Gums & Noses, the second feature film in M-Net's Original Movies project, won the award for Best Feature film at the Apollo Film festival in Victoria West this past weekend. It beat stiff competition from five other local movies, two of which - Darrel Roodt's Yesterday and Ntshavheni Wa Luruli's Wooden Camera - will appear on M-Net in the coming months.

Carl Fischer, Head of Local Productions at M-Net, says all at the channel are very proud of the film. "The M-Net Original Movies initiative was an ambitious one, but we knew that our local industry could produce films of tremendous quality, and awards like this one are a testament to both the faith M-Net has placed in the industry, and the talent with which the industry itself is blessed," says Fischer.

The Apollo Film Festival, now in its fourth year, is a community-based initiative aiming at promoting and encouraging local films. The vision behind the Apollo Festival is to provide a platform for films and documentaries from South Africa and other African countries in a drive to boost the local film industry. This year's adjudicators included Letebele Masemola-Jones, Martin Botha, Darryl Accone and Helen Kuun.

Gums & Noses producer Robbie Thorpe is honoured that the film was awarded the Best Feature Film accolade. "Making the movie was a great experience, and a tremendous amount of work went into producing it in a very short time. This award is shared by all the people who worked tirelessly in front of and behind the camera to translate Gums & Noses from stage to screen - successfully!" he says.

Gums & Noses will be rebroadcast on October 31 at 23h00 and November 10 at 02h20 on M-Net.