The famous New York Minute is presented sevenfold as the world's largest short film festival hits the US with Tropfest founder and director John Polson announcing the launch of Tropfest New York in June 2012.

The event has major support from film industry heavyweight ambassadors Hugh Jackman, Russell Crowe, Nicole Kidman, Geoffrey Rush, Liev Schreiber, Anthony LaPaglia and Charles Randolph with WNYC Radio announced as the first of the inaugural media partner.

Polson said they could not have asked for bigger film industry stars and better inaugural partners to help us bring the festival to the most exciting city in the world.

“With the passionate support of our ambassadors and WNYC on board, combined with increasing North American interest from filmmakers and audiences via our online platforms, it’s obvious to us that the time is right,” he said.

Taking on the successful Tropfest format created in Australia, now celebrating a 20th birthday, activities are based around the competition and mass screening of finalist films. The weekend includes musical performances, film screenings and a filmmaker symposium (Roughcut) and the much loved finalist film screenings under the stars judged live by a celebrity and industry panel.

Official Ambassador, Hugh Jackman said that over the past 20 years Tropfest had been an incredible platform for rising Australian filmmakers to get their start in the industry.

"I'm excited to support this competition as it comes to the US," he said. "There is no other springboard in the world that showcases short films in front of such a massive audience and I look forward to seeing the shorts for Tropfest New York."

In line with the festival rules, Tropfest New York films must be no longer than seven minutes and must be screened for the first time in public at the event. Each film must contain the Tropfest Signature Item or TSI – a unique object to show the film was made for Tropfest. The New York TSI is iconically: “Bagel”.

On 4 November this year, the inaugural Tropfest Arabia took place in front of a capacity crowd of 12,000 people outdoors in Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates. Submissions were received from 33 Middle Eastern and North African countries.