Tropfest in Sydney

Tropfest is a free, public, outdoor, annual short film festival held in Sydney on the last Sunday of February, each year. Tropfest is now globally acknowledged as the LARGEST SHORT FILM FESTIVAL IN THE WORLD.

From its humble beginnings, Intel Tropfest has gone from having nine film entries in 1993-at the Tropicana Caffe featuring the film Surry Hills: 902 Spring Roll - to 611 in 2002. The audience has grown from 200 in 1993 to over an enormous 100,000 in The Domain, Sydney, 3,000 in cafes along Victoria Street, Darlinghurst, and 7,000 in Melbourne, not to mention thousands of viewers around the nation via satellite.

Over the course of the year filmmakers are invited to make a short film to enter into the festival. Each entry must be short, brand new and contain the Tropfest Signature Item. The TSI can be interpreted any way the filmmaker chooses and incorporated as part of the background, or as the central theme of the film.

The festival aims to encourage short film production, the development of Australian talent and to provide exhibition opportunities to screen films in one of the most unique outdoor festival environments in the world.

Tropfest has been privileged to see some of Australia’s most esteemed filmmakers go through its ranks. To mention but a few, Gregor Jordan’s 1995 winning film Swinger went on to direct his first feature Two Hands, and Paul Fenech went from making short films about pizza delivery guys (1995 3rd prize for Pizza Man and 1996 Tropicana Award for Space Pizza), to making a hit TV series about pizza delivery guys. (Australians are now nodding and smiling)

Tropfest is a wonderful evening best enjoyed with friends, a rug to picnic on....some wine...laughs...and some very creative and unique entertainment.