The animated film “Head in the Clouds” by Perth Amboy senior Aldan Ortiz will be screened at the Garden State Film Festival. The showing is on Sunday March 27th at 9:30am at the venue Jersey Shore Arts Center in Asbury Park and it will be available for online streaming from March 28th – April 3. The film is listed in the Film Guide for the Garden State Film Festival, which celebrates its 20th anniversary this year. The Garden State Film Festival is known as New Jersey’s premier independent film festival.

Perth Amboy student Aldan Ortiz is in the digital film program at the Middlesex County Vocational and Technical School. The instructor of the program Louis Libitz is being honored as Educator of the Year by the Garden State Film Festival.

Perth Amboy Arts Council Chair Michelle Moreland, who has worked as a production assistant on the Garden State Film Festival for years, was excited to see the film entry of a Perth Amboy student.

Filmmaker Tom Ryan, who shot his horror movie FACES partly in Perth Amboy and cast Caroline Pozycki Torres (Perth Amboy Artworks Chair) in the film, has a new featured horror movie at the festival called Splinter. Tom Ryan screened his film FACES in Perth Amboy and gave a talk on his film at the Perth Amboy Gallery Center for the Arts, hosted by Perth Amboy Artworks. The Garden State Film Festival in Asbury Park recently developed a satellite location at the Cranford Theatre. Tom Ryan’s horror film is being screened in Cranford as well as in Asbury Park as part of the festival.

Perth Amboy Artworks has been exploring locations for film screenings in Perth Amboy, possibly to show off historic buildings like the McGinnis School with its WPA murals in the auditorium or at Proprietary House, which was a popular location for filming the TV show Ghost Hunters. Perth Amboy Artworks established a successful original music series at the Historic Perth Amboy Ferry Slip with local and regional bands/ singer/songwriters.