Tropfest announced today Charles Randolph, celebrated international screenwriter and producer of the 2011 box office hit Love and Other Drugs, will present the keynote address at filmmaker symposium, Tropfest Roughcut, on Saturday 18 February, 2012. Randolph will travel from New York to Sydney for the event.

Also confirmed to speak is high-profile Australian film editor Jason Ballantine and Kieran Darcy-Smith, whose new feature, Wish You Were Here, has been selected to open the Sundance Film Festival this month.

Leading international composer, Lisa Gerrard, has today confirmed that she will also present at the event, along with Tropfest founder and director, John Polson, who will speak about the 20-year history of the world's largest short film festival and his experience as a prolific director and producer of film & television in Australia and the US. Other speakers will be announced in the coming days and weeks.

Hosted by previous Tropfest winner Rob Carlton, Tropfest Roughcut will be an opportunity for budding and experienced filmmakers to hear from industry heavyweights firsthand. A limited number of tickets to the all day event will be made available to anyone with at least one film or television credit.

Tropfest Festival Director and Founder John Polson says: "Roughcut is Tropfest's continued and determined dedication to nurturing filmmaking in Australia. Tropfest has always been about giving a leg up to emerging filmmakers, so creating Roughcut was a natural and obvious step."

As part of a new partnership with Nikon, Roughcut will include a presentation by multi-award winning filmmaker and Tropfest winner, Jason Van Genderen, about his latest short film which was shot exclusively on Nikon's new flagship DSLR - the Nikon D4.

Announced last week, the D4 is Nikon's first FX DSLR with full HD video recording. The camera can record uncompressed video to an external hard drive, ethernet port or IP address, for quick and easy file transfer anywhere in the world, and is Nikon's most creative professional filmmaking tool yet.

Like Tropfest, Nikon is committed to supporting filmmakers through continual development of advanced video technology in DSLR.

Van Genderen says: "There's no question that DSLRs have changed the way we shoot films, and the D4 is quickly raising eyebrows around the world. The D4 is intuitive and easy to use, being able to implicitly trust in that technology now has opened a new door for me as a filmmaker." 

Filmmakers will have the opportunity to explore the full range of Nikon's new DSLR range at the symposium.

Tropfest Roughcut will be held in the Domain Theatre at the Art Gallery of NSW. To receive updates on the full lineup and to secure your place at this exclusive industry event, sign up to the Tropfest newsletter - www.tropfest.com/au.