Our stories start out in rhyme, mother goose style, laughable and filled with pigs and candlesticks. We grow into the forests of fairy tales, still searching for enchanted lights to guide us through the darkness and to ward off the branches that reach for us. From there, losing the luxury of naivete, we are mature, our new tales told behind dumpsters and in bus seats we've decorated with magic markers. We don't believe in fairies anymore, we don't believe in handsome princes or enchanted frogs.

The urban legend is the disillusioned myth. Nothing is what it seems in these stories, even the beautiful woman has roaches and spiders living in her hair. Our sewers are filled with alligators and snakes, twinkies have a twenty year shelf life, coke can eat away tooth enamel in five days, and there is always the tragic story of little Timmy, the boy who stuck his arm out the school bus window.

After the first telling, these urban legends lose their plausibility. I mean, who really has ever seen the snakes in the sewers, with their glow-in-the-dark-radioactive eyes? Or ever read a news story about a young couple terrorized by a man with a hook? The scratching on the roof of the car is most assuredly a tree branch. Yet, we have to pass these stories along. It's as if we will be fools for believing unless we can get someone else to believe with us.

As the story is told, it becomes true. The telling itself is the story. This year we are looking forward to the legends that are beginning. We see new traditions and myths born around us, different things we can discuss at the water cooler or behind closed doors. We welcome the films that will become tomorrow's conversation. We encourage the films of people with their own truths and stories, believing so strongly that we must also believe with them. While others may think tree branches and candymen are impossible, we await those films that prove the existence of the impossible.