The financial burden obviously wasn’t insurmountable for the Tropfest organisers, who had been thrown a lifeline by CGU Insurance to conduct the short film festival on Valentine’s Day for 2016. This is fantastic news overall but still doubts remain about the viability of the event on an ongoing basis, especially with the revelation that entries were down by around 50% from previous years.
Let’s all hope that Sydney’s weather ‘plays ball’ this year and more than 11 people turn up. I know that the number of attendees at a free-entry event doesn’t have much of an effect on the financial outcome, but the sponsors will like to be in front of actual people.
CGU
We’re still keen on Tropfest and it’s place in the landscape. Thanks to CGU for making 2016 happen. Actually, if CGU is genuinely keen on supporting short film (any film) production in Australia, they could offer sensible insurance rates for filmmakers for both production equipment and personal liability.
Tropfest For Us
The fact remains, we didn’t make the final 16 with ‘Narrators’, so when it comes time to watch the final we’ll be doing what hundreds of other amateur filmmakers around the world will be doing; finding fault with the finalists and exclaiming “ours is way better than that!”
Having said that, we’ll still write and produce something for next year. Now, what normally makes the final? Umm, it has to have some homophobia, a little misogyny, definitely some racism, aaand, we’ll need to spend $15K.
Come to think of it, what are some of the other festivals floating around?
