The Thomas Edison Film Festival will be streamed online over the course of several days next week by Centenary Stage Company.

The festival, funded by the Warren County Cultural and Heritage Commission, is free and open to the public. It will run Monday, March 15, 10 a.m., to Thursday, March 18, at 10 p.m. A Q&A with the festival director, Jane Stuerwald, will be held on March 17at 7:30 p.m.

Films featured in this year’s festival are Liberate, an experimental film by the U.S.’s Karen Lavender; I want to Make a Film About Women, a documentary by Australia’s Karen Pearlman; BoxBallet, an animation by Russia’s Anton Dyakov; and Mutiny!, a narrative by the U.S.’s Matthew Gratzner.

Since 1981, the Thomas Edison Film Festival has been celebrating and preserving the diversity, invention, and vitality of the short film. The festival was originally named after Thomas Edison’s original West Orange film studio, dubbed the “Black Maria” because of its resemblance to the black-box police paddy wagons of the same name. Edison’s films did for the eye what his phonograph did for the ear. He made 75, 20-second-long films in the “Black Maria.” The earliest included magic shows, plays, vaudeville shows with dancers and strongmen, cowboys, boxing matches, kisses, and sneezes.

Renamed in 2021, The Thomas Edison Film Festival (TEFF) is an international juried film competition. They have embraced their mission for decades by focusing on short films including those which shine a light on issues and struggles within contemporary society. They advance and exhibit the work of diverse filmmakers from across the US and around the world. These artists often represent an under-served constituency who may not have the opportunity for live public exhibition.

The festival can be viewed on Centenary Stage Company’s website, centenarystageco.org.

For more information, visit centenarystageco.org or call the Centenary Stage Company box office at (908) 979-0900.