About 18 years ago, the owner of Tropicana Cafe in Sydney's city of Darlinghurst (city just North of where I live) got tired of hearing the many aspiring film directors/producers coming to his cafe complaining about not getting their films screened. So he basically told them he'd give them their chance by hosting a short film festival at his cafe - The Tropicana. It was a huge success and with the Aussie's penchant for shortening names after a few years it eventually became known as "TropFest". Now 150,000 watch Tropfest live!
On Feb. 21 I arrived at this free event at The Domain (like Central Park in NY and Golden Gate Park in San Francisco, it's right in the middle of the Central Business District in Sydney) early with my picnic blanket and basket of food and wine. I was very fortunate to secure a FANTASTIC location with a great view of the screen and about 25 feet from where the guest judges and directors/producers/actors of the top 16 finalist short films were seated! Two of the special guest judges included Australian actress Toni Collette and Elijah Wood - aka Frodo from The Lord of the Rings.
It was a very festive environment, with lots of people and a beautiful sunny day. The only thing that seemed out of place was the sky full of bats which you'll see in my FlipVideo. I was reminded of Alfred Hitchcock's movie "The Birds" - it was very eerie.
My friend Bob from North Sydney Masters arrived with his daughter Lucy just before they started showing the top 16 short films which all had to incorporate "dice" which was the significant object for this year's Tropfest (next year it's a "key"). My favorite film was "Fish Lips" which disappointingly, didn't win. The short film that did win was called "Shock" and is a story of a radio DJ who has an emotional breakdown on the way to work and is intended to be a twist on a real-life incident where a radio DJ was very inappropriately discussing the rape of a young girl.
what a great night!
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