The aspiring Australian filmmaker Nicholas Mason had no idea what his Manhattan Short Film Festival would become when he first imagined the by-the-people-for-the-people-to-vote global movie contest more than a dozen years ago.

“In Russia ... they paint the buildings to say, ‘one world, one festival.’ It’s a party. It’s not so much about, ‘let’s see a film and discover filmmakers,’ it’s basically let’s get out there and say hi to everyone,” he told one newspaper. “It just became one of those things that grew differently in each place. In New Milford, Connecticut, the mayor now throws a party for the public on this day, or in San Antonio it’s a day for the people who are deaf and they have people come out doing sign language with all of these films. They’ve all just run with it in any way they want. It’s now a much bigger thing.”

More than 200 cities are taking part this week, and this evening and Saturday, Sept. 24 and 25, at 7:30 p.m. Tisbury will be one of them when the 10 finalist films show at the Katharine Cornell Theatre on Spring Street.

All audience members receive a ballot card as they enter and pick their favorite of the 10 films. Each theater tallies the results and the winner will be announced in New York Sunday, Oct. 3.

The films comes from all over the world — A Little Inconvenience from Canada, War from Italy, Echo from Poland, Push Bike from Australia, Party from Croatia, The Pool from Ireland, Watching from the U.K., Underground from Mexico, 12 Years from Germany and Madagascar from France.

Each is 18 minutes or shorter.

Admission is $10, or $7 for Martha’s Vineyard Film Society members. For details, see online manhattanshort.com.