The Danish Poet

Tuesday, September 12----Short films from around the world will be heavily represented at the Martha's Vineyard International Film Festival, which kicks off this Thursday. First up, the Festival presents a Showcase of International Short Films, to screen on Friday evening at the Vineyard Playhouse, one of the Festival's key screening venues.

The program highlights four films that have won awards and acclaim at previous international film festivals. The four superb short form films include THE DANISH POET (Torill Kove, Norway/Canada), COTOPAXI (Zacharia Copping, United Kingdom), OUR MAN IN NIRVANA (Jan Koester, Germany) and BEYOND FREEDOM (Jacquie Trowell, South Africa).

One of the most anticipated events of the Festival weekend is the presentation of finalists from the Manhattan Short Film Festival, one of the premiere events showcasing short form narrative and documentary films. Twelve finalists will be presented to the public on Saturday evening at the Vineyard Playhouse. Audience members will have a chance to vote for their favorite film.

The Manhattan Short Film Festival is quite ambitious. It is screening film finalists over a ten day period in more than 30 venues around the United States, and for the first time, expands its presentation to several countries outside the United States. The public attending the worldwide screenings have a chance to vote for their favorite films in several categories, with the winners being announced in late September at a special Awards Ceremony in New York City.

This is the third year that the Martha's Vineyard Film Society has hosted the local screenings of the best of international short cinema, and this year invited the special event to be part of the first Martha's Vineyard International Film Festival, to give the short films an even bigger profile. Twelve films from nine countries will have a special screening on Saturday evening at the Vineyard Playhouse.

Cotopaxi

European short films have the greatest representation in the program, including LAST NIGHT (Connor Morrissey, Ireland), CIGARETTE BOX (Tomek Matuszak, Poland), WITHOUT SEEING (Salvador Gomes Cuenca, Spain) and SECURITY (Lars Henning, Germany). Two short films from the UK will be screened: MOWING THE LAWN (Michael Benthem) and WHO I AM WHAT I WANT (Chris Shepherd & David Shrigley).

Other international titles include OFFSIDE (Erez Tadmor & Guy Nattiv, Israel), LYRA LEZAMA (Clayton Haskell, Cuba) and SERENADE (Kyle Blanshard, Australia).

Beyond Freedom

Three films hail from the United States: FARBER'S NERVE (Morgan Miller), 3RD PARENT (Christina Frenzel) and HOLLYWOOD PHOTOS OF KATIE MILLS (Paul Tomkins.

Lovers of short films (aren't we all?) have a lot to celebrate on Martha's Vineyard this weekend.

Sandy Mandelberger
Festivals Editor