CinefestOZ is a Western Australian film festival that began in Busselton seven years ago. The inaugural award was presented on Saturday night to Paper Planes, a film for children co-written and directed by Melbourne filmmaker Robert Connolly (Balibo, The Turning). Paper Planes is about a young country boy with a unique gift who dreams of taking part in the world paper plane championships in Tokyo. It stars Ed Oxenbould, Sam Worthington and Deborah Mailman. It was one of six Australian films screened in competition at the festival.

CinefestOZ is thinking big, but it started small. It began as a local government initiative. Councillors David Barton and Helen Shervington had been investigating the possibilities for Busselton, population 31,000, to establish a sister-city relationship with St Tropez. They came up with the idea for a movie festival devoted to Australian and French cinema, and a name that reflected this.

The French connection is part of state history: place names such as Geographe Bay and Freycinet testify to the presence of French explorers in the region. They became aware of the Cinema des Antipodes festival in St Tropez, a celebration of Australian film run by Frenchman Bernard Bories. And Busselton had a good local movie theatre, the Orana. A film festival made sense.

Barton is the chairman of the festival, and Shervington its deputy chairwoman. The Melbourne International Film Festival provided early support and advice.

MIFF chairwoman Claire Dobbin says she thinks the two festivals have a parent-child relationship and CinefestOZ board members are adamant that MIFF has played a vital role.

CinefestOZ sees itself as a "destination event", a festival that promotes the region, bringing in visitors as well as audiences. Tourism WA is a supporter, and has provided the funds for the film award through the Royalties for Regions program.

However, the organisers deliberately chose a non-parochial name; not tied to a region or city.

Barton says that the event has local roots but the CinefestOZ award "is a national prize, and we want it to be an Australian cultural asset".

The festival has grown steadily, from sales in the first year of 1800 tickets to more than 20,000 this year. It has screenings and sidebar events across the region, and ambitions to grow further. The size of the award is likely to put the event more firmly on the map.

CinefestOZ also sees itself as part of a push to boost the film industry in the area. Four of the six finalists in the inaugural event happened to have been filmed in the state; testimony, organisers say, to the increased activity in Western Australia.

More than 20 films were submitted. They had to be Australian features or feature-length documentaries that fitted the definition of an Australian film or co-production according to the guidelines of the national film body, Screen Australia. The screening at the festival had to be a West Australian premiere. The other finalists this year were the features My Mistress, Son Of A Gun, Felony, and The Reckoning and the documentary The Waler: Australia's Great War Horse.

The prize goes to the producers of Paper Planes, Connolly, Liz Kearney and Maggie MIles. The jury was chaired by filmmaker Bruce Beresford. The other jury members were actress Marta Dusseldorp, At The Movies' Margaret Pomeranz, producer Sue Milliken and Benjamin Illos, a selector for Cannes Directors' Fortnight.

Philippa Hawker was a guest of CinefestOZ.