Monday, April 03, 2006

"For my sister"

Each year in Sydney we have the Tropfest short film festival. It started life as a showing of short films in the Tropicana Cafe, and since then it's grown to be an internationally recognised festival attracting many entries and a huge audience. The entries of the 12 finalists are traditionally shown on Festival night and the A-List celebrities in attendance choose the winner - who takes away a swag of goodies. The goodies have now been extended to the rest of us. This year (and last year I think) a DVD of the finalists was available with a copy of the Sydney Morning Herald. I've just finished watching mine and was intrigued by one called "Sisters". Can't really remember what it was about - okay, I can really but saying "a woman shoves cupcakes down her pants" really needs more explanation. Anyway, at the end, there was the dedication "For My Sister" and I thought gee, even though that seemed to be about dysfunctional sisters, it can't be that bad. And then "go to hell" came on screen. Guess I was wrong - but wow, what a plain-speaking, if incredibly public, airing of feelings.
The other observation from the films was what I seem to remember was a film that people were calling "fraud" film. Entries in Tropfest are supposed to be made for Tropfest, and there is always a motif or an item that needs to be included. This year's was a bubble - and people did use it in a variety of ways - thought bubble, washing up water, bubble gum etc. In the snake "documentary", there was a brief cutaway to a bubble - which seemed to have no relevance to the film - which could be because the film was supposedly made some time ago. However, that's not the point I wanted to raise here. Imagine if you were a snake with an overactive gag reflex!

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