In the mood for an eclectic combination of animated, experimental, documentary, and narrative-based short films? Then don't miss Award-Winning Works from the 29th Black Maria Film + Video Festival, presented Saturday, April 24 at 2:30pm at Jefferson Market Library.

Since 1981, the Black Maria Film + Video Festival has been fulfilling its mission to "advocate, exhibit, and reward cutting edge works from independent film and videomakers." The festival is named for what is regarded as the world's first motion picture studio, built by Thomas Edison in 1892 in West Orange, NJ. (The illustrated poster image is taken from an 1894 Kinetoscope, Fred Ott's Sneeze, that was produced at the studio).

Jefferson Market's April 24 program of Black Maria highlights is as follows:

Pickles for Nickels, 8 min. (Danielle Ash, 2009) Enter a cartoon world where monkeys steal pickles and storefronts shift and disappear and two eccentric characters enjoy a certain simpatico. 
  
Never Too Late, 7 min. (Wendy Weinberg, 2009) After 25 years together, two middle-aged San Francisco hotel maids decide it's finally time to marry. Then, along comes Prop. 8.

Buoy, 6 min. (Seoungho Cho, 2008) A hauntingly beautiful and arid, semi-abstract desert landscape belies the title of this work with Brian Eno music performed by Steven Vitiello.

High Noon Reflections, 12 min. (Gregg Biermann, 2009) A reflexive digital fragmentation and reconstruction of a classic American Western.

There Was a Little Girl, 25 min. (Ruth Peyser, 2009/10) Playing off socio-cultural stereotypes about femininity, this personal work reveals the filmmaker's experience of hidden sexual abuse. 

Train, 7 min.  (Darius Clark Monroe, 2009) In this realistic and edgy fictional work, a young man hesitates to act when he witnesses a subway mugging, and suffers the consequence of his inaction. 

LoopLoop, 5 min. (Patrick Bergeron, 2008) The 1,000 images in this experimental work are based on video shot from a train en route to Hanoi, Vietnam. 

The Passenger, 7 min. (Julie Zammarchi, 2009) In this polished, animated dreamscape, a woman peers out her window to see an almost Disney-esque rabbit chased by a cat as a car pulls up which carries her toward her own death.