SBS To Air Tropfest
SBS has signed a deal to broadcast Tropfest this year. Tropfest will transmit on SBS ONE Sunday 17th February, 8.30pm, on the same night as the festival for the first time ever.
Tropfest is Australia’s most prestigious short film festival and one of its most iconic cultural events. It is also the largest short film festival in the world. Founded in 1993 by film director John Polson as a small screening for family and friends at Sydney’s Tropicana Café, the festival now attracts a live national audience of more than 150,000 people. The event is hosted in Sydney with live satellite links to outdoor locations around the country.
Tony Iffland, SBS Director of TV and Online Content said: “Tropfest is one of the most prestigious film events in Australia, and the world. I’m delighted to have signed this deal to bring Tropfest to SBS and to support the Australian creative filmmaking industry. With SBS’s reputation and credentials for showing the best in Australian and world film, Tropfest is the perfect fit for our audiences.”
John Polson said: “We’re incredibly excited to be welcoming SBS into the Tropfest family, with their eclectic mix of quality programs we feel it’s a great partnership with what Tropfest is all about. Over the years there have been many exceptional Tropfest finalists and winners, like Jason Gann and Paul Fenech, that have gone on to have successful series on SBS, so this is a really natural home for us.”
The short film competition is unique in that every film must be made specifically for Tropfest, will premiere at Tropfest and include the Tropfest Signature Item (TSI), which changes each year. The TSI for Tropfest 2012 was “LIGHT BULB” and the TSI for the 2013 festival is “BALLOON”.16 Finalists are selected from an average 650 entries. Tropfest has expanded internationally to now include new competitions in North America, (New York and Las Vegas), New Zealand and Arabia (across the Middle East and North Africa) with plans to expand to other territories around the world. Tropfest’s stated ambition is to propel talented filmmakers to great heights in their chosen career, regardless of their financial constraints, and to simultaneously bring quality, short film content to the masses.