Margot Robbie to judge film festival comeback at Centennial Park with 16 finalists competing
The plot of the short film that will take director Stephen Packer Tropfest Sunday Night is both clever and timely: When a desperate screenwriter turns to AI for help, he finds that the AI has written a script that casts him as the victim.
The founder of the festival, which has long been known as the world’s largest short film festival, John PolsonPacker’s says unsolicited An excellent take on the threat AI poses to the creative industries.
It’s so spectacular, it’s among 16 short films chosen from more than 700 entries to be screened at the long-awaited return of Tropfest in Sydney’s Centennial Park.
The once-ever-popular summer event returns for the first time since 2019.
A powerful alliance from business, sports and entertainment is behind the new non-profit Tropfest Foundation; Sarah Murdoch chairs a board where Polson, Peter V’landys, Richard Weinberg and Bryan Brown are directors.
margot robbie Sarah Snook chairs the judging panel, which includes producer Bruna Papandrea and Indigenous filmmaker Dylan River, as well as invited VIPs George Miller, Miranda Tapsell and Phoebe Tonkin.
The festival, which is broadcast live worldwide on YouTube, is expected to draw at least 30,000 viewers to the park.
Despite Tropfest only announcing its return last September, Polson was surprised by how much the festival had grown and how many sponsors (including this imprint’s publisher, Nine Entertainment) had signed up.
“It almost feels like it’s bigger than ever,” Polson says. “When we first started talking we thought ‘it’s been seven years, let’s walk before we run. Let’s find a venue that can seat three or four thousand people – maybe Entertainment District, maybe Barangaroo.’
“Then we started having meetings and said, ‘wait a minute, people are in on this.’ Then… we’re in Centennial Park for a very significant number of people.”
Although the main event is on Sunday, Polson says the new Tropfest is focused on promoting emerging talent throughout the year.
This includes two days of Tropfest Roughcut talks on writing, directing, cinematography and career-building, as well as a fellowship program that will give the two finalists mentors and meetings with film executives, studios and executives.
Trop Jnr, a competition for budding filmmakers aged 15 and under, will return as a national event in conjunction with the school year.
“We are born and bred in Sydney but we are a national event and a year-round event as well,” says Polson.
Among the finalists are two actors who have directed short films. Georgina Haig from Return to Rafters and Sisi Stringer Mortal Kombat.
While the rest are virtually unknown, they all hope Tropfest will give their careers the same boost it has given directors like Justin Kurzel (The Narrow Road to the Deep North), Nash Edgerton (Mr. Arada) and Emma Freeman (News Reader).
Packer, whose day job was directing commercials, was shot unsolicited at his salon in Melbourne’s Maribyrnong for $3000. It used two actors (Will Lonsdale as the screenwriter and Bryan Cooper as the AI monster) over two nights.
The idea for the film was born out of his concern about the threat posed by artificial intelligence.
“I can definitely relate to the main character,” he says. “We are starting to see in film production that studios are turning to AI as a cheap way to produce content when it comes to the writing process.
“But when we start outsourcing our creativity to the machine, that’s when we lose what makes us unique.”
He served as assistant to director Jennifer Kent. Babadook And NightingalePacker hopes Tropfest will help him produce his own feature film.
He was going to expand on a short film he shot last year. Alpha TestIt’s about a young detective trying to solve a murder with the help of a hologram of the victim.
While his films focus on emerging technology, Packer’s passion for filmmaking was sparked by DVD.
“What inspired me most to become a filmmaker were the extra features in this special edition. Lord of the Rings DVDs,” he says, “I loved these movies so much I watched the whole thing and they really helped me understand the process and fall in love with it.”
Polson says Packer is not alone in making artificial intelligence the subject of the Tropfest movie.
Some of the AI-enabled ones made it to the finals (which the producers had to announce), but those created entirely with AI missed out.
“AI is a nice tool, but it can’t replace artists,” Polson says. “In the case of Tropfest, when you really rely on it that much, you probably won’t get in.”
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