Black Maria Film Festival comes to Southwest Florida

Amatzo ball eating contest.

COURTESY PHOTO EDISON ESTATE George Eastman, left, and Thomas Edison introduce color motion pictures to the world from the Eastman estate in 1928. Davy Crockett in outer space.

An elderly butcher in his 90s, still working in New York's Little Italy.

Polar bears in their natural habitat, parents cavorting with cubs.

A diner where the juke box shape shifts, transporting an everyman protagonist into a Mobius strip.

These are just some of many worlds Southwest Floridians will experience during the 28th annual Black Maria Film & Video Festival.

The festival, now celebrating its third year in Southwest Florida, showcases independent and experimental film and video. In previous years, it's been shown at the Edison and Ford Winter Estates and Edison State College. This year, BIG ARTS in Sanibel has been added.

The Black Maria Film & Video Festival is unique in that it travels all around the country and is the only traveling film festival that presents individually curated programs.

"We tailor each show to work best with the given audience," says festival director and founder John Columbus. "For example, we have a show this weekend, one in Pittsburgh, and one in Manhattan at Millennium Film Workshop, and they're entirely different shows."

The three shows in Southwest Florida will have some overlap but will also feature different shorts.

"'Ice Bears of the Beaufort,' I think that might be shown at all three venues," he says, describing it as a work that picks up where "The March of the Penguins" left off. "It's a beautiful, beautiful piece."

"Nora," a 35-minute film by Alla Kovgen, tells the story of Nora Chipamire, a dancer who was born in Zimbabwe and now lives in New York City.

"It's a masterpiece in my opinion, just plain and simple," Mr. Columbus declares. "She used indigenous dancers that she choreographed, and worked with them. They interact together in beautiful dance expressions. It's varied; no section is more than a few seconds long. The setting is exquisite; it was shot in Mozambique. A poignant life story."

The festival also shows experimental, avant-garde shorts, and humorous ones, such as "Hold the Soup," a 12-minute film by Faye Lederman about a matzo ball eating contest held in the New York area.

"It's hilarious, and yet, kinda sweet," says Mr. Columbus. "It's a family business that makes homemade matzo balls and packages them. It's lots and lots of fun."

"Davy Crockett In Outer Space" and "7 Days of the Week" are two different music videos for the Grammy Award-winning band They Might Be Giants. The Brooklyn based, alternative rock band known for their quirky songs, writes music that appeals to both adults and children.

And "Yours Truly" a seven-minute film by Osbert Parker of London, England, incorporates images from noir cinema, combining animation and live action cutouts.

Mr. Columbus describes it as a work that reflects on its own medium.

"It's reflexive, playing off of film noir," he says. "It's almost like a scrapbook of these films, but it's not clips. It uses cutouts, it cuts out an image of an actor, and combines it with green screen footage, model animation. It's just amazing. And he makes up this fragmented story of a film noir woman who's writing a Dear John letter to herself. She's pretending she's the boyfriend, and she's murdered him. It's like a collage, just crazy with great music, wonderful music. It's a kind of crazy, fragmented mystery, and playful, all at once."

Mr. Columbus is kind of the Johnny Appleseed of independent and experimental film and video shorts, traveling around the country, showing each year's films. He estimates that he gives approximately 70 presentations at 65 or more colleges and museums.

After graduating from film school at Columbia Graduate School of the Arts in New York City, Mr. Columbus taught college in south Jersey, where he started a film festival. But when he had the opportunity to move back to the West Orange area where he grew up, he grabbed it.

He remembers visiting the Edison National Historic Site as a kid, and becoming interested in film when he saw a replica of the first motion picture film studio. Built at Thomas Edison's laboratory in 1892, it cost $637.67.

Mr. Columbus describes it as "a quirky little building, the size of a medium-sized house, covered in black tar paper. It reminded people of police paddy wagons (which were nicknamed Black Maria — pronounced ma-RYE-ah.) The roof opened so sunlight could come in, and it was on wheels, so it could be rotated on a track to follow the sun."

Mr. Columbus proposed a film festival to the Edison National Historic Site, and they helped him get his first year of funding. He received 100 submissions, and did three shows locally.

The next year, they received 200 submissions, and added a few more shows, including a show in Virginia at the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts and one at Cornell Cinema at Cornell University.

"Each year, we receive up to 700 submissions," Mr. Columbus says. "We're juried, eDeNom and each year we've added more shows. This year, we added a show in Virginia, over and above the two in the past, and in Florida this year, we've added one in Sanibel and another at the University of Tampa."

The Black Maria is recognized by the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences as an Academy Awards qualifying festival for short films.

Three judges picked the top third of the festival's winners.

"The judges have great credentials," Mr. Columbus says. "Their criteria and interests are different than what a general audience looks for. I pick director's choice; what I'm looking for can complement and sometimes be different than what the judges are looking for."

Scott MacDonald is the author of four books on avant-garde film.

"He's highly respected and an expert scholar on avant garde or experimental film," Mr. Columbus says. He teaches at Harvard University and Hamilton College in New York State.

Another juror, Patricia Zimmermann, Ph.D., is on the faculty at Ithaca College in New York. She's also authored three books and is the co-editor of others. She's the co-director of the Finger Lakes Environmental Film Festival and a board member of the Robert Flaherty Film Festival.

And juror Jenny He is with the film department of the Museum of Modern Art.

"She has eclectic interests, very polished and sophisticated," Mr. Columbus says.

He also juries the films, and admits that his selection differs.

"I look for work that can work with different audiences, maybe more specifically than the jury does," he says. "I like to find some work about our elders, whether it's a pure documentary or a fictional work: 'Bob's Knee,' 'Old Days.' To be blatantly honest, I look for something dealing with various cultural experiences, whether Jewish or African-American, the elderly, people with disabilities, that are not just instructional, but have an artfulness to them, and are meaningful and fun.

"As an independent filmmaker myself, most festivals weren't featuring the short form as a centerpiece. I was never interested in making long-form films. The short form is just as legitimate as the long form. Short forms deserve recognition, so it's a mission, because the work can be so wonderful. And you can get so much diversity and learn different things, be illuminated in different ways in a two-hour show in a way that's exceptional, when you show short films. I always loved it. Always did."

And what might Thomas Edison have thought about this festival?

"I think Edison would've liked it," he says. "You're pushing the envelope and using the medium in a way it's meant to

be used. It's informative. He saw (film as being) informative and educational." eDeNom

If you go

>>What: The 28th Black Maria Film & Video Festival takes place on three different days in three Southwest Florida venues. Festival director and founder John Columbus will introduce the films and lead a discussion afterwards. Tickets may be purchased in advance at the Edison & Ford Winter Estates, Edison State College or BIG ARTS. For more information, call 334-7419 or visit www. efwefla.org, www.edison.edu, www.bigarts.com or www.blackmariafilmfestival.org. >>When: Friday, April 3 - Edison & Ford Winter Estates, Fort Myers, 7:30 p.m. Held outside on the Ford Estate Lawn. Cost: $7, $5 for Edison State College students with I.D., free to Estates members. Saturday, April 4 - Edison State College, Fort Myers, 7:30 p.m. Held in the Auditorium of the Richard H. Rush Library. Cost: $7, Edison State students free.

Monday, April 6 - BIG Arts, Sanibel, 7 p.m. Held in the Schein Performance Hall. Cost: $7, $5 for Edison State College students.