Someone Give Poor Diddums A Ride To Parramatta For Tropfest Already

My eyes have rolled so far into my head, I'm practically blind now. Blind, you guys.

To the Newtown filmmaker who reckons Parramatta is way too damn far to go to showcase his work at the newly-relocated Tropfest — seriously? It's barely half an hour on the train. 35 minutes in a car. It's literally the geographical centre of Sydney, was settled in by colonists in 1788 (the same year as Sydney) and is the sixth-largest CBD in Australia. 

And it's in the "middle of nowhere"? 

Reported by Daily Telegraph, Newtown filmmaker Adam St John told the newspaper, "I won’t go to Parramatta, no way. Why would you put something that was so famous into an area where no filmmakers are based? Everyone is based in the inner city and that’s the place they should be looking to support the emerging artists."

I'm sure Newtown doesn't produce or home the only filmmakers in Sydney, mate. Not all of us were lucky enough to have grown up in the throes of the inner west, having independent theatres and hip shooting locations at our doorstep. Also, I'm pretty sure a vast majority of young creatives in the inner west have moved there from other parts of Sydney — so why shouldn't we bring the fun to the others for a change? 

Newtown and the inner west might be a hub for filmmakers, artists and musos but if said creatives from the outer suburbs of Sydney can traipse a mere 30 minutes into Sydney to go about their passions, meet other like-minded people or, you know, showcase at Tropfest when it was held at The Domain, then you can too.

When Tropfest organisers announced the move to Parramatta, they said it would "give the event room to grow and prosper, and will enable a whole new audience to discover the future stars of Australian film". 

St John's quotes reek of elitism. Congrats on being cool enough for the inner west, while others may not have the opportunity to even rent a place remotely close to the city. Congrats on having the opportunity to present creative work at a film festival like Tropfest, considering Tropfest was this close to folding last year and have pulled through against the odds. That there are rumblings of other inner city filmmakers boycotting a festival that is such a valuable medium for emerging filmmakers just sounds so precious.

Hey — I love Newtown. It's vibrant and lively and interesting and home to a lot of great minds. And lest you think I'm taking the whole thing personally, I'm not even from Parramatta. I just think it's ridiculous that someone might complain about a 30-minute train ride when I travel an hour and a half to work five days a week, to do a job I love. A bit of effort for something you're supposedly passionate about shouldn't be a big deal. 

Step out of your comfortable zone of hipness and consider the fact that there might be a world of creatives outside of the inner west that aren't below you — Joel Edgerton is from Blacktown (shock horror! Even farther than Parramatta!) and Rebel Wilson grew up in the Parramatta area, too. Both have made marks on the film world globally, despite the area they lived in.

Here is a short list of things that Parramatta is and was home to, that you, in your awesome bubble of Newtown-ness, may not know about:

1. Michael Jackson's 1987 Bad tour, held at Parramatta Stadium
2. Paul McCartney's 1993 The New World tour, held at Parramatta Stadium
3. Jamie Oliver's delicious Italian Trattoria 
4. Bourke St Bakery — even they don't care about location! And it's in their name!
5. Music festivals like Beats & Eats and The Plot
6. Food/culture festivals like Parramatta Lanes, Parramasala and Winterlight

Bottom line though… it's seriously only 30 minutes away. It's not that far. Share an Uber or something. And isn't going on location part of a filmmaker's job?