The Discovery Youth Screen Award 2009 winner was Backfire, produced by The Lensheads at The Learning Centre.

This explosive short film was selected by an audience vote at a screening of the nominated films at the Discovery Film Festival on Sunday 1st Nov.

In Backfire Frankie's life is turned upside down when someone asks him a favour that puts him on the wrong side of the law. What should he do? What would you do?

The Discovery Youth Screen Award is given to the best short film made in Scotland by under 18-year-olds in the past 12 months. It is awarded annually at Discovery - Scotland's leading youth film festival - which screens the best in international film for young audiences and this year welcomed 4000 young people at the DCA Cinema. There were over 50 submissions to the short film award and the youth jury selected seven, very strong films, for the shortlist (Shortlist here). These films were all screened at a special awards screening at the Discovery Film Festival which was followed by an audience vote, by a mix of young people and industry professionals, to select the winner. It was a close run, but Backfire took the title.

The Lensheads, a North Lanarkshire based youth filmmaking group who had two films in the shortlist (Backfire and Seaweed), were delighted to claim the honour. Lensheads' member Jack Frisky -  who was attending Discovery for a film masterclass weekend for teenagers - was at the DCA cinema to picked up the award from festival producer Katharine Simpson.  

The prize includes the Discovery Youth Screen Award cup and a cheque for £250 which Lensheads have said they are going to plow back into developing the screenwriting skills of their young filmmakers.

Katharine Simpson, commented "Backfire immerses you in Frankie's dilemma, and is gripping from start to finish. Congratulations to The Lensheads team behind Backfire, and The Learning Centre, for producing such an accomplished film. I wish them well in all their future filmmaking endevours and look forward to seeing more from this group."

The Lensheads film school is run by The Learning Centre, which is North Lanarkshire Council's specialist multimedia production house focussed on developing new multimedia recourses for the Learning and Leisure Service. The film Backfire was made with funding from First Light, a national organisation for funding youth film supported by the UK Film Council.