NEW DELHI: The Iranian animation film ‘Dad’s Fragile Doll’ has been awarded the top prize by the world’s only online video service, Viewster, at its film festival.

The film by Ali Zare Ghanatnowi received an amount of $70,000 in the Festival on the theme of ‘Relationship Status: It’s Complicated’.

The second prize of $20,000 went to ‘Wrong’ a short by South Korea’s Taegue Lim, while the third prize of $7,500 went to German short ‘Your Place’ by Sylvia Borges and the fourth prize was given to Polish short ‘Next’ by Adam Janisch, winning $2,500.

The Viewster Online Film Festival is a cutting-edge worldwide event where television and film lovers as well as producers gather online to discover and share creative short films, features, web series and documentaries.

The expert panel of judges included famed independent film producer Ted Hope, actress Nora Tschirner and Timo Vuorensola, director of award-winning international film, Iron Sky.

 The second #VOFF edition received nearly 1,000 submissions from filmmakers representing 70 countries, with 500 films ultimately accepted to compete for awards.

“When we started this festival competition, we just wanted to create a place for filmmakers to showcase their work and for film fans to discover creative international content,” said Viewster CEO Kai Henniges. “The second festival edition surpassed our expectations and we consider it a great reward that that the winners represent such different global and cultural perspectives.”

 The VOFF is the ideal platform for film producers, independent or not, to showcase their work. Attracting roughly 500,000 online visitors. The second edition of VOFF was also the most social festival to date with tens of millions of interactions on festival content across social media.

 “We have seen engagement like never before this year,” said Henniges. “Viewers’ response has been overwhelming and we view the success of this festival as a sign of much greater things to come.”