Wish Me Away, the film that documents country music singer Chely Wright's coming out gay experience, has won the Audience Award for Best Documentary Feature at the 23rd Annual Palm Springs International Film Festival.

Wish Me Away tied for the award with The Girls In The Band, FilmThreat.com reported.

Wish Me Away, which had its world premiere on April 15, 2011 at the Nashville Film Festival, was produced and directed by Bobbie Birleffi and Beverly Kopf, who together run TVGals Media.

“When we started this project, we knew it was going to be hard,” Birleffi said at the film's screening. “We had the idea that the world would open their hearts with this film, that that was our guiding light.”

“The minute I decided to come out in 2007, the right people came into my life,” Wright said after the film received a long standing ovation at its Frameline35 showing in San Francisco. “I knew the [filmmakers] would handle this story with sensitivity. In telling my story, I know that I'm really 'just like you,'”

In 2010, Wright, 41, told People magazine that she is a lesbian ahead of the release of her memoir Like Me: Confessions of a Heartland Country Singer, in which she talks about her life as a closeted country music singer. She married her partner Lauren Blitzer in a ceremony in Connecticut last summer.