In addition to short films, the festival will premiere its hour-long feature film, Watershed, produced by Festival Co-Founder and Executive Director Bill Horin.
…to The Levoy. Mark your calendars: CUT International Short Film Festival, September 18 and 19.
Storytelling is an art form as old as time. Even before we painted pictures on the walls of caves, we sat around the campfire and told stories. The ones who were able to captivate us with a little drama, pathos, comedy, and insight were the ones we relied on to keep our histories and explain our world.
Filmmaking is an advanced form of storytelling where you take sight and sound, and project onto a screen a world that doesn’t exist anywhere else. The short film is a glimpse into that world and not the entire telling, but a mere slice of it.
CUT International Short Film Festival is destined to become the premier festival in New Jersey for short-form films. Those who can see the vision can wrap their arms around a world presented in small bites at the 5th annual festival next month on September 18 and 19, at the Levoy Theatre.
Ethan Aronoff, a native from Millville, attended the entire festival last year and hopes to do so again this year.
“Our Levoy Theatre is a great venue, and CUT is a terrific booster that deserves more patrons,” he says.
Like prior years, a premiere documentary from the ArtC Film team kicks off the festival on Friday, September 18 at 7:30 p.m. with doors opening at 6:30 p..m. This year’s film is Watershed – The Story of CU Maurice Rive. The 30-minute film highlights the work of the Citizens United for the Preservation of the Maurice River (CU Maurice River) organization, headquartered in Millville. It will be preceded by comments from CU team members.
On Saturday, a day of 40 shorts, both large and small from the U.S. and the rest of the world, will screen at the Levoy.
“We start at 11 a.m. Saturday and the awards ceremony ends at 7:45 p.m,” says Bill Horin, CUT International Short Film Festival cofounder and executive director.
“The film festival adds another medium of art for the community, and films are appealing to all ages,” says Diane Rogers, executive director of the Riverfront Renaissance Center for the Arts in Millville, who recommends expanding the geographic pull. “The short film entries let people enjoy a wide variety of entertainment.”
Aronoff understands the price he pays for a short film festival works just the same for not only Cumberland County but the rest of southern and central New Jersey and even Philadelphia.
“I find sitting through the whole listing of films equal to a form of time and place travel,” he says. “Like a trip, without leaving home. I’m 78 but feel 20 again admiring the quality and creativity on the screen.”
Markus Graves is a regional filmmaker who has had films accepted into the CUT Film Festival the last two years. “Filmmakers are cultural architects because we, as filmmakers, construct and design stories, not in height but in laying foundations to a premise and idea, developing it, building upon that foundation, making certain that each stud, beam, and all materials have function and meaning so that a story—beginning, middle, and end—can be told,” says Markus.
“CUT is about cultivating and showcasing the stories built by architects, the logistics of mathematicians, observing data about our world or presenting the discovery of a new world entirely like a scientist,” he says. “CUT International is about what history has been about—storytellers!”
CUT International Short Film Festival
Day 1: Friday, September 18
Doors: 6:30 p.m.
Show: 7:30 – 8:30 p.m.
An ArtC Films Documentary Premiere: Watershed: The Story of CU Maurice River
Day 2: Saturday, September 19
Doors: 10 a.m.
Show: 11 a.m. – 7:30 p.m.
Awards Show: 7 p.m.
Screenings of short films from around the world throughout the day:
• D’Ombre et de lumière (Shadow & Light) – France – Drama 2026
• Unauthorized – South Korea – Drama 2026
• The Flying Dada Circus – U.S. – Animation 2026
• Beautiful Morning – South Africa – Drama 2026
• Book of Skin – U.S.– Experimental 2026
• A Tale of Bunny Friendship – U.S. – Animation 2026
• The Dark – U.S. – Horror Comedy 2026
• Fall – Hungary – Animation 2026
• The Perfect Cocktail – New Zealand – Drama 2026
• Brothers – U.S. – Drama 2026
• Unfulfilled Dreams – India – Experimental 2026
• Still – Canada – Drama 2026
Tickets: Opening Night ($23), Satruday ($28) at https://www.etix.com/ticket/p/91009674/cut-international-short-film-festival
For more information:
www.njshorts.com or levoy.net
