deland Jr., Princeton University Class of 2021. (Courtesy of Alexander Deland Jr.)

The Thomas Edison Film Festival (TEFF) presents selected short films from the festival’s 2022 touring collection, featuring animation, documentary, experimental, and narrative, in collaboration with Princeton University’s Lewis Center for the Arts, at the James Stewart Film Theater, 185 Nassau Street, on Thursday, March 24 at 7 p.m.

The selection will include three award-winning films by recent Princeton alumnus Alexander Deland Jr. ’21 and current Princeton visual arts students Lola Constantino ’23 and Dylan Fox ’22, along with films by David De La Fuente of New York City; Andy B. Clarke of Ireland; Hannah Saidiner of San Fernando, Calif.; Elijah Mosley of Philadelphia; Alisa Karo of Belgium, and Osbert Parker of London.

Admission is free and open to the public. Tickets are required; visit tickets.princeton.edu.

The Thomas Edison Film Festival is an international juried competition celebrating all genres and independent filmmakers across the globe. For more than 40 years, the festival has been advancing the unique creativity and power of the short film by celebrating stories that shine a light on issues and struggles within contemporary society. The festival was founded in 1981 as Black Maria Film Festival and originally named for Thomas Edison’s West Orange film studio dubbed the “Black Maria” because of its resemblance to the black-box police paddy wagons of the same name. Renamed in 2021, the festival’s relationship to Thomas Edison’s invention of the motion camera and the kinetoscope and his experimentation with the short film is at the core of the festival.

The festival received 670 submissions for the 2022 season from every continent except Antarctica. Following an extensive pre-screening process by experts in the field of film curation, media studies, and production, jurors chose 115 films for the 2022 collection and awarded the top prizes. Deland’s narrative film, On the Sidewalk, at Night, was among the 2022 festival-selected films earning a Director’s Choice Award, and both Constantino’s film, wish u a good life, and Fox’s Tuesday received Honorable Mention Awards.