Young film-makers from the North-east are asking the public for support after they reached the finals of the National Lottery Awards.
The Beacon Hill Film Project, which enables young people with learning disabilities and autism to make their own films, has been short-listed in the Best Arts Project category of the awards.
The young film-makers are relying entirely on public votes to win their category, and are asking people to vote for them online or by telephone.
If the project wins it will receive a cash prize of GBP2,000.
The Tyne and Wear-based project, which is a partnership between Beacon Hill Business and Enterprise College and Arpeggio Films, gives young people the chance to script, film and edit their own films with mentoring and support. They also make their own props, costumes and compose their films' soundtracks.
Young film-maker Luke Zuccaroli, 18, said: "Making the films was fun. We did script writing, filming, prop making, editing and composed the music too.
"We are very proud of our films and we hope that people across the country will support us by taking a few seconds to vote for our project."
Project manager Will Sadler said: "Despite facing many significant challenges, the young film-makers constantly demonstrate a remarkable flare for creativity and have a fantastic ability to create characters, scenarios and stories that are quite simply out of this world.
"It's been a life changing experience working with them and we hope that people can find a few moments in their day to go online or pick up the phone and vote for the project. It would be such a fitting reward for everyone's hard work."
The young people will be travelling from Tyneside to London in the autumn to take part in a special live Saturday night BBC One programme, and the results will be announced live on the show.
The group's latest films, The Pirate And The Mermaid and The Middle Of Nowhere, have already won accolades, awards and prestigious screenings.
The Pirate And The Mermaid follows a turbulent love affair between a pirate and a mermaid and has won the National Young Filmmakers Award and a First Light Award for Best Original Music.
Earlier this month the film was screened simultaneously at 10 venues across the UK, including London's BFI Southbank, Newcastle's Tyneside Cinema and the Glasgow Film Theatre.
The Middle Of Nowhere is about three friends and their unusual birthday surprise, and was short-listed in the Best Emerging Talent category at Fresh Flix: the young people's section of short film festival Encounters.
Film critic Barry Norman has described both films as "enchanting" and "made with great verve, infectious enthusiasm and off-the-wall originality".
The group's latest work was funded by the Lottery through the UK Film Council's First Light Initiative, with support from Creative Partnerships and North Tyneside Council.
For more information about the project or to watch the young people's work visit
www.beaconhillfilmproject.org.uk
Voting will be open until midday on August 13. People can vote by visiting
www.lotterygoodcauses.org.uk/awards and clicking on Best Arts Project or by calling 0844 6867774. Calls cost 5p from a BT Landline.
Calls from other networks may vary, calls from mobiles could cost considerably more.
The National Lottery Awards have seven categories: sport, heritage, arts, environment, education, health and voluntary/charity.
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