Tropfest 07

To be fair, there were 600 entries originally. I’m sure at least one of them might have been made by another female.

Actually, there were 16 finalists, so not everyone got a gong. The winner that must be feeling rather mixed emotions, would have to be the “Women in Film” winner, since she was the only female finalist.

“Yay, I won first prize in a field of one!…”

As usual, most of the films were absolute crap. Really makes you wonder if 600 were entered, that these were the best 16. Apparently, Polson only views 80, and those come thourgh 3 levels of judgement to get there. My question is what kind of f*cked up moronic chimps are in these first three levels. I already know exactly what kind of f*cked up moronic chimp Polson is.

I just feel sorry for the likely scores of great films that won’t be seen, in place of absolute wastes of time like “Bad Yoghurt”. Not only was it unfunny, but so unoriginal and played out. Lol a attractive girl is throwing up, looool.

Yellow, about the guy in the taxi, was just pointless and uninteresting. ‘Still’, the token serious and female entry, had no dialogue and nice cinematography. Unfortunately it consisted of Lamp, Man Crying, Woman sleeping, Window, Lamp, Kid, Lamp, Man Crying, Window.

Pig Latin was the most enjoyable of the night as it had some semblence of comedy timing and pacing, unlike the good idea-bad execution of ‘Between the flags’ about the cronulla riots and ‘Road rage’. Both were good ideas but not taut or snappy which really damages a short film. A good short film needs one good idea, but youve really got to play the audience to get the most from it, and most of the time that means make it shorter than you think, because usually your good idea is not as good as you think, and the more time you give you audience to realise this, the less successful your films gonna be.

I went at 5 in the rain, carried a bloody big esky from CIT carpark, sat down, started to get heavy, walked back and went home. Of course, the completely black and rainy sky had become sunny and blue so then went back and watched the movies, my group having eaten our picnic lunch indoors.

To be expected were the myriad technical glitches and horrible quality sound and vision, but it came off ok. By ok i mean barely passable, the only thing that made it was the fact that you were outside with mates. In fact, I’m being too kind to the sound and vision, they were really, really bad. But, like I said, a good enough time had by all, I suppose.

From memory, there’s about ten films in the finals. And, looking at the list, there’s about ten that got awards. Does this seem a tad … um, kindergarten to anybody else? Everybody gets a prize ’cause you’re all special?

Duane got best editing for “Fore!”.

A full list of the winners at the 2007 Tropfest short film festival.

First: An Imaginary Life
Second: Road Rage
Third: The Von
Best comedy: Between The Flags
Best actor: Matuse from Between The Flags
Best actress: Elizabeth Calacob from Mere Oblivion
Women in Film Award: Rani Chaleyer, Real Thing
Tropicana Award: Bad Yoghurt
Best editing: Fore!
Best original score: Real Thing
Best screenplay: Yellow
Best cinematography: The Grey Cloud
Young Talent Award: Jacob Bicknell, The Von