By Cara Nash
Luck finally seemed to be on Tropfest’s side last night with the short film festival enjoying perfect weather and packed crowds for its return at Sydney’s Centennial Park, having been cancelled last year amidst funding woes.
LA-based filmmakers Spencer Susser (pictured above with festival director John Polson and judge Mel Gibson) and Daniel ‘Cloud’ Campos (beamed to the festival via a smartphone) took out the top prize with their short film Shiny, a stop-frame animation that challenges the materialistic status quo. The impressive short – which animates real clothes to look like people – also won two Tropfest Craft Awards for Sound Design and VFX.
https://youtu.be/ipmG1HEMvXk
While based in LA, Spencer has significant connections to Australia as a member of the Blue-Tongue Films collective, which also includes David Michod, Joel Edgerton and Kieran Darcy-Smith, and who produced Shiny. Spencer is no first-time filmmaker either having made his debut feature in 2010 with Hesher, which starred Joseph Gordon-Levitt and Natalie Portman, and also shot the acclaimed zombie short, I Love Sarah Jane with Mia Wasikowska.
The pair were awarded their prize by a jury that included Mel Gibson, Simon Baker, Jocelyn Moorhouse, Don McApline, Rebecca Gibney and Maya Newell.
A different kind of animation took out second prize with the Sydney-based Nick Baker and Tristan Klein winning that accolade for Postcards to Ulay, a heartfelt tale of a lonely Tajikistani whose dog gets sent to space. Third prize went to Sydney-based Rick Donald’s The ATM, a comedic short about a wannabe criminal.
Donald also starred as Frankie in The ATM, a performance which won him the title of Best Male Actor. Meanwhile, Natalie Bassingthwaighte won Best Female Actress for her performance as Sarah in Why Would I Lie?, though Simon Baker who presented the prize dryly noted the lack of female roles throughout the finalist entries.
On a similar note, only one of the finalists was directed by a female filmmaker, a discrepancy noted by Gayby Baby filmmaker Maya Newell, who called for more gender diversity at the 2017 event. Well said.
