A Galway film student has claimed a prestigious award for a short film based on the dangers of alcohol consumption.

Kelly Hyland and Liam Ward, pictured above with Fionnuala Sheehan, Chief Executive of MEAS, won two out of five awards in the competition for their short film, "The Wasted Youth".

Liam Ward, of Attymon, Athenry and teammate Kelly Hyland, both students in the National College of Art and Design (NCAD), walked away from the Digital Hub in Dublin last Thursday evening with a hefty €2,000 in prize money, thanks to their success in the dare2bdrinkaware film competition.

The NCAD students produced 'The wasted youth', a short film that mixes scenes of natural beauty with shots filmed in an urban setting to demonstrate the contrast between beauty and the depression, isolation and aggression that can be triggered by alcohol consumption. The concept of the film is that, when abused, alcohol can destroy the beauty of youth by obstructing self-awareness, and, in cases of binge drinking, harming a person's health. The film scooped the award for best creative interpretation of the brief and best cinematography.

Dare2bdrinkaware is a competition for third-level students, sponsored by drinkaware.ie and organised by the digital hub development agency. The aim of the competition is to highlight young people's attitudes to alcohol. This year marked the first year of the competition, which received a great response from third-level students. The winning teams at last Thursday night's ceremony beat off stiff competition from DCU, UCD and IT Blanchardstown to win their awards.

"We were absolutely thrilled with the response to dare2bdrinkaware, and we were really blown away by the quality of the films that were produced for the competition. Not only did they take imaginative approaches to portraying young people's attitudes to alcohol consumption, they were also highly accomplished from a technical point of view," said Fionnuala Sheehan, chief executive of MEAS, the organisation behind drinkaware.ie.