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.

WELCOME to Filminute 2010. Congratulations to the makers of these 25 films.

THE FILMINUTE 2010 SHORTLIST

ASHES
DIRECTOR: Robin King

UK

AUTO MADAR
DIRECTOR: Vasan Bala

India

BUSINESS A USUAL
DIRECTORS: Michael Benni Pierce & Shaun Boyle

USA

CHOOSE NOT TO FALL
DIRECTOR: Matthew Marsh

UK

DARK VALLEY
DIRECTOR: Oskar Arnarson

Iceland

DRINKING AND UNICORNS
DIRECTOR: Motke Dapp

USA

DUEL IN THE SUNSET
DIRECTOR: Serdar Taç

Turkey/Slovenia

ECHOES
DIRECTOR: John Riley

UK/Romania

THE FINN
DIRECTOR: Eric Hynynen

Finland

5:27PM
DIRECTOR: Jeremiah Crowell

USA

FLESH
DIRECTOR: Maarten Rots

Netherlands

GONE
DIRECTOR: Dhruv Mookerji

India

GOODBYE MR. NICE GUY
DIRECTORS: Ana Iliesiu & Matei Branea

Romania

GUMBOOTS
DIRECTOR: Bauke Brouwer

South Africa

AN HONEST DAY'S WORK
DIRECTORS:The Brothers Grinn

USA

LISTEN TO YOUR LADY
DIRECTOR: Mark Nava

USA/Serbia

LOVE SUICIDES: PROLOGUE
DIRECTOR: Edmund Yeo

Malaysia/Japan

MADAM A.
Daniel Maráky

Czech Republic

MENU
DIRECTOR: Joanna Rechnio

Poland-Slovenia

NATIONAL 03
DIRECTOR: Ana Mendes

Portugal

A NEW PRAYER
DIRECTOR: Dorin Pene

Romania

SERVED COLD
DIRECTOR: Gábor Hörcher

Hungary

SHIVER IN THE EVENING OCEAN AIR
DIRECTOR: Tubomi Koukou

Japan

THE WALL
DIRECTOR: Tomas Rafa

Slovak Republic

YELLOW
DIRECTOR: Motke Dapp

USA

VIEW, RATE, COMMENT & VOTE
www.Filminute.com

Submissions overview

Now that we've completed the Call for Entry, submission, and review stages, we've got some updated numbers on where Filminute films came from this year.

While Filminute has customarily attracted a significant portion of our festival audience from India, this is the year we saw India overtake all other countries in submissions. Over 15% of submissions came from India, surging past a flood of US filmmakers. You will see 2 Indian films on this year's shortlist.

The US has been a late entrant to the party and for the first time caught up to our UK volume of submissions. Central and Eastern Europe continue to be a powerful source of films, and that's been consistent since the Filminute's inception in 2006.

We also saw our broadest array of films from Central and South America, with submissions from Ecuador, Colombia, Mexico, Argentina and Brazil.

More insights to come. But it all becomes tangible tomorrow when we announce the Filminute 2010 shortlist. Let the screenings begin!