Entertainment

Why 2025 Might Be the Year New Jersey Film Finally Breaks Through

New Jersey’s Film and Digital Media Tax Credit Program remains one of the most competitive in the country, offering up to 35% transferable tax credits for qualified film and television productions, with additional bonuses for diversity and certain geographic zones. Since its expansion in 2018 and extension through 2034, the program has attracted billions in production spending and drawn projects that might once have bypassed the state entirely.

Published

2 years ago

January 3, 2025

Editor-in-Chief

Film

For decades, New Jersey has existed in film’s orbit — close enough to New York to serve as a backdrop, distinct enough to have its own identity, yet rarely positioned as the industry’s main stage. In 2025, that may finally be changing.

The catalyst? Infrastructure, incentives, and momentum aligning at the same time.

But tax incentives alone don’t create an industry — studios do.

The expansion of major production facilities across the state has been game-changing. Netflix’s commitment to transform the former Fort Monmouth property into a major East Coast production hub signals long-term investment. Lionsgate’s studio presence in Newark and additional soundstage developments across Hudson and Monmouth Counties reflect a growing ecosystem, not just isolated projects.

And perhaps most importantly, independent producers are no longer waiting for permission.

New Jersey-based filmmakers are developing, financing, and shooting projects locally with increasing confidence. Companies like The Chris Vaughn Company and other emerging production collectives are proving that regional storytelling can resonate nationally. With accessible technology, streaming demand, and smarter distribution strategies, the barrier to entry has shifted.

Entertainment

Kevin Smith’s SModcastle Film Festival Returns to Atlantic Highlands for Four Days of Independent Film

Published

2 days ago

November 2, 2026

Silver Screener

For four days this week, one of Monmouth County’s most unusual movie theaters will turn almost entirely over to independent filmmakers.

The fifth annual SModcastle Film Festival runs Thursday, November 5, through Sunday, November 8, at SModcastle Cinemas in Atlantic Highlands, with features, shorts, documentaries and animation screening across the theater’s multiple screens.

The festival opens Thursday night with Serena, a 2026 science-fiction thriller starring Steven Strait and Andi Matichak. The film follows a struggling former rock star who agrees to beta test an advanced chatbot, only to find the relationship becoming much more complicated than expected. The opening-night screening is scheduled for 7:30 p.m.

From there, the schedule expands quickly.

Friday evening begins a series of numbered screening blocks, followed by a filmmaker mixer. Saturday becomes the festival’s busiest day, with screenings running from late morning into the evening across several auditoriums. Sunday continues with additional films before the festival closes.

A Film Festival Inside Kevin Smith’s Childhood Theater

The location gives this festival a little more character than the average multiplex event.

Smodcastle Cinemas sits at 82 First Avenue in Atlantic Highlands, in a building that has shown movies for more than a century. Filmmaker Kevin Smith grew up going to the theater and later became one of the partners who took it over in 2022. His longtime friend and Clerks collaborator Ernie O’Donnell is also involved in ownership and operation.

That history matters because Smith’s career began only a short drive away.

The Highlands-raised filmmaker made Clerks at the Quick Stop in Leonardo, building one of New Jersey’s best-known independent-film stories out of borrowed money, local locations and a very small production.

Now independent filmmakers are bringing their own work into the movie theater where Smith spent part of his childhood.

It is a fitting circle.

A New Jersey Premiere With an Especially Appropriate Story

One Sunday selection seems almost made for this particular festival.

Directors’ Commentary, written and directed by Joel David Santner, receives its New Jersey premiere Sunday, November 8, at noon.

The film follows an aspiring screenwriter whose career and marriage are falling apart before fictional versions of the filmmakers who inspired him begin appearing in his life. Those inspirations include Kevin Smith, Edward Burns and George Lucas.

Santner’s own production story carries some of the same independent spirit. According to the filmmakers, the feature was financed on credit cards and shot guerrilla-style with a four-person crew on weekends in Los Angeles.

Bringing that movie to Kevin Smith’s own theater is the kind of coincidence independent film fans will probably appreciate.

More Than One Type of Movie

Smodcastle’s festival is not restricted to a single genre.

Organizers accept feature films, short films, animation and documentaries from filmmakers around the world. A panel selects the work that ultimately makes it onto the theater screens.

That wide range is part of the appeal. Audiences can move between films they may never encounter at a mainstream theater, often with the people who made them sitting only a few rows away.

For filmmakers, that may be even more valuable than the screening itself.

Festivals are one of the few places where someone who spent months or years making an independent movie can finally watch strangers react to it in a dark theater.

And in Atlantic Highlands, that theater happens to belong partly to one of New Jersey’s most famous independent filmmakers.

Event Details

Smodcastle Film Festival
November 5–8, 2026
Smodcastle Cinemas
82 First Avenue
Atlantic Highlands, New Jersey

The festival’s current schedule and ticket availability are available through Smodcastle Film Festival and Smodcastle Cinemas. Get Tickets HERE.

Entertainment

New Jersey’s Lost Films Come Back to Life at Monmouth University

Published

3 days ago

November 1, 2026

Silver Screener

The Jersey Review - New Jersey’s Lost Films at Monmouth

Some of the most revealing pieces of New Jersey history were never made for theaters.

They were home movies, local news footage, public films, community celebrations and recordings that spent decades sitting in archives.

On Saturday, November 7, some of that material will come out of storage.

The second New Jersey Archival Film Festival is scheduled for 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. inside the Great Hall at Monmouth University in West Long Branch. The event is free and brings together footage held by archives, universities, historical societies and other cultural institutions from around the state.

The festival is presented by the New Jersey Studies Academic Alliance, the New Jersey Caucus of the Mid-Atlantic Regional Archives Conference and the Bruce Springsteen Center for American Music.

A Very Different Kind of Film Festival

There are no red carpets or studio premieres here.

Instead, the program includes material that might otherwise remain seen mainly by researchers.

One selection looks at the New Jersey Turnpike. Another documents the relocation of a historic Victorian house in Englewood.

There are family home movies connected to Garret A. Hobart Jr., footage from Trenton, old Atlantic City images, scenes from the Wildwoods and a film trip through Vineland.

The morning program even includes Joe Albert’s Fox Hunt and Other Stories from the Pine Barrens of New Jersey, presented by the Media Burn Archive.

The result is a moving collection of small pieces of the state rather than one sweeping documentary trying to explain all of New Jersey at once.

Atlantic City Before the Casinos We Know Today

One of the most intriguing entries is Easter on the Boardwalk, presented by the Hagley Museum and Library.

Festival organizers describe featured material that includes footage of a 1950s Easter parade in Atlantic City.

For anyone accustomed to seeing Atlantic City through casino towers and modern Boardwalk tourism, archival footage offers something different.

The buildings change. The clothes change. The cars change.

The Boardwalk remains recognizable.

That is part of the strange appeal of old local film.

A familiar place can suddenly feel foreign.

Monmouth County Gets Its Own Look Back

The afternoon program moves closer to home.

“Talking 250,” presented by the MonmouthNJ 250 Committee, will connect the program to New Jersey’s role in the nation’s 250th anniversary.

Monmouth County Archives will also present Monmouth County Then and Now.

Other selections cover subjects including Newark’s Ironbound neighborhood, Rutgers’ first graduating class in Puerto Rican Studies and a performance by jazz musician Joe Wilder preserved by the Institute of Jazz Studies.

There is even campus footage of a snowy day at what was then New Jersey State Teachers College at Trenton.

None of it sounds like blockbuster cinema.

That is exactly the point.

Why Old Film Matters

Historic buildings can be restored. Documents can be scanned. Photographs preserve a fraction of a second. Film does something else. It shows people moving through a place.

A car turns a corner. A family walks along the Boardwalk. A crowd gathers. Someone looks toward a camera without any idea that another audience may be watching decades later.

The New Jersey Archival Film Festival is built around preserving and sharing those moments.

It is also a reminder that history does not only belong to presidents, governors and famous names.

Sometimes history is an Easter parade.

Sometimes it is a family picnic.

Sometimes it is a home movie nobody expected anyone outside the family to see.

And sometimes those ordinary pieces of film become the clearest window we have into what New Jersey once looked like.

Event Details

New Jersey Archival Film Festival
Saturday, November 7, 2026
9 a.m.–1 p.m.
The Great Hall, Monmouth University
400 Cedar Avenue, West Long Branch

* Admission is free. The organizers encourage advance registration but do not list it as mandatory.

Celebrity

Jon Bon Jovi Is Having a Very Jersey Comeback

Published

6 days ago

October 29, 2026

Shore Static

Jon Bon Jovi has spent more than four decades becoming one of New Jersey’s most recognizable exports.

Lately, though, the story has been less about looking back and more about what comes next.

After returning to major touring this year following vocal-cord surgery and a lengthy recovery, Bon Jovi has already announced another round of stadium shows for 2027, including a home-state date at MetLife Stadium in East Rutherford on July 15. The band announced the new dates October 19 after completing a 2026 run that included nine shows at Madison Square Garden, three at Wembley Stadium and additional performances in Edinburgh and Dublin.

For a singer whose ability to tour was in serious doubt only a few years ago, that is a significant turnaround.

Getting His Voice Back

Bon Jovi underwent medialization surgery in 2022 after suffering problems with one of his vocal cords. What followed was not a quick return.

He spent roughly two years rebuilding his voice before returning to full-scale touring.

In an October 26 interview with Good Morning America, Bon Jovi spoke openly about that recovery and the work required to get back onstage. The 2026 Forever Tour marked his first major touring run since the surgery.

That makes the newly announced 2027 stadium schedule more than another tour announcement.

It is evidence that a comeback that once seemed uncertain has become a working reality.

The next phase begins March 4 in Melbourne, followed by Sydney and London before Bon Jovi returns to New Jersey for the MetLife Stadium show in July. Chicago, Foxborough and Toronto are also on the announced North American schedule.

He Is Also Literally on a Jersey Lottery Ticket

Only Jon Bon Jovi could recover from vocal surgery, return to stadium touring and somehow end up on a New Jersey scratch-off ticket in the same year.

The New Jersey Lottery launched its $5 “Jersey Legend” game this fall featuring Bon Jovi on three ticket designs.

The game began September 30 and carries a top prize of $200,000. More than $12.9 million in prizes were built into the original game, according to the New Jersey Lottery.

The partnership was formally celebrated October 6 at JBJ Soul Kitchen in Red Bank, where Bon Jovi appeared with state and lottery officials.

There is a charitable connection behind the celebrity branding as well.

Bon Jovi said he is donating his compensation from the lottery partnership to the Jon Bon Jovi Soul Foundation, with the money intended to help expand the nonprofit’s community restaurant work in Monmouth County.

One of the game’s $200,000 top-prize tickets was sold shortly after launch at a supermarket in Trenton. The New Jersey Lottery currently lists two top prizes remaining.

The Red Bank Connection Never Really Left

For all the international touring and celebrity attention, Bon Jovi has maintained an unusually visible connection to Monmouth County.

Jon and his wife, Dorothea, opened the first JBJ Soul Kitchen in Red Bank in 2011.

The restaurant operates differently from a traditional celebrity-owned business. Its pay-it-forward model allows customers who can afford a meal to contribute toward meals for others, while people facing food insecurity can volunteer in exchange for dining.

The foundation later expanded the Soul Kitchen concept to Toms River and Rutgers-Newark. The Red Bank and Toms River restaurants passed the milestone of 200,000 meals served in 2025.

That makes Red Bank a natural place for something like the lottery announcement.

It is not simply where Bon Jovi showed up for a press event. It is a community where his charitable work has operated for more than a decade.