The 2010 Staten Island Film Festival (http://www.sifilmfestival.org/index.html) has announced the nomination for Best Local Film to artist Stephen Barnett’s new film, Staten Island Ferry, a five-minute cinematic documentary about the experience of riding the Staten Island Ferry during its 30-minute journey from Manhattan to Staten Island.  This short film will screen during the Festival at the St. George Theatre on Friday, June 4th and again at the College of Staten Island’s, Williamson Theatre, on Saturday, June 5th.  The closing night awards ceremony will take place on June 6^th.

A visual artist of 25 years, Barnett is a January 2010 Summa cum Laude graduate of CUNY Baccalaureate for Unique and Interdisciplinary Studies wherein he earned his bachelor’s degree “Fundamentals of Directing Cinematically” an interdisciplinary study encompassing the dramatic and cinema arts.  He was also a Dean’s List student and Thomas W. Smith Academic Fellow.

Barnett intends to further his career as a filmmaker with his completed screenplay, Cathy, a tragic yet triumphant story about a 40-year old zaftig woman on the day she discovers she’s pregnant and her subsequent realization that modern society is slowly poisoning her to death, all because she’s plump, self-assured, and a woman.  He also has another script in development titled, The Last Angry Man, an autobiographical story about the character assassination of an artist who publicly questions the loss of ethics and misinterpretation of what constitutes public grant-funded art in a small town community.

An earlier film of Barnett’s The Red Brick Road, was an Official Selection at the 2001 Rhode Island International Film Festival.  You can learn more about his art and filmography at his Website, http://stephenbarnett.net/index.html.