Folks crowded into The Evening Muse last night for the 15 Short Film Festival, which screens short films - meaning 15 minutes or less - by filmmakers from around the world. The event, in its seventh year, featured more U.S. films than normal and switched up its "experimental" category to "something different," alongside of the usual suspects: comedy, documentary, narrative and animation.

Kicking off the screenings was Crush 472, a U.K. film about a man who obsesses about a woman while he waits in line for his morning cup of joe. From other categories there were not one, but two, basketball-related documentary films (Wilt Chamberlain: Borscht Belt Bellhop and Five/Five) and a gorey, Spain flick called The Acrobat, which came out of the narrative pool.

Animation, one of my personal faces, featured The Gold Sparrow, an animated short about a metropolis dominated and stripped of color by a villainous, sultry creature and her hostile sidekick. It also included The Mega Plush, a short about a shoot out between a gangster teddy bear and an unarmed sock monkey, injured and then saved by a patrol crew of armed sock monkeys.

Now, on to the winners! For the Audience Prize for Best Of Show there was a tie between Caine's Arcade, a documentary about a boy who makes his own arcade out of cardboard boxes inside of his father's auto shop in east L.A. and Harry Grows Up, a comedy about a toddler's adult-like love dilemmas and fascination with the babysitter.

The Jury Prize, also a tie, went to The Exit Room, an action-packed flick about a man's longing to escape a prison-like facility before he is executed, and The Gold Sparrow.

See all the 2013 15 Short Film Festival program below.

Comedy
Crush 472 (U.K.)
Do I Have to Take Care of Everything? (Finland)
Practice Makes Perfect (U.S.)
Harry Grows Up (U.S.)

Documentary
Caine's Arcade (U.S.)
Wilt Chamberlain: Borscht Belt Bellhop (U.S.)
Sound of Vision (U.S.)
Five/Five (U.S.)
The Shoemaker (U.S.)

Something Different
Chopper (Netherlands)
How to Train Your Robot (Poland)
Paper City (Poland)
For the Love of Mountains (U.S.)
ZZZZZZZ (U.S.)

Narrative
Ina Litovski (Canada/Russia)
The Exit Room (U.S.)
Jatku Leiba (Estonia)
The Acrobat (Spain)

Animation
The Gold Sparrow (U.S.)
Borrowed Light (Vietnam/U.S.)
Eyes on the Stars (U.S.)
Harald (Germany)
My Happy End (Germany)
The Mega Plush ( U.K./U.S.)