Tropfest

The Tropfest short film festival is held in Sydney, Australia each year. Sydney hosts the live event which is then broadcast live via satellite to venues in Canberra, Brisbane, Perth, Hobart, Melbourne and Adelaide.

The festival's name is derived from the first year's location -- the Tropicana Cafe in Darlinghurst, an inner-eastern suburb of Sydney. Created by John Polson, the first festival was held in 1993 with the films projected onto a blank wall and was called the Tropicana Short Film Festival in that first year.

In 2006 there were over 700 entrants and every year 16 finalists are screened in public parks and cafes around Australia. Sydney's annual audience of around 100,000 people attend The Domain to watch the finalists on three large video screens.

Previously well known and not so well known patrons helped the event financially including Russell Crowe, Nicole Kidman and Tom Cruise, as well as funding from big ticket sponsors such as Intel, Sony, Showtime, Cointreau and MadFish Wines. Sony is the primary sponsor of Tropfest.

The winners are selected by a panel of judges made up of well known Australian and international film directors, actors, screen writers and producers, in addition to the previous year's winner.

The Sydney screening of Tropfest 2006 was abandoned after 13 films due to severe electrical storms. Screenings in other cities were not affected. With the judges located in Sydney it was necessary to announce the winners two days later at a press conference.Each film must be no longer than seven minutes, have never been shown publicly before and contain the Tropfest Signature Item, which in 2008 was ‘8’(could be anything that incorporates an eight) to show that the film was made specifically for the festival.

For Tropfest 2007, Hoyts had a "La Premiere" VIP Lounge which sat atop the Tropfest production marquee in Sydney. [ [http://hoyts.ninemsn.com.au/session/tropfest.asp Welcome To Hoyts ] ] .

In April 2007, Tropfest formed a partnership with PBL Media which would see festival content archived and screened across various PBL properties and brands [cite news | first=Michael | last=Bodey | coauthors= | title=PBL's long-term plan for Tropfest shorts | date=April 19 2007 | publisher= | url =http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,20867,21580275-7582,00.html | work =The Australian | pages = | accessdate = 2007-04-19 | language = ] .

For Tropfest 2009, pay television channel Movie Extra will be replacing Sony as the naming rights sponsor for the next seven years. A new feature in 2009 will be the live national broadcast of Tropfest and screening of the finalist films on the Movie Extra channel [ [http://www.bandt.com.au/dirplus/images/bttoday/newsletter/07_08_2008.pdf Tropfest loses Sony and gains Movie Extra] - B&T Today, 7 Aug 2008] .

Tropfest Signature Item (TSI)

Each year, Tropfest has a theme of an item or action being incorporated in the entry films to ensure that they are unique and are made specifically for Tropfest.

* 2009 - Spring
* 2008 - Number "8" Side ways this makes the infinity sign
* 2007 - Sneeze
* 2006 - Bubble
* 2005 - Umbrella
* 2004 - Hook
* 2003 - Rock
* 2002 - Match
* 2001 - Horn
* 2000 - Bug
* 1999 - Chopsticks
* 1998 - Kiss
* 1997 - Pickle
* 1996 - Teaspoon
* 1995 - Coffee Bean
* 1994 - Muffin

No TSI was required for the 1993 festival.

ee also

*List of festivals in Australia
*2006 Tropfest finalists
*2007 Tropfest finalists
*2008 Tropfest finalists

Media

* On 15 February 2007, the Daily Telegraph had reported that film maker Simon Chapman has added a new dimension to Tropfest by making a short film called Get Polson, about two disgruntled film makers who do not reach the Tropfest finals and decide to get even. This involves "getting" Tropfest founder John Polson. [Found at: http://www.news.com.au/dailytelegraph/story/0,22049,21220653-5006002,00.html]

References

External links

* [http://www.tropfest.com.au/ Official Tropfest Site]
* [http://tropfest.ninemsn.com.au/ Tropfest @ ninemsn]
* [http://www.who.com/who/scoop/article/0,19971,1590156,00.html Interview with John John Polson on the best and worst ever Tropfest films on WHO.com]
* [http://www.cnet.com.au/camcorders/camcorders/0,239035915,339273705,00.htm Tropfest 2007 photo gallery - CNET.com.au]