Robert Connolly writes and directs; the festival also awards Joel Edgerton with screen legend prize.

Writer/director Robert Connolly’s family film Paper Planes has tonight won the inaugural $93,155 (A$100,000) film prize.

The award was announced tonight by jury head, director Bruce Beresford, at CinefestOZ, a film festival held in the city of Busselton in Western Australian.

The screen legend award went to Joel Edgerton, whose star has been rising in front of the camera in the US.

Roadshow Films is planning a very ambitious release for Paper Planes on January 15 during the summer school holidays — very few children’s films are made in Australia (only homegrown films are eligible for the award).

Paper Planes was produced by Connolly, Liz Kearney and Maggie Miles, and was mostly filmed in Western Australia, although some shooting took place in Tokyo, where the paper plane championships that capped off the story were held. Arclight handles international sales.

The other five finalists were Russell Vines’ The Whaler: Australia’s Great War Horse, John V Soto’s The Reckoning, Julius Avery’s Son Of A Gun, Stephen Lance’s My Mistress and Matt Saville’s Felony, which was written by and starred Edgerton.

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