Have you ever watched the Academy Awards and felt you would have been a better judge of what’s good and what’s not? Well, the Manhattan Short Film Festival offers the chance to let your inner critic come out and be heard.
During the festival, running from Sept. 26 through September 29 at the M.V. Film Center, you can cast your vote for best film and best actor.
Each film is automatically Oscar-qualified by being selected by Manhattan Short. And you can tell why. The festival has curated a fine selection of engrossing shorts that span genres and directors and countries.
“The Talent” from the United Kingdom and directed by Thomas May Bailey begins on the set of a luxury car commercial. The lowly production assistant of uncertain gender is smitten by the main star. Through subtle manipulation, the assistant tries to get the attention of the leading man, who is distracted by a pending crisis in his upcoming movie. In a mere 15 minutes, the short is a fascinating exploration of masculinity and desire.
“I’m Not a Robot” from the Netherlands is directed by Victoria Warmerdam. In a music industry office, the young employee gets locked out of her computer when she can’t pass those terribly annoying security tests to prove you are a person. What is initially amusing when her humanity is questioned turns deadly serious as the story unfolds.
“The Mother” is a visually evocative Ukrainian film by Mariia Felenko. In a mere eight minutes, we are dropped into the beginning of the war. The story is based on “When the Whales Run” by Kate Uteva, in which a young woman desperately tries to persuade her mother to leave. Blaring sirens in the background convey a sense of urgency, but Mom is more interested in doing her nails and cherishing gifts from her unseen lover than leaving.
In Marco Perego’s melancholy Italian short “Dovecote,” a small boat travels through the canals of Venice, dropping us at the door of a depressing women’s prison. With little to no dialogue, we follow an inmate through her last day as she leaves the caring female community.
“Pathological,” by American director and star Alison Rich, is a very amusing exploration of what happens to a quirky pathological liar who tells tall tales to be interesting and wakes up one day to discover her outrageous lies have become true.
The tension in the French short “Alarms” by Nicolas Panay begins the first moment when a worker at a chaotic construction site comes into the foreman’s office, barely able to breathe from an asthma attack. Pierre kicks into gear to save him but is increasingly bombarded with emergencies and pressure from his bosses to get the job done on time at the price of his workers’ safety.
In the painfully effective five-minute film “Favourites” by Australian director Nick Russell, two parents face an impossible decision about which of their two children to save from a deadly snake bite.
Nebojša Slijepčević directs the Croatian/Bulgarian film “The Man Who Could Not Remain Silent” based on a true story about an incident that took the lives of 19 people. The tension builds as paramilitary forces board a train in an ethnic cleansing raid during which only one man out of 500 passengers stands up for what is right.
The Irish film “Room Taken” by TJ O’Grady-Peyton is a beautiful tale about a homeless Yoruba man who secretly moves into a blind older woman’s house. As he starts to do good deeds, a a strange bond develops between the two.
“Jane Austen’s Period Drama” by the American directors Julia Aks and Steve Pinder is a hysterical, fast-paced send-up of the dramatic, romantic moments in early 19th-century English period dramas. When handsome Mr. Dickley goes down on his knees to propose to Miss Estrogenia, he comes face to face with blood on her long white gown. Mistakenly thinking her period is an injury, he rushes her home, where mayhem ensues as sisters Vagianna and Labinia try to persuade her not to tell this expensively educated but naïve man the truth.
After watching all ten submissions, you will likely find that the only drawback of the Manhattan Short Festival is that you are limited to selecting a single best film and best actor. However, you can rest assured that your vote counts.
The Manhattan Short Film Festival runs from Sept. 26–29 at the M.V. Film Center. For tickets and information, visit mvfilmsociety.com.
