The Nevada Sagebrush

The Joe Crowley Student Union will be one of 115 venues worldwide to host the Manhattan Short Film Festival on Sept. 24 and 27 at 7:30 p.m. Each evening will consist of 12 short films from The United Kingdom, The Netherlands, United States, Israel, Ireland, Denmark, New Zealand, Australia, India and Spain selected from 429 entries. With every ticket, audience members receive a ballot. The winning director of this festival will be determined purely on the audience’s vote, making the Manhattan Short Film Festival the most audience-driven film contest in the world.

The short film is a notably challenging genre that usually falls underneath the mainstream radar. Directors and actors have very little time to establish the characters, the feelings or the moment. Furthermore, film has been commonly connected as a medium that tells a story. The short film tells a story to get to a larger statement.

The twelve films being shown are very personal to the directors (synonymous here with screenwriter in most cases) in that they fall in one of two categories: “autobiographical”or a “recurring idea that has haunted him or her for years”. Diego Sanchidrían Rubio (Spain) directed “The Golden Thread”in homage to an idea that has permeated throughout his childhood: There are golden threads that connect all of us to another. “The Golden Thread”follows a former model and now mother of two who feels a strong connection with another woman. Her marriage falls into disaster as she falls in love with this connection and her husband convinces everyone that she is insane. Susan Everett (United Kingdom) has been fascinated with adoption, being an adopted child herself. “Mother Mine”explores the reunion process between daughter and birth mother gone horribly wrong. Everett’s central character, Alison, is arguably the most complex character presented in the festival. Everett is also a trained illustrator, making “Mother Mine”an impressive visual.

“Ripple,”directed by Paul Gowers (United Kingdom), is largely based on a road trip of his own several years ago that dominoes into a hilarious disaster. (Hilarious for us; relatively frightening for him). Largely recognized as the most funny film in the festival, “Ripple”plays the characters as realistically plausible as it can to make the humor as natural as it is abundant. “Change Coming,”another autobiographically-based gem, directed by Mark Alston of Australia, was literally shot on location. The farm in the story is what you see on film: the Alston family farm in Wagga Wagga. Alston’s sister (who is portraying their mother in the film) is a passionate actress who is just as emotionally invested in the story as Mark Alston himself.

The festival features eight more films that impressed the judges with their depth and emotion. “Ode Ober”(directed by Hiba Vink), “Rachel”(Chris King), “Teat Beat of Sex”(Signe Baumane), “Sour Milk”(Amit Gicelter), “New Boy”(Steph Green), “Make My Day”(Pelle Moeller), “The Game”(John Cohen Du-Four) and “Viva Sunita”(Bob & Lola of India). The two-hour evenings are as full as they come: laughter, anger, fear, lust and tears.

Tickets are available online at www.renofilmfestival.com, Bibo Coffee Co. (on either 680 Mount Rose St. or 50 W. Liberty St.) and at the door. General admission runs at $8 and student tickets cost $4. It costs less to see twelve of the best short films of 2008 than it would cost you to see “The House Bunny.”Sharpen your pencils, ladies and gentlemen, because this time you’re voting for art.

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