The TromaDance Film Festival is a free annual independent

Independent film

An independent film, or indie film, is a professional film production resulting in a feature film that is produced mostly or completely outside of the major film studio system. In addition to being produced and distributed by independent entertainment companies, independent films are also produced...

 film festival

Film festival

A film festival is an organised, extended presentation of films in one or more movie theaters or screening venues, usually in a single locality. More and more often film festivals show part of their films to the public by adding outdoor movie screenings...

 organized by Troma Entertainment

Troma Entertainment

Troma Entertainment is an American independent film production and distribution company founded by Lloyd Kaufman and Michael Herz in 1974.The company produces low-budget independent movies that play on 1950s horror with elements of farce...

. Founded in 1999, TromaDance was originally held in Park City

Park City, Utah

Park City is a town in Summit and Wasatch counties in the U.S. state of Utah. It is considered to be part of the Wasatch Back. The city is southeast of downtown Salt Lake City and from Salt Lake City's east edge of Sugar House along Interstate 80. The population was 7,558 at the 2010 census...

 and Salt Lake City

Salt Lake City, Utah

Salt Lake City is the capital and the most populous city of the U.S. state of Utah. The name of the city is often shortened to Salt Lake or SLC. With a population of 186,440 as of the 2010 Census, the city lies in the Salt Lake City metropolitan area, which has a total population of 1,124,197...

, Utah

Utah

Utah is a state in the Western United States. It was the 45th state to join the Union, on January 4, 1896. Approximately 80% of Utah's 2,763,885 people live along the Wasatch Front, centering on Salt Lake City. This leaves vast expanses of the state nearly uninhabited, making the population the...

, operating concurrently alongside the Sundance Film Festival

Sundance Film Festival

The Sundance Film Festival is a film festival that takes place annually in Utah, in the United States. It is the largest independent cinema festival in the United States. Held in January in Park City, Salt Lake City, and Ogden, as well as at the Sundance Resort, the festival is a showcase for new...

 in order to showcase an independent alternative to Sundance's perceived mainstream offerings. Since 2010, TromaDance has relocated to various locations throughout New Jersey

New Jersey

New Jersey is a state in the Northeastern and Middle Atlantic regions of the United States. , its population was 8,791,894. It is bordered on the north and east by the state of New York, on the southeast and south by the Atlantic Ocean, on the west by Pennsylvania and on the southwest by Delaware...

.

Overview

TromaDance advertises itself as "the first and only film festival of the people, for the people, and by the people", dedicated to "bringing independent art back to the people". In direct opposition to Sundance, TromaDance doesn't charge an entry fee for filmmakers to submit their films and doesn't charge admission fees for people to attend the film screenings. Although Troma themselves are notorious for their violent low-budget horror film

Horror film

Horror films seek to elicit a negative emotional reaction from viewers by playing on the audience's most primal fears. They often feature scenes that startle the viewer through the means of macabre and the supernatural, thus frequently overlapping with the fantasy and science fiction genres...

s, TromaDance showcases both shorts and features of varying genres and formats, including comedy

Comedy film

Comedy film is a genre of film in which the main emphasis is on humour. They are designed to elicit laughter from the audience. Comedies are mostly light-hearted dramas and are made to amuse and entertain the audiences...

, drama

Drama film

A drama film is a film genre that depends mostly on in-depth development of realistic characters dealing with emotional themes. Dramatic themes such as alcoholism, drug addiction, infidelity, moral dilemmas, racial prejudice, religious intolerance, poverty, class divisions, violence against women...

, documentary

Documentary film

Documentary films constitute a broad category of nonfictional motion pictures intended to document some aspect of reality, primarily for the purposes of instruction or maintaining a historical record...

, animation

Animation

Animation is the rapid display of a sequence of images of 2-D or 3-D artwork or model positions in order to create an illusion of movement. The effect is an optical illusion of motion due to the phenomenon of persistence of vision, and can be created and demonstrated in several ways...

 and experimental film

Experimental film

Experimental film or experimental cinema is a type of cinema. Experimental film is an artistic practice relieving both of visual arts and cinema. Its origins can be found in European avant-garde movements of the twenties. Experimental cinema has built its history through the texts of theoreticians...

, though horror, fantasy and sci-fi usually make up a significant portion of the entries.

TromaDance is primarily funded by donations, and the festival's employees and volunteers are entirely unpaid. TromaDance has been sponsored over the years by G4

G4 (TV channel)

G4, also known as G4 TV, is an American cable- and satellite-television channel originally geared primarily toward young adult viewers, originally based on the world of video games...

, MovieMaker Magazine

MovieMaker

“Moviemaker” redirects here. For the software, see Windows Movie Maker.MovieMaker is an American magazine focused on the art and business of making movies with a special emphasis on independent film....

, Kodak, SLUG Magazine

Slug magazine

SLUG - an acronym for SaltLakeUnderGround, is a monthly magazine based out of Salt Lake City, Utah. SLUG is one of the oldest independent magazines in the nation that continues to publish regularly...

, Stella Artois

Stella Artois

Stella Artois is a 5% ABV lager brewed in Leuven, Belgium since 1926. In the UK, Canada and New Zealand a 4% ABV version is also available.-Production:...

, Rue Morgue Magazine, Jägermeister

Jägermeister

Jägermeister is a German 70-proof digestif made with 56 different herbs and spices. It is the flagship product of Mast-Jägermeister SE, headquartered in Wolfenbüttel, south of Braunschweig, Lower Saxony, Germany.- History :...

, Filmmaker Magazine

Filmmaker Magazine

Filmmaker is a quarterly publication magazine covering issues relating to independent film. The magazine was founded in 1992 by Karol Martesko-Fenster, Scott Macaulay and Holly Willis...

and PETA

Peta

Peta can refer to:* peta-, an SI prefix denoting a factor of 1015* Peta, Greece, a town in Greece* Peta, the Pāli word for a Preta, or hungry ghost in Buddhism* Peta Wilson, an Australian actress and model* Peta Todd, English glamour model...

. Troma also sponsors fan-organized events called TromaPaloozas, music festivals that serve as fundraisers for TromaDance. TromaPaloozas have been held in Minneapolis

Minneapolis, Minnesota

Minneapolis , nicknamed "City of Lakes" and the "Mill City," is the county seat of Hennepin County, the largest city in the U.S. state of Minnesota, and the 48th largest in the United States...

, Las Vegas

Las Vegas, Nevada

Las Vegas is the most populous city in the U.S. state of Nevada and is also the county seat of Clark County, Nevada. Las Vegas is an internationally renowned major resort city for gambling, shopping, and fine dining. The city bills itself as The Entertainment Capital of the World, and is famous...

, Denver

Denver, Colorado

The City and County of Denver is the capital and the most populous city of the U.S. state of Colorado. Denver is a consolidated city-county, located in the South Platte River Valley on the western edge of the High Plains just east of the Front Range of the Rocky Mountains...

, Tulsa

Tulsa, Oklahoma

Tulsa is the second-largest city in the state of Oklahoma and 46th-largest city in the United States. With a population of 391,906 as of the 2010 census, it is the principal municipality of the Tulsa Metropolitan Area, a region with 937,478 residents in the MSA and 988,454 in the CSA. Tulsa's...

 and Murfreesboro

Murfreesboro, Tennessee

Murfreesboro is a city in and the county seat of Rutherford County, Tennessee, United States. The population was 108,755 according to the United States Census Bureau's 2010 U.S. Census, up from 68,816 residents certified during the 2000 census. The center of population of Tennessee is located in...

.

History

The idea for TromaDance was developed by Troma president Lloyd Kaufman

Lloyd Kaufman

Lloyd Kaufman is an American film director, producer, screenwriter and occasional actor. With producer Michael Herz, he is the co-founder of Troma Entertainment film studio, and the director of many of their feature films, including The Toxic Avenger and Tromeo and Juliet. Kaufman also serves as...

, who got the idea from South Park

South Park

South Park is an American animated television series created by Trey Parker and Matt Stone for the Comedy Central television network. Intended for mature audiences, the show has become famous for its crude language, surreal, satirical, and dark humor that lampoons a wide range of topics...

co-creator Trey Parker

Trey Parker

Trey Parker is an American animator, screenwriter, director, producer, voice artist, musician and actor, best known for being the co-creator of the television series South Park along with his creative partner and best friend Matt Stone.Parker started his film career in 1992, making a holiday short...

 (whose debut film, Cannibal! The Musical

Cannibal! The Musical

Cannibal! The Musical is a 1993 independent film directed by co-creator of South Park, Trey Parker, while studying at the University of Colorado at Boulder...

, was distrubuted by Troma). Feeling that Sundance had become too "Hollywood" by charging high entry fees, showing multi-million-dollar "independent" movies and practicing an elitist structure and film selection process, Parker urged Kaufman to create his own film festival that was the direct independent opposite of Sundance, one that was completely free and focused on independently-produced film that was made without the Hollywood system in order to give first-time filmmakers a chance at getting their work seen.

Troma has released five volumes of "The Best of TromaDance", DVDs of selected shorts each from two years worth of the festival. The press conference for the 2005 festival held in October 2004 featured the introduction of the official TromaDance Theme Song by longtime Troma character Count Smokula

Count Smokula

Count Smokula is a comedic fictional character created and portrayed by Robert "Smokey" Miles. He has made numerous live appearances, roles in movies, TV shows and internet videos.-Count Smokula and Smokesylvania:...

.

"Satellite" TromaDance festivals

• TromaDance Portland (in Portland, OR) (2004)
• Tromafling (in Edinburgh) (2005)
• Tromanale (in Berlin) (2005 - 2006)
• TromaDance North (in Winnipeg, Manitoba) (2006)
• TromaDance New Mexico (in Albuquerque) (2006 - present)
• TromaDance Indiana (in Franklin, IN) (2007 - present)