MANHATTAN SHORT FILM FESTIVAL
The Manhattan Short Film Festival began as a modest art-house project in 1998 when aspiring actor/director Nicholas Mason left Australian shores to pursue his craft in the Big Apple. While immersed in Manhattan’s hip downtown arts scene, the resourceful Mason struck upon the idea of screening a series of short films onto the side of a delivery truck in Soho. Twelve years on and Mason is still screening shorts, only his pet-project is now a much larger beast; one that has sunk its teeth firmly into the global film landscape. Taking place in over 200 cities across six continents during one week, and drawing a crowd of over 100,000 people, the Manhattan Short is notable for dispensing with the usual judge/audience dichotomy, instead allowing audience members to choose an overall winner from a schedule of ten finalist films. Amongst the finalists is Aussie short Push Bike, which uses the potentially comical situation of inadvertent public nudity as a springboard to explore the difficulty in reconciling married life with sexuality. The other finalists are Watching (UK), Underground (Mexico), Party (Croatia), Madagascar (France), The Pool (Ireland), A Little Inconvenience (Canada), Echo (Poland), War (Italy) and 12 Years (Germany), a peculiar looking break-up film starring anthropomorphic dogs. Mason may have all but dispensed with the delivery truck, but the festival still promises to deliver some exceptionally juicy cinematic goods.
Sept 30, 6:30 pm, Chauvel Cinema (Paddington Town Hall, Cnr Oxford St & Oatley Rd), $13, 9361 5398, manhattanshort.com
