Public Accessibility for Important Short Films to Underserved Communities

The Thomas Edison Film Festival (TEFF) is an international juried short film competition with genres including documentary, animation, narrative, screen dance, and experimental films.  Out of many hundreds of submissions from five continents, approximately 100 films are chosen annually for the festival tour. From these winners, the festival’s Executive Director, Jane Steuerwald, curates selected winning films into thematic screenings for audiences.   The awarded films represent societal issues and struggles often ignored by mainstream media, such as the environment, public health, climate change, social justice, gender, substance abuse, gun violence, sustainability, war, immigration, human rights, people with disabilities, and LGBTQ+ topics. Since developing our robust virtual festival, in combination with our decades of in-person events to underserved communities, we create more meaningful connections with black and brown audiences, people in the LGBTQ+ community, senior citizens, and people with disabilities who may be geographically isolated, but who can gather virtually around a common topic. This type of programming galvanizes dispersed minority communities around a common concern, and has also created new meaning and strengthened the mission of the festival itself.