A film about a boy's passion for flight, and his journey to compete in the world paper plane championships, has taken out Australia's richest film prize.
Paper Planes, directed by Robert Connolly, has won the inaugural CinefestOZ $100,000 Film Prize.
The award was announced at a gala event in Busselton, in southwest WA, late on Saturday.
"Paper Planes is a delightful and amusing film with a charming cast of children that achieves its aims of being entertaining and uplifting," said Bruce Beresford, a member of the judging panel.
The film stars Sam Worthington, David Wenham and child actor Ed Oxenbould, most recently seen on Australian TV screens in Puberty Blues.
The prize is open to Australian-made feature films or feature-length documentaries, and it attracted 20 submissions in its first year.
The six finalists, including Joel Edgerton's latest effort Felony and Son of a Gun, starring Ewan McGregor, were watched by a judging panel and CinefestOZ attendees.
"We have been overwhelmed by the calibre of competition in the first year of the film prize," CinefestOZ deputy chair Helen Shervington said.
"The bar has really been set high for 2015."
The CinefestOZ 2014 Film Festival is held August 20-24 across Busselton, Bunbury and Margaret River in WA.
CINEFESTOZ FILM PRIZE
Finalists
* Paper Planes
* Felony
* Son of a Gun
* The Reckoning
* The Waler: Australia's Great War Horse
* My Mistress
Winner
* Paper Planes
Share
