By Max Gelber
This year, the Manhattan Short Film Festival screened at 72 venues across the world. For the first time, one of the screenings was in Boston.
Screened at the Museum of Fine Arts Saturday night, the festival consisted of 12 short film finalists from around the globe: the United States, Great Britain, Australia, Israel, Kenya, Canada, Singapore, Spain and Germany.
“While the goal of any festival is to discover and promote future talent, the ultimate aim of this festival is to bring communities together via 12 stories from around the world,” said Nicholas Mason, the festival’s founder and director.
During the past 10 years, the festival has grown from being shown on the side of a truck in downtown Manhattan to feature screenings of the top 12 final shorts at more than 72 locations.
The festival hopes to feature Australia in 2008, according to its website.
One theme for the films was the consequences of war on the people living during its time. British directors Susan Jacobson and Eric Boden’s “One Hundredth of a Second” told the story of a photojournalist, Kate, suffering from the conflicts of getting the perfect shot or intervening in the harsh realities of war.
From Great Britain, Tom Harper presented his “Cherries,” which told the story of a group of schoolboys, oblivious to the realities of the world around them, quickly forced to face reality with an impending draft into the military.
“I Want To Be A Pilot,” a documentary by Diego Quermada-Diez of Kenya, told the director’s experience with school children in the North African slum of Kibera who dreamed of becoming pilots to escape for a better life.
Another documentary came from Canadian director Josh Raskin, whose “I Met The Walrus,” is narrated by a 38-year-old interview between John Lennon and 14-year-old Jerry Levitan, with every word animated in a visually appealing short.
Several lighthearted shorts were also screened at the festival. From Spain, Ugo Sanz’s “The Prestidigitator” told a tale about Christian, a boy who hates studying, and is faced with disappointing his mother with poor grades and cleverly cheats to get a passing grade.
From Singapore, Craig Rosenthal’s “The Trainee” told the true story of a man attempting to rob a convenience store that has no money, then works the register to later steal the collected money. Sonja Jasanky, of the United States, presented “Lines” which told of a girl held after school to write lines for misbehaving, while being lectured by an obnoxious teacher about the merits of fitting in.
Fate was the central point behind German director Florian Ross’ “Clooney,” a story narrated by its main character Markus, who ponders how even slight details of life can affect the future.
Israeli director Boris’s “Complete Book of Rules” was about a janitor named Boris, who helps a young woman learn to love herself so she can love her sometimes ungrateful boyfriend. British director Simon Ellis’s “Soft” told of a father, bullied by a young gang of kids, forced to face fears suppressed since leaving school.
Australian director Rachael Turk’s “feeling_lonely?” gives an interesting take on today’s Internet-driven age and how it affects views of intimacy. The evening ended with British director Sam Donovan’s “King Ponce,” a film about teenagers, their views of masculinity and thirsts for acceptance.
Votes for the films were cast by festival attendees after the screenings. The winner of the festival, which will be decided by audience votes at each screening, will be announced Sunday, Sept. 30, in New York at Union Square Park.
