Plainfield Kicks Off 7th Annual Queen City Film Festival on Friday Night; Tickets Available

PLAINFIELD, NJ — Plainfield Public Library was transformed into the set of the city's growing film festival on Friday evening, red carpet and all.

Doors opened at 5pm, as attendees filed to the downstairs atrium for the nicely-decorated opening gala with vendors, a bar, and tables and chairs for mingling and networking.

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At around 6:30 everyone went to the Anne Louise Davis room for the opening night film screenings—but not before Alonzo Adams, Janet Dickerson, and Amanda Lee were presented with awards from the festival. TAPinto Plainfield will publish an article on each honoree after the conclusion of the weekend. See the full schedule for the rest of the festival here .

Before the trio of films were screened,  Mayor Adrian Mapp, Union County Commissioner Rebecca Williams, and Queen City Film Festival founder and director Lamar Mackson gave remarks.

“ The Queen City Film Festival is here to uplift the community,” said  Mackson, who called the hard work of organizing the festival a labor of love. “But at the same time, it is here to develop a new community. So what we're trying to accomplish here by putting this annual event on is create a space where artists, business people, elected officials can come together in one space and find common ground so that we can better the community.”

“The city of Plainfield — we believe to be a cultural destination, a destination for the arts, a destination for so many things,” said Mayor Adrian Mapp, who commended Mackson for growing the festival into what it is today. “Those of you who are not from Plainfield, use this weekend as an opportunity to drive around Plainfield and see what we have to offer. Those of you who have been away for a while and who have just found yourself back here, it's like night and day — what you knew 15 years ago to what you see today has been a total transformation.”

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Union County Commissioner Rebecca Willaims serves on the Union County Motion Picture & Television Advisory Board , which is chaired by Mr Mackson.

“We have an initiative here that was partly funded and supported by Governor Murphy to have more films made in New Jersey,” said Williams. “Some of you may know that parts of The Walking Dead were filmed right here in Plainfield, and American Horror Stories , too.”

Williams said that the goal is to obtain the Film Ready designation from every municipality in Union County. She proudly explained how Plainfield is ahead of the curve, as in October of last year, it became the first city in the county and the second in the state to obtain that designation. Read more about Film Ready and Plainfield's recent film and television boom here .

Friday night's motion pictures included the spoken word short film Words Have Power , the musical short film WXLF Pack , and the documentary Sense of Urgency. After they concluded, there was a Q&A before attendees filed back out into the atrium to eat and socialize.

The Queen City Film Festival will continue until Sunday evening. Saturday will feature a full day of film screenings at Cinemark in Watchung. Sunday, which takes place at Plainfield High School, will begin with a block of documentaries focused on the HBCU experience, followed by a curated block of animated short films from Black artists and a Screentalk NJ panel discussion.

Sunday afternoon will conclude with two free screenings , both of which will feature a question and answer session. One of these Q&A sessions will feature Oscar-nominated director Yance Ford.

Learn more about the Queen City Film Festival or buy your tickets for the rest of the weekend at www.QCFFNJ.com .

For more local news, visit TAPinto.net