A Maltese 11-minute film has been awarded Best Directorial Debut of a Short Film by the ITN Distribution Film and New Media Festival in New York.

Film producer Ray Mizzi will be collecting his accolade for The Medic, inspired by a friendship born out of World War II, in Cannes next year.

“I started this purely as a hobby and I never thought it would reward me with such unexpected satisfaction and a feeling of accomplishment,” said Mr Mizzi.

The Medic is Mr Mizzi’s third short film, following Lucrezia in 2008 and 6 a.m. in 2009. It has already won two awards for Best Production and Best Cinematography at this year’s Malta Cine Circle National Competition and the Local Jury and Viewers’ Choice Award. It was also nominated for Best Picture and Best Director in The Malta International TV Short Film Festival 2011.

Encouraged by its local success, Mr Mizzi submitted The Medic to a number of foreign film festivals and has so far been officially selected in Romania, Spain, the UK, Germany and the US.

It has always been Mr Mizzi’s dream to produce and direct a World War II film, “specifically for the thrill of directing a battle scene”. Having watched many war movies, he tried his best to come up with an original script.

“With the help of two friends, Joseph Navarro and Jeannot Kuenzel, we built a story about two enemy soldiers who end up becoming best friends.”

Notwithstanding the limited budget, he managed to secure the contribution of Kenneth Cassar and Roderick Pulis of Extreme Effects, a local special effects company that has worked on Gladiator, U-571 and, more recently, The Devil’s Double and World War Z.