Distant thunder...

White singlet, orange underpants, white wellingtons, Hushpuppy holds her hand to the side of a sleeping hog;

"All this time, everywhere, everything’s hearts are beating and squirting, and talking to each other the ways I can't understand."

As the focus and narrator of Beasts of the Southern Wild, we are privy to both Hushpuppy’s actions and thoughts.

Six years old, she lives with her fisherman father Wink, a broken man with a temper and ailing health. They live in a stilted bayou community in the shadow of a levee; cut off and forgotten, “The Bathtub”, population 87. Victims of increasingly regular and ferocious storms, the mixed race community is dwindling, those who stay are proud but reckless in their resolve. Everyday is worth celebrating and they celebrate hard as the storm season arrives.

The apocalypic warnings of the community school teacher feed a young mind trying to make sense of the natural world. Hushpuppy connects a violent encounter with her father to the storm bearing down upon them. Her fathers fading health sets Hushpuppy on a surreal journey of understanding and she discovers the strength of the beast inside her.

First time director Benh Zeitlin has crafted an exceptional film, part fantasy, part cautionary tale, which won him the Grand Jury Prize at Sundance and Camera d'Or at the Cannes Film Festival.

Hushpuppy is one of the most fascinating characters of the year and the performance from 6 year old Quvenzhané Wallis is remarkable. Chosen from over 4000 girls who auditioned, Wallis’ mother lied about her age as they were casting older; she was 5 when she auditioned and had never acted. Extensively narrated, it is astonishing that someone so young can deliver this delicously vivid script with such confidence. Now 9, she will next be seen in 12 Years a Slave along side Brad Pitt, Paul Giamatti and Michael Fassbender

Dwight Henry, who owns the bakery across the street from the films production company and had also never acted, delivers a painfully raw performance as the ailing Wink.

Shot predominantly hand held, we see the world subtly from a childs view. The photography is superb and depicts beautifully this fable of a child trying to make sense of her difficult world.

In a year filled with the kind of tent pole spectacles that get me going, that this beautifully poetic Indie is my Film of the Year 2012 is a most welcome surprise.

It will be some time before I forget that "...once, there was a Hushpuppy and she lived with her daddy in the Bathtub.”