Bulgarian post-communist drama movie "Tilt" has received the "Best Debut Feature" Award at the prestigious London film festival "Raindance."

The award ceremony took place Tuesday at the Apollo movie theater in London where the competition has taken place since 1992.

British indie drama "Stranger Things" and Croatian/Serbian/Slovenian co-production "Just Between Us" were among the winners announced Saturday night at the 19th Raindance Film Festival in London. "Stranger Things" took Best UK Feature and "Just Between Us" took Best International Feature.

Other winners included Italy's "Reset" for Film of the Festival, the UK's "How To Start A Revolution" for Best Documentary, the UK's "Monk3ys" for Best Microbudget Feature, Denmark's "Words" for Best International Short and "Love At First Sight" for Best UK Short.

"There were some outstanding films across the whole line-up so selecting winners was especially difficult this year," said festival director, Elliott Grove, as cited by Indiwire. "This has been a really successful festival – from the heart of London's West End we've screened over 200 features and shorts at the state-of-the art Apollo Cinema, Piccadilly.  Attendance was up by a staggering 62% on last year proving that the appetite for independent film is thriving."

The winners were chosen by a jury including actor Dexter Fletcher, director Gillies Mackinnon, actress Helen McCrory and TV/radio presenter Alex Zane.

"Tilt", which was recently selected as the Bulgarian nomination for the US Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film, has just entered the race for nominations in the same category of the Golden Globe.

"Tilt", which marks the debut of director Viktor Chuchkov Jr. and producer Borislav Chuchkov, was screened on October 2 in Los Angeles to an audience of many local journalists and some members of the jury, which will pick the nominations for the prestigious film prize.

Following its hugely successful official premiere in Bulgaria on February 11, 2011, which sent it straight to the top of the box office list, the movie has already been screened at 10 international film festivals with nine more ahead. The list features the festivals in Santa Barbara, Gothenburg, Montreal, Singapore, Raindance (London), Woodstock.

"Tilt" is reaping immense success in the United States, where it has been selected to feature at five festivals, including the one in Seattle, the largest in the country. The movie made it to the second spot in the audience vote ratings among 450 productions from around the world.

The movie is a co-production with "ostlicht filmproduktion" from Germany and the Bulgarian National Television. Script consultants are Bernd Lichtenberg ("Goodbye Lenin") and Bill Forsyth.

The main actors in "Tilt" are the new stars of Bulgarian cinema: Yavor Baharov, Radina Kardzhilova, Ivaylo Dragiev and Ovanes Torosyan.

The story opens in 1989 Sofia, where handsome rebel Stash (played by Yavor Baharov from Bulgarian TV series Glass Home) and his friends Angel (Ivaylo Dragiev), Gogo (Ovanes Torosyan) and B-Gum (Alexander Sano) make cash for pinball and skateboarding by dealing in illegal German porn videos.

When Stash starts dating the equally rebellious Becky (Radina Kardzhilova, also from Glass Home) the girl's policeman father (Georgy Staykov, recently seen in the Danish version of The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo) arrests the gang and threatens prison if Stash doesn't break off the relationship.

Taking advantage of the fall of the Berlin Wall, the boys flee to Germany and hook up with other emigres trying to make it in the West. When they hear of Bulgaria's velvet revolution, however, they head home, only to find that the people they left behind have changed just as radically as the country's politics.

The Raindance "Best Debut Feature" award is the second international award for "Tilt", after it received the James Lyons award at Woodstock earlier this month.

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