Newton - Sussex County Community College will play host to the 25th annual Black Maria Film Festival spring tour at 7:30 p.m. on Saturday, April 1, at the Sussex Bank Theater at the college. A custom-created program of free spirited, fresh, and visionary independent films will be shown. Admission is $3. Since 1981, the annual Black Maria Film and Video Festival, an international juried competition and award tour, has been striving to fulfill its mission to advocate, exhibit and reward cutting-edge works from independent film and video makers. The festival is known for its national public exhibition program, which features a variety of bold contemporary works drawn from the annual collection of 50 award-winning films and videos. The festival has its roots in New Jersey, where Thomas Edison developed motion picture technology at his West Orange lab facilities just over 100 years ago. One of the laboratories was the Black Maria, the world’s first motion picture studio. It was a “purpose built” structure that had a hinged roof and rotated on a circular wooden track, allowing the studio to follow the sun and illuminate the stage within. A technological marvel for its day, the Black Maria is an artifact from the dawn of moving pictures. Acrobats, strong men, vaudeville performers, actors and dancers, and a spectrum of characters from all walks of life were invited to the Black Maria to be filmed. Today the works exhibited by the Black Maria Film and Video Festival explore the human condition as well as the creative potential of the medium. They offer a mosaic of artistically conceived film and video forms (documentary, experimental, animation and narrative) with an emphasis on cutting-edge sensibility. The festival tour exhibits the winning works in various thematic and artistic configurations, tailored to diverse audiences at venues conducive to appreciation of the work. The Black Maria was awarded the N.J. Governor’s Award for Excellence in 2002 and the N.J. State Council of the Arts Certificate of Excellence in 2003. For festival information, call 973-300-2120.