I get to fulfill one of the greatest desires of a native Brooklyn entertainer–moving the crowd in the magnificent Prospect Park! another career highlight of sharing the stage and hosting duties with a(nother) Tony-Award winner and my man DJ Concerned. It’s true, and here’s proof!

Tropfest enables emerging filmmakers and others to have the opportunity to take part in this global phenomenon. If selected as a finalist, they will see their short film screened in front of a massive live and online audience and count themselves amongst an impressive alumni of filmmakers whose careers have been kick-started by Tropfest.

Truly an innovative concept and platform for filmmakers of diverse backgrounds to gain exposure and experience, Tropfest has become one of the world’s best springboards for emerging talent. Scores of films made for and screened at Tropfest have gone on to gain commercial distribution (eg. the hit US TV series “Wilfred” on FX began life as a 2002 Tropfest short film!)

Past Tropfest finalists include: Sam Worthington (Avatar); Joel Edgerton (The Great Gatsby, Warrior, Animal Kingdom); Alister Grierson (director of the James Cameron-produced Sanctum); Nash Edgerton (director of “Spider”, “Lucky”, “The Square” and “Bear”) and many more.

John Polson started the ‘Tropicana Short Film Festival’ (as it was originally known) as an informal short film screening for cast, crew and friends at the Tropicana Cafe in Sydney’s Darlinghurst. More than 200 people showed up for that first screening. Inspired by the turn out, John decided that a full-fledged short film festival was the next step.

The Tropfest mission is to continue to develop the most exciting forum in the world for audiences to come together and celebrate premium short films; and to continue to offer filmmakers – regardless of their financial constraints – a bigger and better platform from which to launch their professional careers.