Many girls dream of becoming a princess or a famous actress and young Japonica M is well on her way to clinching both titles.

The Year 5 Glenwood Public School student directed and starred in Free Free At Last, which was selected as a finalist in the Trop Jr short film competition for directors aged under 15.

The achievement follows Japonica’s recent elevation to princess in the Samoan village of Malie after her father was made the village chief.

Attending the ceremony in Samoa during the Christmas holidays posed some dilemmas for the aspiring filmmaker who was putting the final touches to her film.

“I’m really grateful to my crew for their help,” Japonica said of her fellow students, Ryan S, Jacquiline C, Neil C, and Brian B.

“When I went away they had to fill in for me and they did a great job.”

The film, described as “a horror film with a bit of a twist”, is based on a real-life event where Japonica was sent to her room for not eating her onions. The subsequent creative story “leapt off the page”, according to her teacher, Tom Gough.

“It was full of fantastic metaphors and terrific imagery,” he said. “It was perfect for turning into a film.”

The Glenwood entry was one of three films made by NSW public school students to make the finals of Trop Jr, an offshoot of Tropfest, Australia’s biggest short film festival.

Besties, a documentary about chickens made by Randwick Girls High School student Jasmin-Johanna M, claimed the Trop Jr runner-up prize.

The Life of Perfarto, described as a “comic biography about a superstar with special talents”, was produced by Year 5 and 6 students at Main Arm Upper Public School, near Mullumbimby.

The first staging of Trop Jr was held in February in Sydney’s Domain before the screening of the Tropfest finalists.

Last year Glenwood Public School’s The Sorrow of War was short-listed for the Tropfest finals. It is thought to be the first time a film made by primary school students had made it that far.

Tropfest’s managing director Michael Laverty said the creation of a junior event “had been in the pipeline for a few years” but the short-listing of The Sorrow of War provided “a trigger to make it happen”.

“The kids are doing such great things … and these eight finalist films are fantastic,” Mr Laverty said.

Mr Gough’s Glenwood students have won a string of national and international filmmaking awards in recent years.

“Every year is like opening up a box and seeing what is inside,” he said. “If all I do is bring out what’s inside them then I’ve lived a fully satisfied teaching life.”