Budding filmmaker Oliver Levi-Malouf in Trop Jr festival finals again

The 15-year-old Daramalan College student has made an entry for this year's Australia-wide short film festival that has also made it to the finals. In Penelope's Penguin, he said, he wanted to tell a heartwarming story that would appeal to a lot of people. ''It's about a girl growing up who is shunned by her peers and just wants in.''

Penelope (played by Oliver's fellow student Megan Stewart, 13) lives in a world where when people come of age they are followed around by animal doppelgangers that represent their personalities. Penelope is a late bloomer, however, and is made to feel it. She desperately longs for her doppelganger - but when it comes, it isn't the one for which she had hoped.

Oliver got permission to film at his school and used other students (and one teacher) as his actors. The animal doppelgangers were represented by humans dressed in onesies.

''I started it in July and worked on it for four months,'' he said. The editing took up most of the time - he wanted it to be very clean and sharp. He got it down to six minutes and 58 seconds - two seconds under the seven-minute limit. He also incorporated the Signature Item (changed each year to ensure films are made for that particular festival) which was ''Monster'' but wouldn't talk about how he interpreted it, leaving it for viewers to discover.

Oliver is heavily involved in drama at Daramalan - as well as formal classes he started a Drama Club - and said film and theatre were very different media.

''With film it's easier to tell a story with pictures; the stage is more aural, hearing things and connecting them.''

He's already looking to the future.

''I definitely hope to enter in the adult version of Tropfest next year,'' he said.

''I really want to have a career in film.''

■ Tropfest - including Trop Jr - will be on at Exhibition Park in Canberra on Sunday, December 8. For more information visit tropfest.com