Crowds enjoying the films Photo: Quentin Jones
Garry Maddox, The Age, reports
In the race between the films and an approaching thunderstorm, the films won - but only just - at the 20th Tropfest in the Domain last night.
In heavy rain and intermittent lightning, a judging panel that included Cate Blanchett, Geoffrey Rush, Nicole Kidman, Toni Colette, Asher Keddie and John Polson gave the top prize at the country's biggest short film festival to Alethea Jones for Lemonade Stand, a comedy about a man and his grandfather whose efforts to sell lemonade bring a clash with an officious council officer.
She collected her prize in a near-deserted Domain, without a working microphone, amid a few hundred hardy souls sheltering in the VIP tent.
Jones said she was ''absolutely thrilled'' and ready to take the next step in her filmmaking career. Asked whether she planned to step up from shorts to a feature film, Jones said: ''I've got five ready to go.''
She is the third woman to win in the past five years, winning two weeks after signing up for the dole.
In a year in which the 700-plus entries were required to include a ''lightbulb'' as the signature item, Jones's prizes include a trip to Los Angeles to meet film industry executives, a $6000 camera and $10,000 cash.
Second prize went to actor Rupert Reid for Boo!, a comedy about an elderly couple who play tricks on each other, while Michael Noonan's Photo Booth, about soldiers who stumble on a mysterious photo booth, was third.
The festival was almost a repeat for Marie Patane, whose film How Many Doctors Does It Take To Change A Lightbulb? was washed out during the dramatic storm that closed down Tropfest in 2006.
The sequel to that film, How Many More Doctors Does it Take To Change A Lightbulb?, was the final film to screen in torrential rain last night. She won the women in film award.
Veteran Don Reid was named Best Male Actor for Boo!, which also won the Crowd Pleaser Award.
Best Female Actor went to Kate McNamara for the comedy Kitchen Sink Drama, about a proposal gone wrong.
The stellar guest list included Baz Luhrmann, Tobey Maguire, Joel Edgerton, Gia Carides and Rachel Ward.
On the black carpet, Blanchett said she was ''shellshocked'' by how the festival had grown since the early years at the Tropicana Cafe in Darlinghurst.
''It's more than just the films, we're celebrating the whole industry and it's future,'' she said.
Just back from the United States, Kidman said short films were important for actors as well as filmmakers. ''Each little step is a chance to learn and a chance to grow,'' she said.
The Trop Jr competition was won by two 15-year-old school friends from Melbourne, Max Barden and Tim Sheehan, with Let's Make A Movie, a comic short about choosing a genre to enter the competition.
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