New York Shorts International Film Festival

The New York Shorts International Film Festival is in its 15th year, running October 9 to 15 at Cinema Village in Greenwich Village. The final days are here, with screenings continuing through Thursday, October 15.

The festival is devoted entirely to short-form cinema and presents nearly 280 films in a typical year. It describes itself as one of North America's premier showcases for shorts and is a qualifying festival for the Canadian Screen Awards. This year's slate mixes breakout local talent with Academy Award-winning filmmakers, and covers fiction, documentary and animation. For anyone who can't commit to a feature on a weeknight, the format makes it easy to sample several worlds in one sitting.

Beyond the screenings, the program includes filmmaker Q&As, industry panels and networking events. Last year's opener was Filmology, a documentary short directed by two-time Oscar-nominated producer Richard Gladstein, a frequent Quentin Tarantino collaborator. Filmmakers who have shown work here praise the festival's sense of community and its curation.

Admission is $19.99, and tickets are sold through the festival's website. Cinema Village sits on East 12th Street, an easy walk from Union Square and the NYU area, which makes a film and a stroll through the Village a natural pairing.