On an annual family holiday to Phillip Island eight years ago, media studies student Jeff Bird came across the Wonthaggi State Coal Mine.

Since then, what began as a dream to make a five minute documentary on the history of the mine has grown into an award winning 51 minute film shown on the ABC.

And 'Black Gold, Kindred Spirits', made with the help of "contra deals" and borrowed equipment - at one point Jeff painted a house in return for five rolls of film - won the gold award for best documentary at the recent Worldfest-Charleston International Film Festival in the US. It beat a field of 1450 entries from 23 countries.

"It's nice for something to happen. You get so many knock-backs in the eight years, but the thing that kept me going was that I believed in the people and the story of Wonthaggi - the Wonthaggi spirit - and the miners." Jeff, now a documentary maker living in Black Rock, said.

After the ABC screening he was inundated with calls from around Australia from people who had family working in the mine. "One man saw the documentary and said he saw his father in a photo in the film. His father and step-father were killed in the mine. So it was incredible for him and his mother to see the film, because he was a boy at school, 12 years old, when they told him his father died".

The documentary relates the controversial history of the state coal mine, opened early this century in haste when a devastating strike in New South Wales paralysed Australia's coal supply.

The mine, 150 km south of Melbourne, earned the titled of Australia's most faulted and dangerous colliery.

The documentary recalls the history of the mine through interviews with some of the few remaining miners and their families. Working conditions were poor, shaft explosions resulted in deaths and led to unrest that resulted in a six month strike in 1934.