Tropfest coming to Sou African cinemas in March

Tropfest, which had humble beginnings in a local caf in Sydney two decades ago, has grown to become the worlds largest short film festival, with competitions in Australia, South East Asia, New Zealand and the Middle East.

Tropfest is committed to fostering filmmaking talent at an international level and offers a ground-breaking opportunity for filmmakers to showcase their skills in front of the largest live audience a short film can get. Festival organisers have said they hope to establish an African version of the competition in the future.

The massive expansion of Tropfest around the globe conveys a worldwide appetite for fresh storytelling voices. It is so exciting to have Tropfest travel to Africa. We know that there is an enormous community of storytellers in this region, and we hope to one day establish a local platform for these filmmakers - with a global audience to share their stories with, said Mr John Polson, Tropfest Founder and Director.

Australias High Commissioner to South Africa, HE Mr Graeme Wilson, said he was proud that Australia was supporting this important cultural exchange in the film sector, and hoped that Tropfest will be well received by South African audiences. The festival forms part of a larger program of cultural and sporting events planned to coincide with this years 20th anniversary of democracy celebrations, which will showcase the strong and diverse Australia-South Africa relationship to the broader public.

In 2011, Australia and South Africa established a treaty-level film co-production agreement which aims to streamline some of the administrative and funding issues around cooperation in film-making. There are many practical benefits to the treaty which allow Australian and South African film-makers to pool their creative and financial resources.

Ster-Kinekors Cinema Nouveau is renowned for screening art-house and independent film content including specialist film festivals. The first Tropfest film festival in South Africa takes place from 16 - 18 March at the following venues: Cinema Nouveau V&A Waterfront in Cape Town on Sunday, 16 March; Ster-Kinekor The Bridge in Port Elizabeth on Monday, 17 March; and at Cinema Nouveau Rosebank Mall in Johannesburg on Tuesday, 18 March.

While the festival is free, tickets are limited and need to be reserved by contacting TicketLine on 082 16789: tickets will be issued on a first come, first served basis.

Limited media tickets will be available for an invitation-only Tropfest screening in Pretoria on 19 March.

For more information about the event, please contact Natalie Mendelsohn.

To access the festival programme including screening dates, click here.

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