While aspirations may not be as high as Cannes, New York, or Toronto, the first annual Trenton Film Festival kicks off kicks off on Friday, April 29, and runs through Sunday, May 1. But for area jazz enthusiasts, another treat will be on Saturday, April 30, when bassist Wilbo Wright performs — with Wingdam — at the festival’s Filmmaker Party at the Mill Hill Saloon, 300 South Broad Street in Trenton.
“We are going to be doing original music, what we call go-go boot,” says Wright. “We are a trio that avoids acid-jazz like the plague.”
Growing up in West Windsor, the son of Willard and Mary Wright, he organized his first band when he was in fourth grade. This was when he started using his nickname “Wilbo” to replace his real name, Willard, Jr. His father worked for 31 years as a groundskeeper at Princeton University and started Wright’s Nursery on Conover Road. (Wright still owns it.)
After spending his freshman year at Princeton High School, Wright came to WW-P High School in 1973 when the school first opened. Already aware that his future career would be in music, Wright took part in the string ensemble as well as a performer in the annual spring musical.”I was usually in the pit orchestra but I actually sang in one musical,” he says. He graduated as the president of his class in 1976.
Now a Trenton resident, Wright shares a home with wife, the writer and art curator Tricia Fagan. Over the two decades Wright has recorded and toured with jazz, rock, blues, and avant-garde artists, including the blues/rock breakthrough singer Toshi Reagon. He has also performed at New York’s Madison Square Garden, the Knitting Factory, and CBGBs, and has taken part in several European tours.
Wright says that his experiences at WWPHS had its good and bad points. “Because it was a new school, there was no upper classmen ahead of us,” he says. “That meant that we didn’t have to wait around to get our chance to perform because they basically needed us right then. On the other hand there was nobody ahead of us to learn from. At Princeton at that time there were a lot of great musicians. So it really went both ways.”
The Trenton Film Festival will screen over 65 short films and 25 feature films offering a mix of narrative, documentary, foreign, animation and experimental films from around the world. Screenings will take place at the State Museum (205 West State Street), the Contemporary (176 W. State Street), the Marriott Hotel (1 Lafayette Street), and Gallery 125 (125 South Warren Street).
This year’s festival received over 300 submissions from across the globe, including Japan, Albania, Germany, Iceland, Canada, France, Italy, Australia, Israel, China, Greece and Thailand.
The Friday kick-off party will feature a screening of the thriller Wilderness Survival for Girls. The husband-wife directorial team of Kim Roberts and Eli Despres will attend.
On Sunday, the closing night festivities begin with the Trenton Film Festival Award Ceremony (called “The Ernies”) honoring actors in narrative short and feature films with the inaugural Richard Kind Dramatic Award. Closing out the evening is a screening of the 2005 Sundance Film Festival documentary, Trudell, with director/producer Heather Rae in attendance. For tickets, call 609-396-6966. For the full schedule visit www.trentonfilmfesteival.org.
Trenton Film Festival
Friday, April 29
New Jersey State Museum, The Contemporary, Marriott Hotel, Gallery 125, 609-396-6966. First day for the second annual film festival in Trenton features more than 65 short films, 25 feature films, seminars, parties, and awards. Through May 1. All-access weekend pass, $75; students and seniors, $60. Regular screenings, $8; seminars, $10; kick-off party, $20. Visit www.trentonfilmfestival.org for information, schedule, and tickets.
