Title: Awakening
Director: Liam Newton
State: ACT
Producer: Liam Newton
Synopsis: A lonely robot tries to restore his only companion before time runs out.
Biography: Liam Newton – Director/Producer
Liam Newton was born and raised in Canberra, and still resides there. His interest in film began at an early age, particularly the special and digital effects used in film, with Spielberg and Lucas' films being notable favourites. He began studying 3D modelling and animation in college, at one point even being asked to teach it to both staff and fellow students before he'd even graduated. From there he went straight into university, going for a media degree where he focused on new media production. Inspired by Pixar's films and a short course from one of their animators, he completed his first animated short film, 'Stack 'Em'. It went on to win the UC Stellar Award for best linear production and become a finalist in the Portable Film Festival. He graduated in December 2009, and this year marks his first entry into Tropfest.

Title: Every Second Weekend
Director: Scott Holgate
State: ACT
Producer: Tony Nicholls
Synopsis: There's three sides to every story, his, hers, and the truth.
Biography: Scott Holgate – Director

Title: Falling Backwards
Director: Harrison Murray
State: VIC
Producer: Harrison Murray
Synopsis: Can unravelling the pieces help change what has already happened?
Biography: Harrison Murray – Director/Producer

Harrison Murray started his film career at Footscray City Films (a small Tafe course attached to a high school). He had to quickly adapt to their ‘tough love’ teaching methods and found it was the right environment for him to prosper.  During his time at the school he crewed on well over 60 short films and 3 feature length films. As of yet his biggest claim to fame is the television ad he filmed and edited for the Theatre Restaurant Witches In Britches.  Currently Harrison is involved with a small writing team that is working on two web based comedy series and he is also in negotiations to co-direct a feature film. Currently at age twenty-two Harrison expects to spend the next ten years of his life simply trying to make himself known in Australia’s competitive film industry.

Title: Fish Lips
Director: Duane Fogwell
State: NSW
Producer: Shannon Wilson
Synopsis: A story about love, about family, about fish fingers and a game called Yahtzee!
Biography: Duane Fogwell – Director/Producer
Duane Fogwell was inspired to make films after viewing Roman Polanski’s 1994 thriller ‘Death and the Maiden,’ admitting to that these days has its difficulties, but he still admits to it. He must. In fact, Duane has thanked Roman Polanski in all his films to this day. Duane almost named his Dog Roman but his wife talked him into naming him Stanley Kubrick. Stanley is the major star of his film ‘Fish Lips’. Somewhat of a celebrity in McMahons Point, Stanley enjoys running around the oval and swimming in Sydney Harbour.  Duane was a finalist at Movie Extra Tropfest 2009 for his film, 'NYE'.

Title: Happenstance
Director: John Marsh
State: NSW
Producer: John Marsh, Katie May Johnson & Clarke Richards
Synopsis: For Grey this Valentines Day signifies hurt, heartache and a morbid depression. A knock at the door delivers hope for Grey.
Biography: John Marsh– Director/Producer
Having grown up in a fantasy world fuelled by the great outdoors, comic books, cartoons and film, John Marsh had no choice but to live the live of an artist. Wanting to be an actor, but being encouraged to pursue his talent for illustration, John moved to Sydney to study Graphic Design some fifteen years ago. Getting involved in animation and motion graphics early in his design career saw him work with many production companies in and around Sydney. Still with a burning desire to fuel the acting beast, he also pursued that calling.  In 1997 John started his design company, Whizbangery Media, and has since been involved in many different jobs that traverse many different mediums and outcomes. With good design as the touchstone, it wasn’t long before John was producing high profile corporate jobs.  John has had guest roles on Seven’s “All Saints”, Ten’s “The Informant”, Nine’s “Rescue Special Op’s” and whilst he will continue down the acting path, directing “Happenstance” has been a revelatory experience for John and he knows he will continue to pursue directing as the ultimate release for visual story telling.

Title: How God Works
Director: Matilda Brown
State: NSW
Producer: Matilda Brown & James Brown
Synopsis: Despite being polar opposites, both Nancy and Jane love the funny ways God works.
Biography: Matilda Brown - Director
As the middle child of an acting family, it’s clear the apple doesn’t fall too far from the tree. Matilda’s ambitions as a writer, director and actor make sense considering as far back as she can remember there’s been makeup trailers and delicious food catering in her life. But it wasn’t until at 15 years old and cast as the lead in the SBS 50 minute short film, 'Martha’s New Coat'that she considered a career in the film industry. After high school she moved to Melbourne to further her education with a film and television degree at Swinburne University and subsequently enrolled in a professional screenwriting course at RMIT.  Matilda is now based in Sydney and works as a writer, director and actor.

Title: My Neighbourhood Has Been Overrun By Baboons
Director: Cameron Edser & Michael Richards
State: SA
Producer: Cameron Edser & Michael Richards
Synopsis: What if you woke up one morning and your neighbourhood had been overrun by baboons?
Biography: Cameron Edser & Michael Richards – Director 
Michael Richards was mainly raised in the Adelaide Hills from a young age although he attended a total of 5 different primary schools. He spent the majority of year 6 in Tasmania. After his high school years he moved to the Gold coast for 6 months for filmmaking. He is currently back living in the Adelaide Hills.
Cameron Edser spent his entire childhood in the Adelaide Hills. It was at Uraidla Primary school that he and Michael met. Immediately after completing year 12, Cameron spent 2 years on the Gold Coast for filmmaking. He is currently living in Payneham, South Australia.

Title: Nic & Shauna
Director: Alyssa McClelland
State: NSW
Producer: Alyssa McClelland, Oliver Leimbach & Pia Miranda
Synopsis: A dance video from Nic and Shauna's childhood becomes an internet hit.
Biography: Alyssa McClelland – Director
Alyssa McClelland is an AFI-nominated actress who is simultaneously delving further into filmmaking - specifically directing. As an actress, she has worked extensively in Australian film, television and theatre. After attending Newtown High School of the Performing Arts, she trained at the Australian Theatre for Young People in Sydney and was awarded a scholarship from ATYP that allowed her to study at the Atlantic Theater Company in New York. Some of her acting credits include lead roles in the feature films ‘A Man’s Gotta Do’, ‘The Bet’ and Matt Newton’s new film, ‘Eating Friends’, However, from an early age McClelland always had a keen interest in directing films. She spent weekends from the age of thirteen shooting her cousins wearing dress-ups and remembers breaking into her high school out of hours to use the ancient edit system, working the footage into stories set to music. So over the last few years, as Alyssa took on various acting roles, she also became determined to make her own projects and further develop her filmmaking skills, Alyssa completed a BA in Communication - Media Arts and Production, at the University of Technology Sydney in 2005. In 2009 she wrote, directed and produced her first short film ‘Emilia Eckle’, which had great success on the International short film festival circuit and was recently acquired by Qantas for their in-flight entertainment. She made a 15min short film in September called ‘Home’ - starring Ryan Kwanten from ‘True Blood’. ‘Nic and Shauna’ is her third short film.

Title: No Dice Hollywood
Director: Paul Watters
State: NSW
Producer: Paul Watters
Synopsis: Joel strives to be an edgy, confronting, independent filmmaker but he harbours a dark secret. Deep down he yearns for that most deplorable and disgusting of desires, to make a commercial hit.
Biography: Paul Watters – Director/Producer
Paul Watters big break in film came when, due to his great tea making skills, he was offered the role of executive assistant to Baz Luhrmann on ‘Moulin Rouge’. Four and a half years and many cups of tea later, Paul had worked alongside Baz from the treatment stage of the film right through to the Academy Awards.

Paul moved to Los Angeles for two years working for a small independent production company to develop the film ‘Goal!’, he then left to work with Mike Myers on ‘Cat in the Hat’ and ‘Shrek 2’.

He leapt at the opportunity to once again work with Baz on ‘Australia’ this time as an Associate Producer and director of the ‘inserts’ unit. This was another 4 year journey taking him all over Australia working alongside some of this county’s best actors and technicians.

Title: One…
Director: Damon Gameau & Gareth Davies
State: NSW
Producer: Damon Gameau & Gareth Davies
Synopsis: Is life something that happens to everyone else?
Biography: Damon Gameau & Gareth Davies – Director/Producer
Gareth Davies grew up reading comic books and always thought the framing in comics was similar to film. He was often distracted in conversation as he would be picturing camera angles and drawing comic frames around the heads of the people talking to him. He studied multimedia and worked as a graphic designer but still maintained a passion for film. He has worked on feature films 'Superman',' Enemies Closer' and 'Cedar Boys' and is the in-house production designer at Chaotic Pictures.

Damon Gameau is an actor who has appeared in film and television shows including ‘Balibo’, ‘The Tracker’, ‘Razzle Dazzle’, ‘Thunderstruck’, ‘Underbelly 2’, ‘Love My Way’, “How I Met Your Mother’, ‘Raw’ in the UK and the upcoming ‘Spirited’ for Foxtel.  He also appeared in last year’s Tropfest winner for Best Comedy, ‘Being Carl Williams’.  This is Damon’s first film as a director.

Title: Shock
Director: Abe Forsythe
State: NSW
Producer: Abe Forsythe & Matt Reeder
Synopsis: A Man awakes to be confronted with his life, and the choices he's made.
Biography: Abe Forsythe - Director
Abe Forsythe is a Sydney based Director. He is currently raising finance for two features and was previously a Movie Extra Tropfest finalist in 2009 for his film, 'Being Carl Williams'.

Title: Smoking Will Kill You
Director: Raphael Sammut
State: VIC
Producer: Raphael Sammut & Cameron Nugent
Synopsis: After a chance encounter with an overbearing co-worker, Bill realises that ignorance really is bliss.
Biography: Raphael Sammut – Director/Producer
Born in Malta and moving to Australia at the tender age of seven, Raphael Sammut realised early on that films were a conversation with the world. Trying to make his own contribution, Raphael made his first short film at sixteen and a life long passion for film making developed. He went on to study drama, video, film and television production and completed a Bachelor of Arts. During his studies and while working in film production on commercials and television drama, Raph continued to sharpen his tools as a writer and director, completing various short films in different formats and genres.  Raph’s goal to write and direct original stories, drives him to write short and feature length scripts in his spare time, while developing an original cross platform children’s television series.

Title: Stakeout
Director: Gene Alberts
State: NSW
Producer: Gene Alberts
Synopsis: Two cops with too much time on their hands… May the force be with them.
Biography: Gene Alberts - Director
Gene Alberts started making films from age 12 when he attended Metro Screen’s youth filmmaking workshops in the school holidays. At 17, Metro gave him the opportunity to write and direct a 20 minute ‘coming of age’ film called ‘The Odyssey’, following the lives of three friends out on the night before their HSC. After making several music videos and working in the corporate soul-sucking video sector, Gene threw in the towel to go backpacking, hitchhiking, couch surfing and bumming the streets of Europe. This would bring him to focus on screenwriting and developing his feature film.

Title: Testicle
Director: Sheldon Lieberman & Igor Coric
State: QLD
Producer: Sheldon Lieberman & Igor Coric
Synopsis: Spike is only a few months old... and missing a testicle.
Biography: Sheldon & Igor met at the Ottawa International Animation Festival in 2004 both finalists in the internet category. Sheldon with ‘Speedos’ and Igor with ‘Three feathers and a rainworm’.  Relegated to the more cost-effective internet category hotel in Ottawa, the 2 drank much tequila and quickly became allies. A Jew and a Serb, what more could you want? Working together across the globe, mostly communicating on MSN, Sheldon & Igor went on to produce over 42 x 1 minute films in just 1 year, broadcasting them at bigfish.tv to an increasing worldwide database. The series ‘FEST’ was also picked up by ABC for their ‘Triple J TV’ show. The episode ‘I don’t believe in Global Warming’ went on to screen at numerous ’08 festivals including Hiroshima, Stuttgart & Zagreb. It also won the Berlin Webcuts Festival and the Torino Flash Festival in Italy. The film was completed in just 3 days. Igor has recently migrated to Australia and they have discovered they don’t like each other. However, Sheldon & Igor continue their healthy output of unhealthy films viewable at bigfish.tv/fest.

Title: The Last Roll Of The Dice
Director: Matthew Chuang
State: NSW
Producer: Luke Graham
Synopsis: In her final act of desperation, Kathy turns to internet dating.
Biography: Matthew Chuang – Director’s
At an early age, Matthew’s obsession with Jackie Chan had him jumping off buildings and rolling off cars. Upon realising he would never have the physical skill to pull of these stunts, it became apparent that behind the camera is where he wanted to be.  Since then Matthew has been directing and shooting short films, music videos and commercials. Matthew has just completed his first feature ‘Braille’.

Title: There Had Better Be Blood
Director: Charles Williams           
State: VIC
Producer:  Charles Williams & Josh Butt
Synopsis:  The over-active imaginations of rival brothers land them in trouble.
Biography: Charles Williams – Director
Committed from childhood, Charles had made 8 short films in his teenage years, the last of which won him the '‘Best Young Director’ award at the 2002 Tropfest for the oddly titled “I Can’t Get Started”. Since then he has directed a TV Pilot, worked as an attachment to the late director Anthony Minghella, made 5 more award winning shorts ranging from 15 to 50 minutes, directed a few television commercials here and abroad, and had the lowly job of writing unproduced feature screenplays.  Charles has devoted the last 8 years to improving as a filmmaker and learning how to live the impoverished life it affords him