The Black Maria Film Festival Returns to Madison

The Black Maria Film Festival, now in its 36th year, features some of the best short films and videos being made today. Programs are custom curated for each site, featuring a rich international selection of narrative, documentary, animation and experimental works. Festival representatives are on hand to provide perspective and a post-viewing discussion.

Selected trailers and clips from the films can be viewed on the Black Maria Website.

The Madison lineup is listed below.

Tickets are $10 and are available at the door.

Student Discount $5 with valid ID

Tickets can also be purchased in advance through Writers Theatre of New Jersey's online service. (a $2.00 processing charge per ticket applies)

Doors open at 7:30 pm for the 8:00 pm screening.

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The Madison Program

Preparations for the Forest: A Portrait of David Footer- Documentary
10 min. by Daniel Mooney, Melrose, MA

Filmed over the course of four years, wildlife artist and taxidermist David Footer looks back at his time on planet earth and considers his place in the cosmos, while ruminating on the shallow threshold between life and death.

Black River -Experimental
13 min. by Eeva Siivonen, Utica, NY

A visual essay about perpetual metamorphosis. Through a rhetorical and poetical dialogue between language, image and sound - transient shapes, imagined beings and their voices, repeatedly emerge from and disappear into their environments.

The Sandman- Documentary
19 min. by Lauren Knapp, Alexandria, VA

Dr. Carlo Musso has been helping the state of Georgia execute inmates by lethal injection since 2003. The medical community strongly and unanimously opposes the use of medicine for executions. Yet, most states practicing lethal injection require a physician presence. In exchange, they offer a cloak of anonymity. This film explores Dr. Musso's own moral equivocation and justification for providing "end of life care" within the correctional environment, while personally opposing capital punishment.

Decision- Animation
3 min. by Mary Jo Zefeldt, Chicago, IL

A short animated film that explores one woman's experience with anxiety and how she handles a perceived false choice.

Auto- Experimental
6 min. by Connor Griffith, Toluca Lake, CA

An exploration of temporal patterns found in routinized pathways. Automobiles and pedestrians are torn from their linear relationship to time to demonstrate the machinery behind our fourth dimensional veil.

Call Me Ray -Documentary
12 min. by James Hollenbaugh, Lancaster, PA

Raymond Kirkpatrick is 84 years old. He lives in a trailer in the woods in Central Pennsylvania. He has spent over thirty years turning his yard into a curious patchwork of strangely affective "outsider" artworks.

Ja Passou(Already Passed) - Narrative
15 min. by Sebastião Salgado and Pedro Patrocinio, Lisbon, Portugal

The story of a father's journey to save his son and how he is affected by indifference and social inequality.

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The Black Maria Film Festival is sponsored by the Madison Arts and Culture Alliance.

MACA is a coalition of arts organizations, cultural institutions, neighbors, colleagues, and friends dedicated to encouraging collaborations among the wide-ranging cultural offerings in "the Rose City."

Projects include partnerships with the Madison Downtown Development Commission on Bottle Hill Day, The Madison Sidewalk Gallery, The Madison Holiday Arts Festival, and The Storytellers Festival.

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