OAKLAND – A film by a 16-year-old Oakland boy is winning awards and fans throughout the country.

James Poirier’s “The Key” beat out 12 other films to win the Judges’ Award of Excellence at the 26th annual Maine Student Film and Video Festival, part of the Maine International Film Festival held in July.

The film has gone on to be picked out of 159 national entries for showing last month with 25 other films at the Youth Film Festival in Sacramento, Calif.

“It was really my first nonviolent movie,” joked the Messalonskee High School sophomore. “Most of my other movies were about shooting people.”

The seven-minute film is an exploration of interiors. It tells the story of a man who wakes up trapped in a room. There is a voodoo doll bearing his likeness in the room, and the man has to figure out the link between confronting the doll and breaking out of the room.

The doll speaks like an all-seeing narrator, in clear pronouncements, while the man’s thoughts are voiced in distorted echoes. Keyholes and doorways are the only extras. Discordant music intrudes in shards.

“It’s about how your mind can trick you, and you can be your own worst enemy,” Poirier said. “This [idea] came to me in class Algebra Two so I guess I really wanted to get out of that class.”

The film took three days to shoot but played well next to costlier films at the California festival.

“They had us up on the stage,” Poirier said. “People were saying their film cost $30,000, their film was shot on green screen. I just said, I don’t think mine cost anything.”

Poirier began shooting movies when he was 11 using Claymation movies with clay figures that had to be kneaded frame by frame.

“They were action movies,” said Poirier, “A lot of shooting.”

His career was temporarily sidelined when his parents’ VHS camera broke down because of his constant start-and-stop recording. But his parents came to the rescue and bought Poirier a JVC digital camera.