Overview
Beloved short film festival Tropfest made the devastating announcement yesterday that due to mismanaged funds by the third party agency in charge of, you know, correctly managing funds, the festival has been cancelled this year.
Founder and director John Polson made an (appropriately) salty statement on Facebook. “I have been made aware that the company contracted to raise the funding and administer the Tropfest event is unable to move forward for financial reasons. It is too early to tell what has actually happened here, although it is hard to avoid concluding there has been a terrible and irresponsible mismanagement of Tropfest funds.” And fair enough, as he estimates the funds mismanaged run into six figures.
"It goes without saying that this announcement is the most difficult one I've made in Tropfest’s 23 year history," said Polson. "My heart goes out to this year’s 16 filmmaking finalists, to our incredible list of sponsors and partners, and of course to our loyal and beloved audience."
Tropfest has been a staple in the Australia film vernacular since 1993, when it screened for an audience of 200. It's broadcast each year live to approximately 150,000 people around Australia and, despite everything, apparently received ample support this year, making the announcement even more upsetting.
It’s a tangible blow to the Australian arts and filmmaking community as Tropfest was (and still is, we sincerely hope) one of the few festivals to offer sizeable prize money and valuable industry experience to the winning entrants (including a trip to Los Angeles to take meetings with film industry execs among other prizes).
Can someone make a Kickstarter already so we don’t have to live in a world without Tropfest?