[WATCH] Maltese director says his prize-nominated film is 'something special'

Maltese director Winston Azzopardi, behind the critically acclaimed The Boat, told MaltaToday that he thinks his film is 'something special.'

The Boat, starring the director's own son, Joe Azzopardi, is nominated for the UK National Film Award, which will be presented on 28 March.

Even though Azzopardi is proud of his film and thinks it's a special project, he said he doubts he would win. "I don't think we'll win. The UK didn't watch The Boat, as it's not released there yet. Only the critics did. The other competing films have all been shown to the UK audiences, so this audience is against us."

Despite this, Azzopardi says he will go to the event and enjoy himself.

The Boat is up against Gloves Off (Steven Nesbit), The Beast (Michael Pearce), Yardie (Idris Elba), Apostasy (Daniel Kokotaljo), Annihilation (Alex Garland), Calibre (Michael Palmer), Ray & Liz (Richard Billingham), and Widows (Steve McQueen).

"You don't know whether the final product is any good while you're filming, but we showed our film to a focus group and people loved it. Critics liked it too. When we watched the final cut, we knew we had something special," Azzopardi said, adding that he was proud that his son had performed so well.

Azzopardi said that The Boat was funded privately and that there was no studio behind it. "This," he said, "allowed us to be creative. We had full freedom, which was nice."