Dunedin film-maker Rowan Wernham was announced as the Best New Zealand Emerging Film-maker at this year’s Doc Edge Festival, held in Christchurch last week.
The festival is a celebration of documentary film-making both from New Zealand and internationally.
Wernham said he was "legitimately surprised ... but of course incredibly happy" to receive the award.
His documentary Pistachio Wars tells the story of California’s two biggest pistachio farmers.
It looks at water issues, inequality and the geopolitics that have helped the Californian pistachio industry become huge.
"It’s one innocent snack food and then a lot of overlapping, strange and unexpectedly dark realities around it, which is true for a lot of commodities in our modern society."
Wernham said the 75-minute feature-length documentary had taken "under a decade" to make and required about 100 days of filming in California over five years.
Made in collaboration with American journalist Yasha Levine, it was his first film.
Pistachio Wars also received a special mention for Best New Zealand Feature.
It will premiere in Dunedin at Metro Cinema on July 14.
