Just ask Cincinnati film writer and director Greg Newberry, who shot a short film called Homefree here. The all volunteer project cost $500 and included such local names as Giles Davies, Bob Elkins and Sylvester Little Jr.

        Now this: The film about a secret society of street people has been selected to screen at the Palm Springs International Festival of Short Films Aug. 6-12.

        Palm Springs, Calif., is considered the short film fest, so highly regarded it's listed as an Oscar qualifying festival and a must for the short film industry.

        All of which has Newberry plenty excited: “This is probably the most prestigious festival in the country geared solely to short film. I couldn't be more thrilled.”

        Right. But there's more: It's also screening at the Woods Hole Film Festival on Cape Cod, Mass., Aug. 3 and Zeitgeist Film Festival in San Francisco on Aug. 12.

        Cosmo watching: Merciful heavens, look who just turned up in the August Cosmopolitan. It's Catherine Hamilton, owner of the Hyde Park boutique Soho.

        And no, she's not listing 10 ways to drive your man crazy with desire. She's singing the praises of Cincinnati, something you don't see much of in the national press these days.

        She's in the Fun Fearless Female Report, where Cosmo picks two women from around the country to report on life in their towns.

        Hamilton reports that the arts are a big deal here, referring specifically to “monthly art openings at the Contemporary Arts Center ... Nothing but the hippest, trendiest clothes will do, because we know we'll be meeting plenty of young professionals and artistic types we'll want to, um, network with.”

        She also talks about sitting outside Bella and sipping white wine to the tune of street musicians while watching people parade by the Aronoff.

        Take a hike: Life just keeps getting better for Trudy Backus and the Architreks group she founded. That's the one, recall, that gives walking tours of downtown Cincinnati and tells you all kinds of things you didn't know about a batch of buildings.

        Turns out the group has joined forces with Architectural Adventures, a day camp out of the Taft Museum of Art. Aimed at kids, it teaches them much of the same stuff Architreks discusses.

        Soooo, Backus reasoned, why not team up and invite the kids — grades six to eight — to be guides along with her adult volunteers?

        And so she did. She's meeting with a batch at lunch today and another batch next week.

        “We'll ask them to join us now through October,” Backus says. “We'll give them a yellow shirt like the adult guides wear, and anytime they want the bullhorn to share what they've learned, we'll turn it over. I think it's win-win.”

        Architreks tours depart 2 p.m. every Saturday and Sunday from the Visitors Center on Fountain Square; $8, $20 for the family. Call the Cincinnati Preservation Association at 721-4506 for info.

E-mail: jknippenberg@enquirer.com.

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