Updated ,first published
Before the long-awaited return of Tropfest in Sydney’s buzzy Centennial Park on Sunday night, jury president Margot Robbie said she was looking forward to seeing what a new generation of emerging filmmakers had created.
“I get most excited when I can feel a distinct voice – that a filmmaker really has their style or their tone or something to say – and that can come through,” she said.
On those terms, the Barbie and Wuthering Heights star must have been impressed by a strong year for short films at the first Tropfest since 2019.
It was also a strong year for high-profile names joining thousands of fans at what has long been described as the world’s largest short film festival.
The jury included Sarah Snook fresh from her global trailblazer honour at the AACTA Awards, Rocketman star Taron Egerton (who has been in Sydney shooting the Netflix action-thriller Apex and will be back soon to shoot another film, Cockroach, with Chris Hemsworth), producer Bruna Papandrea (The Last Anniversary) and writer-directors Danny Philippou (Bring Her Back) and Dylan River (Thou Shalt Not Steal).
Avatar director James Cameron was due to be at the park but was caught up in Los Angeles, so he judged the films remotely using YouTube’s global livestream of the event.
The winner, which Robbie described as “absolutely pitch perfect”, was Lianne Mackessy’s Crescendo, comic drama about a young singer whose childcare arrangements fall through chaotically as she gets ready for a call-back for a job.
The thrilled Mackessy said the idea for the film came when Tropfest founder John Polson announced the festival was coming back while she was three-and-a-half months pregnant.
“It was really just me feeling like I needed to rush back into things after having a baby,” she said.
As well as eight-month-old Odeya, who played a baby in the film, Mackessy has $50,000 in prize money from Tropfest. The star of her film, Laura Bunting, won best female actor.
Second prize worth $30,000 went to Jasper Sharpe’s We Don’t Take Breaks, a comic thriller set in a takeaway shop, with the $20,000 third prize going to Nicky Tyndale-Biscoe’s Silent Night, about a woman who steps up to help a struggling mother and daughter sharing the same bus shelter on Christmas Eve.
On a night when first the heat then rain dampened crowd numbers, VIP guests included directors George Miller, David Michod, Rachel Ward and Jennifer Peedom.
Robbie, who is just home after successfully launching Wuthering Heights, said on the black carpet that she had been honoured to be asked to be jury president.
“I thought, ‘if there’s any way I can make it, so I can be home at that time, I definitely want to be a part of it’,” she said.
Snook said on the black carpet that she had been to Tropfest as a “very green newbie actor” and was thrilled and overwhelmed by the experience.
“I really like how it fosters emerging talent,” she said. “Imagine being a filmmaker and showing your film in front of twenty or forty thousand people. That’s extraordinary.”
After fears the festival had not survived COVID, an influential alliance from business, sport and entertainment formed the non-profit Tropfest Foundation last year to bring it back. Sarah Murdoch chairs the board. Festival founder John Polson, Peter V’landys, Richard Weinberg and Bryan Brown are board directors.
The little-known makers of the 16 finalists were centre stage in the park, all hoping for the type of career boost that Tropfest has been giving film and TV makers over the years.
Among those helped by the festival over the decades are Justin Kurzel (The Narrow Road to the Deep North), Emma Freeman (The Newsreader), Nash Edgerton (Mr Inbetween), his brother Joel Edgerton (Train Dreams), Alethea Jones (Peacemaker), Robert Connolly (The Dry) and Daina Reid (The Handmaid’s Tale).
Tropfest has also encouraged major Australian acting talents, including Sam Worthington, Rebel Wilson, David Wenham, Mia Wasikowska, Asher Keddie, Stephen Curry, Damon Herriman and Murray Bartlett.
Polson founded the festival at the Tropicana Caffe in Darlinghurst in 1993.
It expanded from the cafe to the street outside and then to live events, attracting tens of thousands of fans in Rushcutters Bay Park, the Domain, Centennial Park and Parramatta Park. After a seven-year intermission, it has returned to Centennial Park.
In a neat touch, the Tropicana Caffe is among the venues around the country livestreaming the festival via YouTube.
Polson, who said he often doubted whether Tropfest would come back, described the new festival as having a year-round focus on encouraging emerging talent. It included the two days of Roughcut talks on Friday and Saturday, a scholarship program to tee up mentors and film meetings for two finalists and the return of Trop Jnr for budding filmmakers aged 15 and under.
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