Tropfest
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The Tropfest short film festival is held in Sydney, Australia each year. 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.
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 pack into The Domain to watch the finalists on large video screens. Well known and not so well known patrons help the event financially including Russel Crowe, Nicole Kidman and Dan Ilic, as well as funding from big ticket sponsors such as Intel, Sony, and Showtime. 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 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.
