EAST BRUNSWICK–Creating a space where young filmmakers can showcase their work to a larger audience, co-founders Emily Eng and Kevin Lin will hold their first EB Indie Film Festival.
The film festival opens on April 28 for general submissions and the main event will be held Aug. 13-14, at which time he and Eng will present awards and showcase student films.
“A couple of years ago I was toying with the idea of a film festival in East Brunswick that can give young creatives a space to interact and share their work,” Lin said. “When I was growing up in East Brunswick there were little opportunities in the arts aside from school electives and the RecordPlay film festival held at the public library.”
That being said, Lin said the EB Indie Film Festival aims to be a resource and an educational space for students, who have an interest in the arts to connect, create and grow with one another.
“We are seeking independent student works from a variety of genres that explore new perspectives and we hope to share original work to bring the community together,” Lin said.
The film categories at the festival, Eng said, will be narrative short film, animated shorts, documentary shorts and music videos.
“Due to the pandemic, we had to shape our festival around the CDC guidelines for gathering. We noticed that drive-in movies were thriving due to indoor theaters being closed,” Eng said. “We were looking for a way to stand out from your typical film festival so we decided to create it around the drive-in style. This idea was also inspired by the fact that East Brunswick had a drive-in movie theater in the ’70s up until 1983.”
Eng said the drive-in film festival will be held in East Brunswick, but she does not have a set location to reveal at this time.
If someone wants to submit their film/video for the festival, Eng said participants from the ages of 14-25 can submit to their FilmFreeway page.
For more information and to submit a film/video, visit www.filmfreeway.com/EBIndie or ebiff.org.
Contact Vashti Harris at vharris@newspapermediagroup.com.
