2016 Black Maria Film Festival Program

celebration of its
thirty-fifth. In three
and a half decades the
Black Maria festival
has transitioned from
16mm to digital formats
without missing a
beat. Yet it continues
From Su Friedrich’s film “Damned If You Don’t”
to regard traditional
aspects of celluloid filmmaking as fundamental for both
preservation and artistic production. After all, the prominent
New Jersey inventor whose name is so closely associated with
the festival’s history—the original Edison “black maria” studio
is located on the campus of Thomas Edison National Historical
Park in West Orange—invented the very mechanism that
pushes sprockets forward through a film camera. But Edison’s
love of innovation was so strong that he’d be equally intrigued
by pixels on a digital display.
It’s not the format, but what you do with it.
This month I spoke with the Black Maria’s founding director
John Columbus. His former training as an art student and
experimental filmmaker shaped his view of film and festivals.
John still lives in his native New Jersey, and though officially
retired, he spends a lot of time thinking about the state of
filmmaking and film theory today. Picking his brain on the
origins and meaning of the Black Maria (we also spoke about
independent festivals and film exhibition), I wanted him first to
share his views on the use of 16mm format, its filmic materiality
as opposed to the digital way of producing. I especially wanted
to hear his thoughts, since my own bias is on the side of 16mm.
We all know, of course, that film is a commercial medium, and
that labs are closing and even negative film that gets processed
now goes straight to digital. So it’s clear the market will dictate
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