Market Bosworth movie maker Ben Cookson has achieved the dream of every up and coming director - to be able to call himself "award-winning".
His first full-length film Almost Married, which he wrote and directed, has scooped the Best Feature Film award at the Marbella Film Festival.
On the back of that, the low-budget film, which only took 18 days to shoot, has a new distribution deal for the whole of Latin America.
The film, which was released in 10 UK cinemas in March, also has TV, DVD and internet deals in the pipeline for the United States and much of Europe.
A deal has also been struck for the film to be shown in the UK on one of the ITV channels in the near future.
Ben said: "It's brilliant to win and it was a real shock. We weren't expecting to win anything.
"A few days later we got an email offering a distribution deal for the whole of Latin America and that's with the same company that distributed The Wolf of Wall Street and The Hunger Games over there, so it's great news.
"Now we can call ourselves an 'award-winning' team it's very good for the next films we make."
Ben's film is a dark romantic comedy staring Emily Atack, best-known as Charlotte Hinchcliffe in The Inbetweeners, and Philip McGinley, who plays Anguy the Archer in Game of Thrones.
The film was shot in Newcastle with a budget of about £600,000, with many of the crew agreeing to waive fees and experts offering help for free.
Previously, Ben, 32, had only made two short films, the second of which was a 15-minute segment of Almost Married, which he made to get financing for the film.
He said: "It's a big leap from making shorts to making feature films and it was tough shooting on such a tight budget.
"When it came out at the cinema it was only a small release - a drop in the ocean really.
"But a film like this is probably more one to watch at home with a couple of beers so we hope it will do well on iTunes, GooglePlay and Blinkbox, as well as DVD.
"It's a difficult industry for investors to see a good return on their investment but will the film selling around the world we hope it will make a profit.
"I've got a couple of ideas for the next project. One's a story I wrote myself, which is a romantic thriller set in Paris.
"The other is a true story about a heavy metal drummer who marries an illegal immigrant to help her stay in the country and it would be another dark comedy."
