SEAN NUGENT

Aspiring young filmmaker Daisy Thor-Poet has yet another award to add to her growing list of accolades. In December she picked up the prize for the Canon Eyecon Tertiary Film Award with her short film Strike Out.

Around three minutes long, Strike Out tells the story of a man suffering from depression and considering suicide, only to "find the light,” as Daisy puts it, and move onwards and upwards with his life.

Daisy told the Wanaka App she had had the idea of the film for a while, and the Canon Eyecon competition was the perfect forum for it to be displayed. She directed the film especially for the competition, and submitted it in early November.

"I just thought why not? I thought it was what the judges were looking for.”

She was right. In the week before Christmas, Daisy found out she had won the award, and was particularly happy with the judges liking her imagery, something she has been working on for a while.

Since leaving Mount Aspiring College, Daisy has been studying digital media at the Southern Institute of Technology (SIT) in Invercargill, and is about to start her second year in February.

She is hoping the course will help her towards her dream of being a director of short films in New Zealand. Prominent Kiwi director Jane Campion is an idol of Daisy’s, with the Wanaka teenager particularly liking the way Campion portrays New Zealand and uses imagery.

Not satisfied with what she has already achieved, Daisy has been working on a script which she hopes to submit to Short Film Otago in mid-January with the hope it will be chosen to be produced later in the year.