The Sixth Borough Film Festival
Located in the Riverdale neighborhood of the Bronx, Manhattan University’s picturesque campus—just a short subway ride from midtown Manhattan—served as the home of the Sixth Borough Film Festival (SBFF), a three-day celebration of global and Bronx-inspired filmmaking.
The festival featured a dynamic lineup of shorts and feature-length films across genres, including narrative, documentary, music video, and “Bronx Tales”—stories about or inspired by the Bronx. Highlights included a special horror showcase, which brought audiences together for an evening of suspense and cinematic thrills.
SBFF was also a defining example of experiential learning at Manhattan University. Students played a central role in producing the festival, gaining hands-on experience in areas such as press and media relations, social media strategy, programming, filmmaker engagement, community outreach, and event operations.
Download the Festival Program (PDF)Daphne Rubin-Vega - Vanguard Award Winner
For her invaluable and visionary contributions to film, theatre, television and music, Manhattan University is proud to present Daphne Rubin-Vega with the inaugural Sixth Borough Film Festival Vanguard Award.
All the world’s a stage, and the stage has always meant the world for Daphne Rubin-Vega, the multi-Tony Award-nominated actor, producer and Broadway legend who blazed trails in the mid-‘90s by originating the role of free-spirited doomed lover Mimi Marquez in the groundbreaking, Tony-winning, New York City-centric show, Rent.
Rubin-Vega’s showstopping performance fittingly earned the Panama-born, NYC-raised actress and singer a Theatre World Award for Broadway breakout star and her first Tony Award nomination for Best Leading Actress in a Musical—launching a highly acclaimed career spanning stage and screen. Read more about Daphne Rubin-Vega