The curtain fell on Cinemagic Sunday night with a Canadian film scooping the top award for the second year running. Borderline Normal, a film charting the tough journey from adolescence to adulthood, found favour with the festival's ix-strong child jury.

Just ten days before, Festival Director Shona McCarthy had opened Cinemagic by reaffirming her ambitions to make the Belfast festival 'the best Children's Film Festival in the world'. And judging by the success of this year's event, which included a high profile conference, a new technology forum, masterclasses, shorts, and features, Shona and the Cinemagic team seem to have come pretty close.

Borderline Normal director Jeff Reesley told the audience at the award ceremony that 'it always comes as a pleasant surprise when you win an award like this, we had a fabulous cast, including Robin Dunne from Dawson's Creek, and I am thrilled that the Cinemagic jury gave the award to a film that tackles some serious issues.'

The prize for Best Short Film of the festival went to Irish-based production company Brother Films with Lipservice. The Cinemagic Young Filmmaker of the Year Competition, Best Film went to The Good, The Bad and the Kiwi from North Down and Ards Institute. Upstairs won three awards for Best Director (Graham Howie), Best Visual Design and Best Actor (Steven McIntosh). Best Actress went to Jenny Warnock for Train of Thought which also won Best Script. Carly Rodgers from North Down College won the Best Documentary award for her behind-the-scenes look at the making of BBC Northern Ireland's Saints and Scholars.

Shona McCarthy commented ' We gave out sixteen prizes to young people today, all of whom would dearly love to develop their talents with a view to working within the new creative industries in Northern Ireland and Cinemagic aims to work with these young people to make this happen.'

The closing night film was the gala screening of Pokemon: The Movie 2000, which, like most of the films that on show, played to a packed house at the UGC Cinema. Attendance for this year's festival hit new highs in excess of 15,000.

Opening the festival was the Irish premiere of Disney's 102 Dalmatians at the stunning Belfast Waterfront Hall. Attending the gala, in the festival's biggest coup, was Roy Disney, vice-Chairman of Walt Disney and nephew of Walt. Roy received such rapturous applause from the audience that one wondered if he had been mistaken for his long dead uncle. After a lively dance piece called Green Cross Code by 15 Belfast locals, Northern Ireland's Minister for Culture introduced the opening film as '1002 Dalmatians'. Roy later thanked him for suggesting a title for the next sequel, though some members of the audience grimaced at the thought of another 900 Dalmatian films to sit through first.

Unique to this year's festival was a three day conference - What's The Story - which looked at 'changes, challenges and opportunities in education for you people in the digital age'.

Kicking off the conference on a bitterly rainy Thursday, Shona set out the festival's operational style by telling delegates that 'this is not like other conferences you've been to… we want this to be different'. To prove the point Shona yelled 'Hello' at the delegates to which all, Roy Disney included, replied with a cheerful 'hello' shouted back. Roy Disney led the keynote address, quoting Picasso - 'computers are stupid, they only give you answers' and pointing out that digital technology is only a tool, and nowhere near as important as stories and characterisation. Roy was followed by Chris Deering, President of Sony Entertainment Europe, and in charge of the 50-odd Playstation 2s that kept kids captivated in Arena 21.

The next three days saw delegates break into small seminar groups with a mixture of local children and industry professionals. While the chance to debate was welcomed, there was some concern over certain companies hijacking the sessions either to promote themselves or use the young people there as a free focus-group. But the overall response was positive and the evenings were filled with much Guinness and exchanging of cards.

Other treats of the festival included a special screening of Disney's Incredible Story Studio's latest, including one short animation based on drawings by 11 year-old Belfast girl Sophia Mulligan. John Stevenson, head of the Jim Henson Studio faced an articulate and demanding audience of secondary school students for the screening of his debut - a live action Animal Farm. Plenty of short films and animations were shown and Channel 4 News' well regarded anchor, Jon Snow, gave a news and current affairs masterclass.

With a broad package of films and activities for young people, coupled with an impressively attended conference for creative professionals, Cinemagic 2000 more than excelled itself. At a time when Belfast is moving forward both economically and politically, such a strong cultural event for the city's youth, couldn't be better timed and placed.