/

Manhattan Short 2022

The 2022 Film Series concluded on Friday evening, September 30th at the Westport Grange on Main Road with the screening of the Manhattan Short Festival line-up of short films. With films that originated from countries across the globe and spanned a variety of topics and genres, our Westport screening was one of nearly 600 venues around the world which also voted for the their favorite film and actor among the collection. The global audience voted The Treatment as the best film, which garners the festival’s Gold Award and will now qualify it for Academy Award consideration in 2023. The Best Actor Award was given to Elina Patrakka. More info about the festivals winners and runners-up can be found at www.manhattanshort.com . Our Westport audience also favored The Treatment, a 9-minute Spanish comedy about a clinic offering bald men a full-proof way to restore hair...as long as they are okay with one controversial but related side effect. The Westport audience also chose Elina Patrakka, a very talented 10 year-old girl from Finland, as the Best Actor for her work portraying a courageous and dutiful young girl in a period-piece drama set during the “Winter War” between Russia and Finland in 1939.

You Be the Judge!

Register here!

The Manhattan Short Film Festival presents ten short films, culled from submission from over 70 countries, and screens them simultaneously across the world during a one-week period.  Winners for the Best Film and Best Actor awards will be determined by ballots cast by audiences in each participating venue, including ours in Westport. By virtue of their selection by MANHATTAN SHORT, each short film is automatically Oscar-qualified.

Which of these ten short films is the best? That’s up to a worldwide audience to decide. Cinema-goers across the United States and around the globe will become instant film critics as they are handed a ballot upon entry that allows them to vote for the Best Film and Actor. MANHATTAN SHORT is the ultimate audience award that salutes the creative talents of both directors behind the camera and actors in front of it. Votes will be sent through to MANHATTAN SHORT HQ with the winner announced at ManhattanShort.com on Monday Oct 3, at 10AM EST.

Introducing the MANHATTAN SHORT Finalists of 2022
The Final Ten MANHATTAN SHORT finalists hail from eight countries – Scotland, Czech & Slovakia, Spain, Australia, Finland and Lebanon, alongside two films each from France and USA.  

The MANHATTAN SHORT Final Ten are:
Don vs Lightning (Scotland), Love, Dad (Czech & Slovakia),Save the Bees (USA),The Treatment (Spain), Freefall (France), Fetish (USA), Freedom Swimmer(Australia), The Blanket (Finland) Warsha (Lebanon) The Big Green (France).

If the 10 short films presented by MANHATTAN SHORT have one common theme, it’s how people deal with adversity in its various forms. Short films like The Blanket, Freedom Swimmer and Freefall explore how individuals react when caught up in large-scale, traumatic events. Adversity on a more personal level is the focus of short films like Warsha, Fetish, The Big Green and Love, Dad. Sometimes, the response is laughable, as in Save the Bees and The Treatment, especially when even the universe seems to be against you, as in Don vs Lightning. How these stories are told is varied as the directors that tell them. In short, there is plenty of drama and comedy interwoven with surprisingly effective newer ways of storytelling like animated documentaries. MANHATTAN SHORT also is a showcase for rising-star actors and recognizable favorites like Disney stalwart Peton List and Scotsman Peter Mullan, himself a prize-winning director, appearing in unexpected, talent-stretching roles.

Read Interviews with each Finalist: https://www.manhattanshort.com/finalists.html 

Annual Manhattan Short Film Festival screens at the Westport Grange, 931 Main Rd, on Friday, September 30th at 7 pm. 

Register here!

 

 

Merri Cyr

Originally from Adamsville, Rhode Island, Merri Cyr lived in New York City for 30 years working as a fine art and commercial photographer. Primarily focused on portraits of musicians and artists, her clients include Disney, Columbia Records, Sony, Vimeo, Warner Brothers, Verve, Polygram, Rolling Stone, among many others. Merri was in house photographer from 2009-2019 for Apple Events in NYC Soho store, photographing actors, musicians, designers and movie folks for podcasts. As part of an Apple events team, Merri worked in tandem with creatives collaborating on artwork for the Apple website, photographing more that 800 events. In addition, she is author of two photography books and her work is represented by Morrison Hotel Gallery in New York and Los Angeles.

You might be interested in