A FILM starring a Tilbury actress has scooped the top prize at the Evening Standard British Film Awards.

Fish Tank, a gritty drama about a young girl growing up on a tough estate in Dartford, picked up the award for best film.

Katie Jarvis, 18, hadn’t acted before she was picked for the starring role of 15-year-old Mia.

She was discovered by a casting agent who spotted her in the midst of a row across the platform of Tilbury Town railway station with her boyfriend.

The film, directed by BAFTA award winner Andrea Arnold, tells the story of how Mia’s life is turned upside down when her heavy drinking mother, played by Leigh actress Kierston Wareingk, brings home a new boyfriend – Inglorious Basterd’s Michael Fassbender.

Guardian film critic Peter Bradshaw said: “Jarvis has given a wonderfully honest and open performance to be compared with David Bradley in Kes, or Emilie Dequenne in the Dardenne brothers’ Rosetta. Her relationship with Fassbender is what gives the film its beating heart.”

The young mum, who now lives in Dagenham, was also nominated for the best new comer award, but missed out to Peter Strickland for this debut film Katalin Varga.