Inspiring Stories is proud to announce the finalists for this year's Inspiring Stories Film Competition, themed "Young Kiwis Making A Difference", supported this year by the New Zealand Film Commission.

With 30 outstanding submissions this year, it was a hard decision for our panel of 6 judges and 6 Special Awards Partners to narrow it down to these 15 finalists for the 11 Awards.

We shall be announcing the Overall Winner for Most Inspiring Story in at the Awards Ceremony, with a prize of $1000 cash.

The Finalists are;

• Best in Secondary Category Finalists
• Educate A Girl
• Fuelling Our Future
• Hungry For Change

• Best in Secondary Category Finalist
• My Friend Harriet

• Best in Open Category Finalists
• Continuity Error
• Jeremy
• The Harbour Co-op

• Making A Difference Award Finalists
• Brittany Trilford [Brittany]
• Daisy [On Yer Bike]
• Katie Smith [Hungry for Change]

• Technical Prowess Finalists
• Continuity Error
• Fuelling our Future
• My Friend Harriet

This is our first year with Special Awards, associated with six inspiring New Zealand organizations; 350 Aotearoa, The Big Idea, Outlook For Someday, The Sir Peter Blake Trust, Trade Aid and Forest & Bird.

• 350 Aotearoa Local Solutions to Climate Change Award
• Fuelling Our Future
• My Friend Harriet
• On Yer Bike

• Forest & Bird Kaitiaki/Environment Award finalists
• On Yer Bike
• The World We Want
• Worm Farming in the City

• Sir Peter Blake Trust Youth Leadership Award finalists
• Brittany Trilford
• Making The Difference
• The World We Want

• The Big Idea Creativity & Culture Award finalists
• Jeremy
• My Friend Harriet
• The Power of Change

• The Outlook for Someday Sustainability Award finalists
• Continuity Error
• Fuelling Our Future
• My Friend Harriet

• Trade Aid Human Rights Award finalists
• Educate A Girl
• Inspire Through Example
• Silcencio

The winner for each award, and their prizes, will be announced at the Awards Ceremony at Festival For The Future, November 17th at Te Papa. We will also be celebrating non-finalist films with 'Special Mention' awards and spot prizes at the Awards Ceremony. Tickets for the Festival and Awards Ceremony will be available later in September.

A huge congratulations to all who made it into this year's competition. The quality of the films this year was overwhelming, and we look forward to sharing many of them on our website, our Facebook page, on Vimeo and on The Big Idea Inspiring Stories video gallery.