Twenty-one years ago in a cafe in Kings Cross, the TropFest made its mark. Since then, the film festival has been one of the highlights of Sydney’s summer and has become one of the world’s biggest short film festivals. Last night the 2013 festival came to a close with a winner and a few logistics changes announced.
By Chloe Schneider
Victorian filmmaker Nicholas Clifford was awarded first place for his drama ‘We’ve All Been There’. Ninety thousand people tuned in to the live show to watch as Avatar star and celebrity judge for the festival, Sam Worthington, awarded Clifford with $10,000 cash, a Toyota car, a trip to LA, a Nikon D8000 camera plus accessories, and, of course, famous fruit bowl trophy.
Worthington joined Magda Szubanski, Rebecca Gibmey and The Sapphires director Wayne Blair. During the night Guy Pearce and Robert Pattinson appeared on the big screen with a recorded message from the set of David Michod’s new film The Rover which is currently being filmed in South Australia.
At the end of the evening, found John Polson announced that Tropfest was getting ready to change dates and location. The 22nd festival will move to December 8 and will screen in Sydney’s Centennial Park.
Winners at the 21st TropFest
1st place – We’ve All Been There by Nicholas Clifford
2nd place – Better Than Sinatra by Jefferson Grainger
3rd place – Punctured by Nick Baker and Tristan Klein
Best Male Actor – Nick Hamilton in Time
Best Female Actor – Laura Wheelwright in We’ve All Been There
Nikon DSLR Award – Matt Hardie for Let It Rain
