Tropfest Pull Film Depicting Violence Against Women

Short film Remote has officially been withdrawn from Tropfest's musical scoring competition Tropscore,, after it was widely criticised for its representation of violence against women.

The film by Aussie director Michael Noonan, which shows a man yelling at a woman who has been buried alive in a desert, was slammed by viewers not only for its depiction of domestic violence, but also because it was selected in the competition. 

Today, APRA AMCOS released a statement to announce that Remote will not feature in this year's competition. 

"APRA AMCOS wishes to unreservedly apologise for any distress caused by our association with the film Remote, selected for this year’s Tropscore competition," the statement read.

"We acknowledge that, given the level and impact of domestic violence in this country, the film should have been rejected from the Tropscore selection process from the outset and a more appropriate film selected for composers to score."

"Tropfest and APRA AMCOS have, as of 25 September 2015 11.15am, immediately withdrawn Remote from the 2015 competition. An alternative film will be selected for the competition in the coming week and the existing entrants offered the opportunity to re-score the new film, with an extended entry deadline."

Musician and writer Jennifer Kingwell has blasted the competition's decision to allow the film to ever be considered and speaking to theMusic, said that she would like to see Tropfest give more "consideration for social responsibility."

Kingwell said moving forward she would like to see the competition adopt more female directors, a category or initiative that supports women and LGBTIQ communities and part of the festival's prize money donated to anti-violence against women campaigns in Australia and Mexico.

"Not only is it problematic on a level of Tropfest being an Australian competition and we know that this year alone that over 60 women have died violently…but Mexico as well has a horrific problem of women being abducted, raped and murdered and often left in the desert," Kingwell explained. 

"It makes it even more horrific that Remote was filmed in Mexico and neither the director, APRA or Tropfest seemed to grasp the fact that this is more than about domestic violence being a hot topic issue in Australia in 2015…we want to see real change at a holistic level."

Tropfest's 2013 winning film Bamboozled was also scrutinized when it picked up the top gong, after it was accused of being homophobic. 

Prior to the film being pulled from Tropfest, Kingwell wrote a blog condemning the film — read it here.