Bimpé Fageyinbo
(Photo courtesy of Yuri Alves)

On February 6 at 7:30 p.m., the Thomas A. Edison Media Arts Consortium, in collaboration with the Lewis Center for the Arts, presents a film screening and panel on top award-winning filmmakers and poets living and working in New Jersey. The event is at the James Stewart Film Theater, 185 Nassau Street. Admission is free.

“Themes and Journeys of Artists and Filmmakers in New Jersey” includes a premiere screening of three award-winning short films from the Thomas Edison Film Festival (TEFF) collection produced, directed and/or performed by the five panelists: writer/director Seyi Peter-Thomas, poet Cortney Lamar Charleston, filmmaker Moon Molson, filmmaker Yuri Alves, and artist Bimpé Fageyinbo, moderated by TEFF director Jane Steuerwald.

The films to be screened are How Do you Raise a Black Child? by Peter-Thomas in collaboration with Charleston; The Bravest, the Boldest by Molson; and Freedom for Freedom by Alves featuring Fageyinbo. The films are recent additions to the Thomas Edison Film Festival collection. TEFF 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 Lewis Center has partnered with TEFF since 2018 to host the annual premiere screening, scheduled this year for February 28 and March 1 on the Princeton campus and online to highlight award-winning films from the 2025 collection. Visit arts.princeton.edu for more information.