Tropfest, once one of Australia's most beloved artistic institutions, is set to be revived by an unlikely alliance involving Racing NSW boss Peter V'Landys and a member of the Murdoch family. Its origins lie in a Darlinghurst cafe in inner-city Sydney, where young actor John Polson put on a special screening for 200 people in 1993. Over the following two decades, the annual Tropfest event rose in prominence, at its peak drawing crowds of almost 200,000 at its venue before abruptly ending in 2019 under a cloud of financial mismanagement. Now it's being relaunched, with the Tropfest Foundation quietly registered as a company on July 2; its principal place of business listed as Mr V'landys's Racing NSW headquarters. Mr V'landys is a director, and the other three directors named in the company extract reveal his web of high-profile connections across media, finance and film. Backing of star actor, property investor and philanthropist Murdoch The ABC can reveal that philanthropist Sarah Murdoch, real estate investor Richard Weinberg and actor Bryan Brown are also directors of the Tropfest Foundation. Brown has had a storied acting career and last year won a Logie for best supporting actor for his performance in the Netflix series Boy Swallows Universe. Ms Murdoch is a philanthropist and global ambassador for the Murdoch Children's Research Institute. Mr V'landys is the CEO of Racing NSW and Chair of the Australian Rugby League Commission. He is linked to Ms Murdoch's husband, Lachlan Murdoch. Mr Murdoch is the chair of News Corp, which is the majority shareholder of the Brisbane Broncos, the NRL's richest team. Mr V'landys met with Mr Murdoch in the US a fortnight ago seeking to expand the NRL's global footprint and heaped praise on the media mogul, telling News Corp he is "such a nice person" who has "gone to another level in management worldwide". He described Mr Murdoch's influence at FOX as a "massive help" with the free-to-air US broadcaster airing the NRL's Las Vegas 2025 matches. Mr Murdoch holds the key to the NRL breaking into the US market. The Murdochs were seen alongside Mr V'landys at the NRL's inaugural 2024 Las Vegas venture last year. Friends of friends Ms Murdoch was recently pictured with another director of the Tropfest Foundation, Mr Weinberg. Both were involved in the Sydney screening of a documentary titled October 8 — Globalise the Intifada, which examines what filmmakers say was the "explosion of antisemitism on college campuses, online, and in the streets of America" in the wake of Hamas's terrorist attack on Israel in 2023. Mr Weinberg is the CEO of Terrace Tower Group and is married to the billionaire heiress of the late Westfield co-founder John Saunders. He is also an entrepreneur who co-founded TV production company KarlinBerg Entertainment in 2020 with TV host Karl Stefanovic, who works for Nine Entertainment, which holds the broadcast rights to the NRL. Stefanovic and Mr Weinberg had reportedly planned to shoot a behind-the-scenes documentary on the State of Origin, an idea backed by Mr V'landys, but it did not eventuate. Late last year, Mr V'landys flagged his intention to re-introduce a film festival in Sydney. "There was a short film festival called Tropfest, and it used to give young artists an opportunity to show what they could do … so I thought I'd revive that and do a short film festival, but I want to call it The Airfryers," he said. It does not appear the name has stuck. All Tropfest Foundation directors were contacted for comment. A spokesperson for Tropfest said: "There are a lot of exciting things happening behind the scenes, and all will be revealed soon. "The next generation of this country's best and brightest screen talent should get ready. A new chapter is about to begin." An official announcement is expected within weeks.