A controversial film about the secret world of cadavers and body donation at the Otago Medical School has won a major film award.
Donated To Science won the best director award at the Edge Film Festival Awards in Auckland on Thursday night.
"I'm well pleased ... and very, very happy," director and Dunedin physician Dr Paul Trotman said from Auckland yesterday.
"It means there's an increased possibility of doing more of these sorts of films."
The award was recognition for all involved in the film, he said.
"If you pick the right people then the job of director is incredibly easy. All the director does is put things in the right order.
"So many people were involved, from the incredibly generous donors to the incredible co-operation from the Dunedin Medical School. And it was a risk for them, because we could have messed it up badly."
The subject matter of the film had been controversial, he said.
"There were people at TV3 who didn't want it to go on. But TV3 stood by it right from the start," Dr Trotman said.
Produced by Dr Trotman and Prof Helen Nicholson, of the University of Otago anatomy and structural biology department, the film follows medical students working with cadavers and features interviews with the donors as they explain their reasons for donating their bodies.
Dr Trotman is now filming a sequel to the film in Hastings, which follows the young doctors who featured in Donated To Science in the first year of their careers in the hospital ward.
Donated to Science, which was also nominated for a Qantas Film and Television Award in the popular documentary section last year, screened to an audience of 720,000 and widespread acclaim when it premiered on TV3 in November, 2009.
