Thomas Edison Film Festival


The Thomas Edison Film Festival is an annual international juried film competition and traveling film festival established in 1981. While presenting feature-length films and videos the festival largely focuses on short films from different genres including animation, comedy, drama and documentaries. Based in Hudson County, New Jersey, the festival shows work across the United States and abroad.

History

The festival was originally known as the Black Maria Film Festival. Its name was tribute to Thomas Edison’s development of the motion picture at his laboratory complex, which was the site of the world's first film studio, erected in 1893 and dubbed the Black Maria.
The TEFF was founded in 1981 by John Columbus. It is a project of the Thomas A. Edison Media Arts Consortium, an independent non-profit organization originally based at Department of Media Arts at New Jersey City University in Jersey City, New Jersey. The consortium has since shifted operations to the Hoboken Historical Museum in Hoboken, New Jersey.
The festival changed its name to the Thomas Edison Film Festival in 2021.
Films shown at the 2025 event included A Better Place, The Professional Parent, The Insides of our Lives.

Format

Unlike most film festivals, the Thomas Edison Film Festival is not presented in only one location or a specific date. Following a juried competition, films are shown year round at universities, museums, libraries and cultural centers across the United States and abroad. While including feature films and videos, TEFF largely presents short films which focus on issues and struggles within contemporary society and promotes the work of diverse filmmakers from across the US and around the world, many of whom represent a constituency without opportunities for broader public exhibition. A variety of genres - animation, comedy, drama and documentaries - are included. Many films address environmental and social concerns such as climate change, sustainability, public health, substance abuse, gun violence, immigration, people with disabilities, and LGBTQ topics.