Logo for the Six Borough Film Festival
MANHATTAN.EDU / COURTESY
Maizy Swift Senior Writer
Manhattan University (MU) will host the Sixth Borough Film Festival, a student-organized event showcasing films from 27 countries, beginning April 10 and running through April 12 across multiple campus locations.
The festival will open on Friday, April 10, with a horror film screening in Hayden Hall, Room 100. Additional films will be shown on Saturday, April 11, followed by an award ceremony recognizing participating filmmakers. The event will conclude on Sunday, April 12, with a potential special guest appearance in Kelly Commons from 12 p.m. to 2 p.m.
The planning for the event began when Robert Cole, MU’s executive director of marketing, spoke with Michael Grabowski, Ph.D., a professor in the Communication, Sound and Media Arts Department at MU, about the possibility of hosting a film festival on campus.
The conversation sparked the idea of creating an internship-based initiative that would give students the opportunity to help plan and organize the festival.
“We created this experiential learning course, kind of like an internship… where the students are basically managing and putting together all the different departments to make this festival happen,” Grabowski said. “I feel like I am the coordinator and sort of a mentor… but it’s really the students that are making this happen.”
The program assigns each student a different role in overseeing the planning of the festival, with weekly check-ins to track progress. The Quadrangle spoke with Max Bennett, a senior English major and member of the planning team. Bennett explained that he initially became interested in helping create a similar event after attending a film festival while studying abroad.
“I studied abroad last spring in Rome, and they have their own film festival,” Bennett said. “I was telling Grabowski about it, and as it turns out, he was already planning on running a class that was going to teach [students] how to manage and plan a film festival… then one thing led to another, and it was decided that in this class we’re going to be running an actual film festival.”
Bennett provided further insight into his role, as well as the teams and current operations behind the festival.
“There’s a team for awards, filmmaker hospitality, social media, press production, post production… With my role, I make sure that we are all on the same page,” Bennett said. “I’m a helping hand in whatever ways that they need me.”
When asked how the festival was able to achieve such a wide outreach, Bennett pointed to Grabowski’s professional network.
“Grabowski has lived many lives… so he started asking his friends and previous colleagues if anyone would be interested in collaborating on this project,” Bennett said.
The festival received a large amount of submissions through the Film Freeway website, allowing filmmakers to submit their work from all over the world.
“We have films from such a wide variety of places,” Grabowski said. “When we set out our calls for nominations, I thought maybe we would get 20 films, maybe 25 if we were lucky, and we ended up getting 183 submissions, [from] 30 different countries.”
The films were reviewed by a panel of judges based on category, with the best in each section selected for awards.
“Once we sent out acceptances, we set up a panel of three judges,” Grabowski said. “We had students judge the student category of films, which is where we had the largest number of entries.”
Kara Horn, a senior communication major and director of communication for the film festival, continued to speak about the wide range of films that will be shown.
“We have short films, we have long feature films, we have documentaries, we have narratives, we have horror films, we even have music videos all over the place,” Horn said.
Additionally, the festival will give attendees the opportunity to interact with filmmakers through Q&A sessions following the select screenings.
“So far, we’ve had 20 filmmakers say that they’re going to show up and do Q&As with their movies, so this is a great opportunity not only to see the films, but to actually talk with some of the filmmakers,” Grabowski said.
There will also be a special screening on Saturday night during the festival.
“Our featured presentation on Saturday at 7:30 p.m. is the hit Netflix documentary ‘Secret Mall Apartment,’” Grabowski said. “We have the producer and possibly the director coming to talk about the film after we screen it.”
Grabowski continued to highlight the dedication students have shown while preparing for the event.
“The students are really the ones putting this together, and it’s been so joyful to see,” Grabowski said. “They’re running social media accounts on Instagram, TikTok and Facebook, and doing outreach through those platforms. The press team is also finding ways to connect with audiences to let them know tickets are available and that they can come not only to meet the filmmakers, but also to visit our campus and see what it’s like.”
Bennett echoed Grabowski’s sentiments and expressed hope for the event’s success.
“I hope this event is successful personally,” Bennett said. “I know Grabowski is building this from the ground up. It would be really nice to see this become something he can be proud of and hopefully continue next year and beyond.”
Horn continues to encourage students to take advantage of the opportunity to attend the festival, emphasizing its accessibility, networking potential, and the chance to engage directly with filmmakers about their creative processes.
“Why wouldn’t you go? It’s free, it’s going to be super cool, and you have the opportunity to meet and listen to filmmakers talk about their process,” Horn said. “It’s a great networking opportunity, especially if you want to get into the industry. Most college campuses don’t have a film festival, so it’s really unique what we’re doing, and we’re working hard to make it worth everyone’s while.”
Tickets for the Sixth Borough Film Festival will be free for all MU students and accessible through email, while members of the general public can attend for $5.