NIU Cine Club and Ars Nova will sponsor the Best of the 26th Annual Ann Arbor Film Festival tonight from 7 to 11:30 in the Visual Arts Building auditorium room 100.

Cine Club President Lisa Gosciejew said, “It’s the oldest 16mm film festival in North America which features experimental short films and animation by independent filmmakers from all over the world.

“This year there were 218 entries and 23 were chosen for the festival tour. It’s about four hours of film,” Gosciejew said.

“NIU Art Professor Norman Magden has had three of his film entries qualify for the film festival tour in the past. He is head of intermediate arts and won the 1978 Ann Arbor Film Festival $1,000 Tom Berman award,” she said.

Gosciejew said, “The Ann Arbor Film Festival used to stop traditionally at NIU in the ‘70s, but it has not been on campus for some years now, and we would like to start the tradition up again.” NIU is the first stop on the film festivals’ 1988 tour, she said.