Film director Isabelle Stead has been nominated for an award for her creation, Kosher. The film — a comedy about a young Jewish boy who befriends a pig — is up for Best Short Script at the Super Shorts International Film Festival currently taking place.

Ms Stead, 28, works for Human Film, a European film company, which she co-founded. It makes films to break down cultural divides, and Kosher is its latest offering. Ms Stead tells People: “For the past two years, I had been wanting to find a project that wasn’t hitting people over the head with religion, but to break down the barriers of religion in a subtle and cute way.

“I’m really excited about making this film. For me, its about rediscovering my family traditions that were lost a generation ago.”

She came up with the idea for Kosher when working on a previous film. “Someone made a joke about educating a piglet and I thought: ‘Imagine trying to train a Jewish pig.’ And it kind of developed from there.”

The film, currently in script form, is scheduled to be produced next year. It has already secured a pre-sale to French television channel TPS-Star and Leeds-based Ms Stead is hoping to do part of the shooting in the Jewish quarter of Paris.

Human Film was founded by Mohamed Al-Daradji, Daniel Evans and Ms Stead in 2006. Productions include the recently premiered War, Love, God & Madness — a feature documentary filmed in Iraq.

The trio is currently working on Um-Hussein, a feature to be produced later this year in association with the UK Film Council.