Blair Strang and Miriama Smith in Kaitangata Twitch

Last weekend the thrilling New Zealand mystery drama Kaitangata Twitch won the Platinum Award, (top prize) at the 2010 WorldFest in Houston, Texas in the Children's / Family Television Series category.

"Fiercely independent," WorldFest is one of the oldest and largest film festivals in the world. Founded in 1961, it now holds 12 major film and video awards in one event. In 2009 more than 4,500 category entries were received from 37 countries.

At this year's event, the festival screened 55-60 feature film and 100 short film premieres, as well as TV Production, Documentary, Corporate & Business Films, Student & Experimental, Music Videos and New Media (Interactive & Web Sites). With such a wide category range WorldFest gives a large number of awards, (approximately 10% of entries) all of which are judged by a combination of American and International jury members, but no awards are given without unanimous agreement of their merit.

Among many previous WorldFest discoveries are John Boorman, Michael Cimino, the Coen Brothers, Bryan De Palma, Jonathan Demme, Atom Egoyan, John Frankenheimer, Ang Lee, Spike Lee, George Lucas, David Lynch, Ridley Scott, Steven Spielberg, Oliver Stone, Peter Weir and hundreds more.

With a proud history in platforming exciting new feature film talent World Fest has also gained respect for its focus and commitment to offering the best of productions from the international independent screen production makers.

"Winning the top award at Worldfest is a wonderful acknowledgement of the range and depth of the NZ talent brought together to make this flagship drama for its debut on Maori Television, and a continuing belief that strong New Zealand stories can and will inform and entertain children and families worldwide said the exhilarated Director and Executive Producer Yvonne Mackay who collected the award at the Grand Awards Gala.

Mackay, episodic director of some of NZ's most popular drama such as The Insiders Guide to Happiness, the family feature The Silent One and owner of Production Shed.tv comments: "The festival is enormous - there are so many categories. At the dinner, because it's only for the winners, you're sitting there with top talents from a wide variety of genres: feature film, music video, television, corporate... Unfortunately, about 50 people were unable to turn up to collect their prizes due to the Iceland volcano so there was little representation present from Europe."

A tale of the modern world confronted by Maori legend, Kaitangata Twitch is packed with drama, live-action, CGI, myth and magic, From the fertile imagination of internationally beloved New Zealand author Margaret Mahy, recipient of the world's most prestigious prize for children's literature: the Hans Christian Andersen Award, given for a body of work, and the Major Picture Book Prize at this year's Boston Globe Horn book awards, Kaitangata Twitch is one of two hundred of her stories which have been translated into 15 different languages.

Mackay is currently adapting another Mahy novel, Portable Ghost destined for a tween audience.

Meanwhile, Kaitangata Twitch will screen in New Zealand on Maori Television from Sunday May 2nd at 7.00pm. "The series is aimed at family audiences," says Yvonne Mackay, "but younger ones may chose to hide behind the couch, as we all remember doing watching series like Dr Who."

Kaitangata Twitch, from Wellington-based ProductionShed.Tv is distributed internationally by Canada's Lenz Entertainment. The series will air in Canada, Sweden and across the ABC TV Network in Australia later this year.