On Saturday, German filmmaker Till Kleinert's Cowboy won the sophomore Iris Prize for best gay short film.

The second annual Iris Film Festival, set in Cardiff, the capital of Wales, showcased thirty gay and lesbian short films from around the globe, but Cowboy walked away with the £25,000 ($45,000) award.

In Kleinert's Cowboy, city dweller Christian comes to a deserted village where he meets a country lad with whom he spends the day and night. When harvest starts at dawn, the village shows its real face and the two men are forced to pay a terrible price in order to leave.

U.K.'s Queer As Folk writer/director Russell T. Davis announced the winner at the three-day gay film festival.

“Cowboy is a fantastic film that captured the imagination of the jury and the general public. Till Kleinert is a huge talent. I'm so excited that he will return to Wales to make a new film with his prize,” said festival organizer Berwyn Rowlands.

The gay short film festival also included a feature film prize. Antarctica was among the films in competition.

Israeli writer/directorYair Hochner's Antarctica seeks to thaw out the hearts of two lost souls. On his 30th birthday, Omer is drowning himself in work at the library. Shirley, Omer's little sister, is having an affair with her boss. Both seem to be locked in a perpetual cycle of unhappiness when Ronen, the handsome journalist, enters their lives. Will their frozen hearts thaw?

However, it was James Bolton's cinematic adaptation of Jim Grimsley's novel Dream Boy that won the gay feature film prize.

Dream Boy is set in the 1970s American rural south, where new boy in town Nathan is clearly taken by his new neighbor Roy. The teens are soon sneaking away to make out in the woods. But Nathan's new-found happiness is soon threatened by homophobia and a sexually abusive father.

The Iris Film Festival is the world's largest gay and lesbian short film festival. The included video is a montage of the films screened at this year's event.

Gay Entertainment Report is a feature of On Top Magazine and can be reached at ontopmag@ontopmag.com.