On Wednesday night, Bwog neophyte Lexie Lehmann attended the Megacities ShortDocs NYC Festival, hosted by Columbia’s Maison Francaise. The festival, sponsored by Air France and the U.S. French Embassy, consisted of 15 mini-documentaries portraying megacities as well as the problems which plague urban citizens around the world.

It’s not every night that you get the chance to attend an international film festival, especially one just steps away from your Carman dorm. Yet last night, with suitemate in tow, I donned a funky dress and made my way to Columbia’s Maison Francaise to attend the Megacities ShortDocs Film Festival. Meandering up Low Steps, a couple of thoughts fluttered around my mind: what is a megacity? And, I hope I’m not underdressed….

Luckily, upon walking into the event, I was quick to pick up the casual, yet intellectual, vibe of the room. Once the showing began, a smartly dressed man introduced the Megacities ShortDoc competition. In major megacities around the world—cities with populations of over 10 million people—aspiring filmmakers and documentary makers submitted short, four-minute films about a specific problem plaguing their home cities and how local initiatives are responding to that problem. The goals of the competition were threefold: to showcase inspiring examples of megacities, to identify new and talented documentarians, and to raise awareness about the problems facing urban citizens.

The 16 documentaries were separated into three categories according to the region where they were produced. These regions were the Center region, consisting of Paris, New Delhi, and Cairo, the Asian region, consisting of Seoul, Manila, Shanghai, and Tokyo, and the Americas region, consisting of New York, Mexico City, and Sao Paulo. From each region, two of the mini-documentaries were chosen to move onto the Paris Festival with a chance to win a $1,000 prize.

The documentaries presented a diverse range of topics, including civic engagement, environmentalism, public art, and food accessibility. Without previous knowledge of the documentaries being presented, I found incredibly striking a documentary about a new iPhone app in New Delhi empowering women to socialize safely and securely with their friends. Another favorite featured an app-based game in Mexico City designed to crowdsource public transit information—sort of like Pokémon Go but on steroids. Another presented the problem of “family-phobia” in Tokyo, how many working men decide to work incredibly late hours in order to avoid going home and interacting with their families. As a viewer with no previous understanding of this Japanese “family-phobia”, I found such a format of presentation particularly poignant.

One of the last shortdocs featured, and probably the one I found most enjoyable, was named “Reading Between the Lines”. It was made by two students at the Columbia Journalism School (go Lions!!), Erika Glass and Nokuthula Manyami. The documentary focuses on a program called Literacy Partners, aimed at combatting illiteracy rates in the city by teaching citizens how to read and write. This documentary was the Local Winner of the festival, with Glass and Manyami appearing in person to accept the award and speak about their documentary. Columbia students doing cool things, as always.

As an aspiring Urban Studies major, this festival surely did not disappoint. The short lengths of the documentaries kept the tone of the night varied and interesting, engaging even me despite my short attention span. In just one and a half hours, I was not only confronted with a wealth of information, but I also added several new locales to my growing bucket list of places to visit.

Luckily, all of the documentaries presented at the festival are publicly available on Youtube here. Perhaps forego a night at 1020 this weekend and host a miniature film festival of your own in your dorm room—or just binge watch them if you need to procrastinate but also don’t want to feel bad. I guarantee you won’t regret it.

City lights via the Megacities ShortDocs Facebook Page