The acclaimed Maltese film Simshar won six awards at international film festivals over the weekend.

The film, a fiction story inspired by a fishing boat tragedy in 2008, scooped four of the 12 awards at the Bridges International Film Festival in Greece last night, including the Golden Pegasus best film award for director and co-script writer Rebecca Cremona, and best leading actress award for Clare Agius.

Ruben Zahra also won Best Original Score with the collaboration of Mario Sammut and Nina Gerada and Jonathan Hagon won Best Production Design.

Simshar also won the acclaimed international dramatic feature film award at the Edmonton Awards in Canada last night. There were over 2,000 submissions for the Canada festival.

And on Saturday, Ms Cremona won the special achievement award at the International Film Festival in Mannheim, Germany.

Ms Cremona told timesofmalta.com: "We are so overwhelmed that within 72 hours we won such fantastic awards in such different countries in very reputable festivals. I would like to thank all the people who worked on the film, from the key cast and crew, to all the extras, suppliers, investors who made this film possible"

Shot in Maltese and English and starring local and foreign actors, the film had even been accepted for consideration as Best Foreign Film at the Academy Awards.

Clare Agius was at International Filmfestival Mannheim-Heidelberg to receive the award.

The film, a fiction story inspired by the Simshar tragedy in 2008, was written by Ms Cremona and David Grech. It runs on three parallel tracks. The Simshar story, which includes the disappearance of 11-year-old Theo, follows the account of his mother, Sharin, the wife of the only survivor, Simon Bugeja.

As she raises her family, immigration concerns and tension among fishermen surge. At the same time, a Maltese doctor finds himself caring for a pregnant woman aboard a Turkish vessel, which rescued migrants between Malta and the Italian island of Lampedusa, with neither country allowing disembarkation.

The film was produced with the support of the Malta Film Commission and the Malta Film Fund.

The film had already won Best Film and Director awards in Cyprus, an honourable mention in Lisbon and best film in Zanzibar.