MUMBAI: After having secured honours at the Cannes Film Festival, Australian film Samson and Delilah that talks about the plight of many aboriginal communities won the country‘s top film award last Saturday.

The film swept the Australian Film Institute (AFI) awards with its director, Warwick Thornton taking home the award for best direction as well as for best original screenplay.

Thornton had cast two non-actor children Marissa Gibson and Rowan McNamara in the lead roles and both received the AFI‘s young actor award.

Samson and Delilah tells the story of two aboriginal teenagers living in squalor and highlights the desperate state of many Aboriginal communities where glue sniffing, alcohol abuse and violence are common, although it ends on a more hopeful note.

The film has been doing the rounds at international film festivals since it won the Camera d‘Or prize at Cannes earlier this year and last month it took home the top prize at the annual Asia Pacific Screen Awards.