The winner of the DM Davies Award at the 12th International Film Festival of Wales is Blue Kenny by Keir Alexander.

It tells the story of a young teacher who stakes her career on the power of poetry to win over one of her unruly pupils.

Blue Kenny was made for �33,000 funded by the Arts Council For Wales Lottery Fund.

Although Alexander has written, acted and directed for the theatre Blue Kenny is his screen directorial debut.

He describes the film as "a gritty, funny and sometimes sad story from the Valleys hinging around a book, two sonnets and a dog with a difference."

The award is the largest prize in Europe for a short film �5,000 in cash and �20,000 in resources to make a film to be screened at the festival within the next two years.

Previous winners of the award include Justin Kerrigan (Human Traffic) and Sara Sugarman (Very Annie Mary).

Industry contacts

Last year's winner Chris Forster is currently working on the film which the award enabled him to make.

Following his success, Forster spent the year working with Marc Evans on the festival's opening film Beautiful Mistake.

The late DM Davies was the owner of the Commodore cinema in Aberystwyth.

When the festival began in the town in 1989, Mr Davies helped with distributors, industry contacts, equipment and venues.

He secured many favours for the festival and believed in the idea of establishing an international festival for Wales when many people doubted its success.

Enthusiasm

It was because of this this spirit of enthusiasm, and endeavour that the DM Davies Award is presented every year in his memory.

This year the format for submissions has been opened to DVC, video and Beta as well as film.

This has enabled people to enter who had previously been unable to do so because of financial constraints.