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IU Participates In The Manhattan Short Film Festival

A man in a fur hood looks out into the snowy distance.

The Manhattan Short Film Festival is playing in the Indiana Memorial Union's Whittenberger Auditorium this weekend at 8pm each evening.

The Manhattan Short Film Festival is currently the world's first annual global film festival, reaching audiences of up to 100,000 people in 300 cities internationally for one week every year. This year's festival features 10 films from 10 different countries ranging in a variety of themes from a school run by an authoritarian regime to the bad luck of three men over a span of centuries.

The festival began in the fall of 1998 when avid film lover Nicholas Mason attached a portable projection screen to the side of his truck on a street in New York City. From there, it became a slightly low-key event, garnering impressive amounts of New York audiences every year and even celebrity support for film judging. However, it was not until after September 11, 2001 that the festival obtained global media attention, continuing to go on with the festival and successfully uniting audiences under cinema despite the post-attack despair. In the next years, the festival began to receive more and more entries of compelling films that express human reality in a way that Mason felt needed to be shared with the entire world-and the rest is history.

Described as "the world's most people powered festival," the Manhattan Short Film Festival now has its audiences judge the films at hand, believing that the public has the most power in determining cinematic greatness. Upon entering the festival, each audience member will receive a ballot of the short films and will vote on categories like "Best Animation," "Best Cinematography," "Best Editor," "Best Screenplay" and overall best film.  Winners will be announced in New York City on Sunday, October 7.

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