Manhattan Film Festival - Sydney
“From the first second you’ve got to know why you’re watching the film. It’s why I love watching Alfred Hitchcock. In the first three minutes you know why you’re watching his films. And it’s kind of the same way I think of this festival and the films we show.” says Nick Mason, founder Of Manhattan Shorts Film Festival.
Now in its 13th year, this may also explain Manhattan Shorts’ exponential growth from being projected on the side of a delivery truck in downtown Manhattan, to screening over 250 cinemas over 5 continents this year. “Since the festival’s inception, our idea was to find the best short filmmaker in the world and take it to the largest audience in the world…” says Mason. With the aim to spread interest in short films and create an event that brings people together internationlly, Manhattan Shorts is expecting more than 100 000 people worldwide to view and vote over one week this year, its festival tagline: One World, One Week, One Festival.
I will admit that I’ve never been this excited over a short film festival in Australia by just reading over a program and the directors’ interviews. Each of the stories and the directors’ vision come from a place that is alive and compelling, where some of the films this year came about because life is actually stranger than fiction.
Our Aussie own, writer and director Christopher Stollery’s DIK, about a six year old boy who brings home a piece of schoolwork that provokes his parents to question his sexual orientation, which sparks their own hidden secrets and truths to come to the surface, will leave you laughing and pondering at the same time. I was lucky to catch this film at another festival, and watching it you’ll understand why it has also captured audiences at festivals around the world. Chris will also be at the Sydney screening to introduce DIK.
For avid lovers of world movies and interesting stories, this feels like a selection of the world’s best shorts in one place.
For Sydneysiders, like any good film festival there’s an afterparty after the screening. Yes, at KONGS Jungle Lounge, from 10pm,110 Spring St - Bond Junction
So come watch, vote and celebrate the world of short films.
Manhattan Shorts will be screening in Sydney Saturday 1st October, 7pm at the Chauvel Cinema.
Tickets are limited https://www.palacecinemas.com.au/sessiontimes/session/170/17984/
For more information about other screenings around Australia and interviews with finalists http://www.manhattanshort.com/info.html
