Filminute sees a consistent pattern every year: countries represented on the shortlist support their filmmakers passionately. This is no different than what we have come to expect of the Olympics, and what we saw at every World Cup. We wondered if large countries would simply end up with an insurmountable advantage by generating "national" votes and handily winning the Filminute's People's Choice award.

As it turns out, the films that win tend to generate ratings and votes from A LOT of countries. As a result, we've seen excellent showings at Filminute by small countries like Belgium and Hungary. James Cooper's Canadian entry"Life" won the Filminute 2009 People's Choice award and it was most definitely the nation of "Twitter" that won the day. Votes poured in from every continent. Canada's relatively small population of 34 million was not going to be nearly enough to make a big enougfh dent on its own.

So, if you've got a film at Filminute 2010, we encourage you to get the word out locally, but also remind you that the world is your audience. Make sure you alert everyone you know, everywhere that they are, that you want them to watch your film.

We're happy to see Czech Republic, Finland, Hungary, Iceland, India, Japan, Malaysia, Netherlands, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Serbia, Slovak Republic, Slovenia, South Africa, Turkey, UK and USA at Filminute.com — some countries representing more passionately than others.

It's far too early to tell which films will gain international momentum and win the day. Lots more drama to come.