Garden State Film Festival offers close-up of New Jersey filmmakers
Last week, the Garden State Film Festival (GSFF) began its four-day festival run. Amid theaters shutting down across the state, the event looks to keep the tradition of moviegoing alive — this year marks its 22nd rendition.
The festival officially kicked off on Thursday with a presentation dedicated to celebrating the filmmakers and their submitted works. While the vision of directors or writers can occasionally get lost in the frenzy of big-budget blockbusters, GSFF offered attendees the opportunity to get to know the visionaries on a personal level.
More than anything, the festival aims to build a community. This is evident in even the smallest touches, like social media posts that highlight specific team members and their favorite movies, that leave a lasting impression.
GSFF lit up screens across New Jersey, with locations spanning from Asbury Park, Ocean Grove to Cranford. Venues varied from nontraditional spaces like Asbury Lanes, a vintage bowling alley, to traditional ones like Cranford Theater. The latter was transformed to feature a makeshift red carpet and featured a background for photo opportunities, allowing patrons to briefly envision themselves as movie stars.
The pool of more than 200 films from 14 different countries ranged in content and mediums. Some were dramatic, live-action short films while others were comedic animated music videos. The one thing the entries all had in common was an infectious, palpable energy — even before the filmmakers gathered on stage for questions after each block of screenings, it was clear through their work that they held a passion for the craft.
One of the highlights of the festival included "Be Not Afraid," a heartfelt documentary short about inmates of the Garden State Correctional Facility finding purpose through a music theory program. The film ended up taking home the Broader Vision Award.
Other standouts included "Stolen Dough," which chronicled the real-life legal battle between a Brooklyn chef and Pizza Hut for the patent for stuffed crust pizza, and "A Day Out," a short about a man and his invisible dog as they search for shelter after his girlfriend kicks him out.
In addition to the screenings, the festival hosted additional activities, including the group's first-ever Karaoke Night, hosted at the Berkeley Bar in Asbury Park, and the closing ceremony, which consisted of the Awards Banquet in Ocean Township.
Some of the big winners of GSFF included "I Think I'm Sick," which was awarded Narrative Feature, and "The Martini Shot," which was awarded International Feature.
Of course, the festival also had to show some love to its Jersey filmmakers and productions with its series of Home Grown Award categories. "Jersey Bred" was given the title of Home Grown Feature while "Toothache: The Painful Truth" was named the Home Grown Documentary Feature.
While the festival has concluded for this year, for those who missed out or are desperate for more independent films, GSFF luckily has interviews with the cast and crew for many of the screenings available on its YouTube channel. If you're in search of some good music, the channel also has a playlist of all the scores and songs submitted for the music categories.
To keep nonprofit events like the Garden State Film Festival alive, people must come out to support them. Whether you're a New Jersey resident or just growing tired of watching sappy Netflix reality shows, consider keeping an open schedule for March 2025, when the festival inevitably returns.
