MEDIA RELEASE

TropWest 2009 winner gets ready for Tropfest 2010

Released 26 October 2009

Information and Cultural Exchange
PO Box 4033 Parramatta NSW 2124 Australia
T: +61(2) 9897 5744 / F: +61(2) 9897 5766

Last Saturday around 100 screen content creators attended TropWest in Parramatta. Managed by ICE (Information & Cultural Exchange) in partnership with Screen NSW and Movie Extra Tropfest, the industry day was opened by Parramatta Lord Mayor, Councillor Paul Garrard.

TropWest is an annual event that fosters emerging filmmakers from Western Sydney by awarding a scholarship and creating a forum where they can interact with industry professionals one-on-one. This year George Basha (The Combination), Kris Wyld (East West 101) and Ranko Markovic (Cedar Boys) were among 15 advisers willing to donate their time to inspire and inform the next generation of filmmakers. Markovic’s production company, Templar Films, stepped up to mentor this year’s TropWest Scholarship winner, 19 year old UTS student Roxie Vuong from Fairfield.

Roxie’s film idea for Movie Extra Tropfest 2010 is a clever take on youth culture. It won her over $5,000 worth of prizes as well as a fabulous 8.1MB camera phone valued at $1200 from Telstra.

“It’s very exciting to win this scholarship as I’ve had this film idea for a while but I couldn’t seem to get it off the ground on my own and didn’t really know where to start. Being mentored by Ranko (of Cedar Boys) and ICE, and having funding, means my film will now really get made!” said Roxie.

Runner up Aisha Kamara from Bankstown received a free course at Templar films and The Production Book, valued together at $650. Having won a prize for the 48 Hour Film Festival the night before Aisha was understandably a very happy young woman!

Movie Extra Tropfest Managing Director, Michael Laverty, was impressed by the level of interest in Tropfest and Trop Jr for 2010, and especially in the new Telstra Mobile Masterpieces category:

“With each TropWest event it becomes clearer that the quality of entries into Movie Extra Tropfest by filmmakers from Western Sydney is getting higher and higher. And now with the new mobile phone category, budding filmmakers can make their films that much more easily and cheaply.”

Michael continued that he hopes to receive many more submissions from Western Sydney by the 7 January 2010 6pm deadline featuring this year’s Tropfest Signature Item “Dice”.

ICE Executive Director, Lena Nahlous, emphasised to TropWest attendees the importance of using career-growing events like Movie Extra Tropfest to broaden their skill base and experience the potential phenomenon of huge national and growing international audiences watching their stories. And she encouraged them to keep applying for the ICE TropWest Scholarship Award.

“The TropWest scholarship is an excellent opportunity for young filmmakers from Western Sydney to bring their film ideas to life. Since she won last year, Liverpool’s Tresa Ponnor has had her film screened at 5 film festivals and has been accepted to study Directing at AFTRS. Now Roxie’s journey has begun and who knows where it will take her!”

TropWest supporters, partners and funding bodies include: ICE, Movie Extra Tropfest, Screen NSW, Australia Council for the Arts, Riverside Theatres, Switch, Parramatta Council and Arts NSW.