Australian Good Things: Outdoorfests!

How to watch 16 innovative and exciting new films in less time than it takes to watch Waterworld, or…..

What did I do last Sunday?

Last year I watched it on television. This year I decided to go. I had a choice of venues; Sydney – 926 km, Melbourne – 1,691 km, Canberra, 1,204 km, Hobart, 2,393 km including ferry, Adelaide, 2,025 km, Perth, 4,351 km, Surfers Paradise 78 km or Brisbane…….18 km.

I chose Brisbane.

It was supposed to be screened out here…….

…..on the Riverside Green in South Bank Parklands. But we’d had a few storms in the morning, so they switched to 50 yards away so it was under a roof, we would now be watching from here…..

….. Suncorp Piazza, which was a shame as I would have liked to have experienced the outdoor thing. As early evening approached, the crowds started to fill…

and as the sun set, the movies began to roll…..

What am I here to watch?

Tropfest!

I won’t explain what Tropfest is all about again; I did that last year in my post all about the world’s biggest Short Film Festival.

It was great fun watching it in a crowd, you get sucked in by the communal laughter, the sighs and the applause. The festival moves fast, showing two 50 minute blocks, each containing eight films, so 16 finalists in all.

This is what Australia does best, outdoor events. No, better than that, free outdoor events. Not only was it free to watch these films in the Piazza, but we were also given free Lipton’s iced tea and free Cornetto ice creams. How bad is that?

My favourites were No Dice Hollywood, Shock and Happenstance. The judges kind of agreed in as much as they decided that Shock was the winner, but in second place they had My Neighbourhood Has Been Overrun by Baboons, which I thought was one of the worst films of the night, maybe it just wasn’t my cup of tea and in third they had The Last Roll of the Dice, which was actually my fourth favourite movie.

It was also the shortest short film of the night. If you have one minute and 44 seconds to spare, this is a good way to pass it…….

I found her really attractive towards the end.

Tropfest is coming to a city near you soon, London, New York, Bangkok and more!

It was dark when I left, but people were still swimming in the man made lagoon. For free!