ESU Partners with Thomas Edison Film Festival to Provide Community Members with Evening Under the Stars

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Posted by: Elizabeth Richardson on July 7, 2021, No Comments

East Stroudsburg University (ESU) will open its campus to the Pocono community for an evening of entertainment under the stars on Wednesday, July 28, 2021. ESU, in cooperation with the Thomas Edison Film Festival, will host a free screening of the Animated Short Films from the Festival’s 2021 40th Anniversary Tour on the University’s Main Quad, located at the center of campus at 8:00 p.m.

“This is a tremendous opportunity for ESU to invite our neighbors to pack up their lawn seating and come to campus for a relaxing evening of film under the stars,” said ESU Provost and Vice President for Academic Affairs, Joanne Z. Bruno, J.D. “A number of our academic departments will also have representation on hand to showcase some of our outstanding fine arts programs – from 3D printing and musical theatre to digital media. We hope this will be a magical night for families, especially after the past 17 months of pandemic uncertainty.”

Participants attending the event will be required to follow the University’s COVID guidelines to reduce the spread of the virus. Masks are required outdoors in situations when six feet of social distancing cannot be maintained. However, wearing a mask outdoors is not required for individuals who are fully-vaccinated. ESU will continue to require indoor mask wearing in public areas of buildings, encourage social distancing, and restrict facility access to the public until the threat of spread of the virus on campus and the neighboring community is measurably reduced.

Download accessible transcripts of the short films.

Attendees may also enjoy some light refreshments provided by students and faculty from ESU’s hotel, restaurant, and tourism management program. Individuals may opt to bring their own snacks but must remember that ESU is an alcohol-free campus.

According to event organizers Andra Basu, Ph.D., dean of ESU’s College of Arts and Sciences and William Bajor, Ph.D., director of Assessment, Accreditation and Academic Planning, the Animated Short Film screening will begin at 8 p.m. and will run about an hour and fifteen minutes without intermission. A rain date for the event will be Wednesday, August 4.

According to the Festival program, the Thomas Edison Film Festival (formerly known as the Thomas Edison Black Maria Film festival) has been advancing the unique creativity and power of the short form for more than 40 years. The Festival was founded in 1981 and was originally named for Thomas Edison’s West Orange, NJ, film studio, whose resemblance to black-box shaped police paddy wagons sparked the nickname “Black Maria.”  The Festival’s relationship to Thomas Edison’s invention of the motion camera and the kinetoscope and his experimentation with the short film is at the core of the Festival. Thomas Edison Film Festival is an international juried competition celebrating all genres and independent filmmakers across the globe.

The Festival’s touring program reaches out to diverse audiences in diverse settings with screenings of cutting-edge, cross-genre films – narrative, experimental, animation, and documentary. Films in the Festival’s collection include issues and struggles within contemporary society such as the environment, public health, race and class, family, sustainability, and much more. These exceptional works range from animation, comedy, and drama to the exploration of pure form in film and video.

Founded in 1893, East Stroudsburg University, today, is a comprehensive university in northeastern Pennsylvania offering 58 undergraduate programs, 21 master’s programs and two doctoral programs. Over 6,000 students are enrolled for the high quality, affordable, and accessible education ESU provides. Nearly 30,000 ESU alumni live in Pennsylvania.