Tropfest

To keep yourself sane you have organise some sort of social activity, hence I had my Tropfest festival last night. Read on to make sense of what I am talking about.

In February every year, Sydneysiders come together in the Domain for the worlds largest short film festival called Tropfest. Living as I did just around the corner from the Domain, where it is held, I used to go when in town. This year I obviously couldn't go being 3000km away, so I decided to bring the festival to Lae. My sister procured the DVD of the 16 finalists, exactly what was shown on the big screens in the park, and I sent out an e-mail invite to all the local volunteers and ex-volunteers, making it worded and looking like an official festival.

My department has a multimedia projector, Martin's dept has a screen, I borrowed some speakers from Mike and I managed to get a DVD playing laptop from Rachel who came and visited along with Monica and Jennifer from Goroka. I hung the screen up against one of my living room walls and arranged the furniture, including Martins lounge chairs to face the screen. At the back I put my dining chairs against the far wall. So it was all set and ready for the show.

People arrived at around 7 and then at 8 we kicked off the short films to an audience of about 20. After the first 8 we had intermission and then continued on with the rest. At the end it was a case of try and pick the winner, and then we watched the awards ceremony to find out the real winner.

All up I am pretty sure it was a good night had by all, and it was certainly a different one than the usual, stand around chat and drink.