Rising Hollywood star Joel Edgerton, ‘Umbilical Brother’ funnyman David Collins, Underbelly pin-up Damon Gamaeu, and Cape Town filmmaker Ari Kruger are among the Finalists in Movie Extra Tropfest 2011, the world’s largest short film festival.
Organisers say the number and quality of entries this year are so strong they were unable to decide on the last film to be for screened on festival night. So, for the first time ever, Tropfest is letting the public choose one of the 16 Finalists.
Ten great films that narrowly missed out have been selected from the official shortlist and Tropfest is inviting the public to vote for their favourite. The film with the most votes will become an automatic Finalist, screening live on the night in front of hundreds of thousands of films lovers. These films can be viewed on Tropfest’s YouTube channel (http://www.youtube.com/tropfest) and voting will stay open until Wednesday 16 February.
John Polson, Tropfest’s Founder and Director, says he’s excited to have Tropfest fans decide who should be the 16th finalist. “It’s a difficult task selecting the 16 Finalists each year, and this year was particularly challenging because of the high quality of entries. I’m ecstatic to be giving our audience the opportunity to have a say in this year’s line up, and I encourage everyone to go to our YouTube channel and vote for your favourite.”
Tropfest is a great launch pad for filmmakers and Finalists will compete for a total prize pool of $100k in cash and prizes, including a Canon XF305 digital camera valued at $10,499.
Tropfest’s new partnership with YouTube, enabling online entries for the first time, has been a huge success, organisers say. Over 700 entries came in from across Australia and the world, including films from USA, Canada, China, Iran, Israel, Italy, Hong Kong, Thailand and Portugal. One Finalist comes from South Africa (the director will be flown in for the night of Tropfest) and one of the films in the “16thFinalist Competition” is from Singapore.
Movie Extra Tropfest will be screened live on Sunday 20 February to an anticipated audience of 150,000 at free outdoor public events across Australia. It is also televised live on Subscription TV channel Movie Extra to an audience in excess of 235,000.
Live Festival Sites:
Sydney – The Domain
Melbourne – Federation Square
Canberra – Commonwealth Park
Hobart – Salamanca Square
Adelaide – In front of the Stamford Grand, Glenelg
Surfers Paradise – Cirlce on Cavill
Perth – Princess May Park, Fremantle
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