Director Zeitlin (left) and cast of Beasts of the Southern Wild. Photo: CFP

On the first day newcomer director Benh Zeitlin began shooting his mythical, apocalyptic low-budget film, Beasts of the Southern Wild, he had a real life disaster to deal with, the 2010 BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico.

The sense of impending danger only served to heighten the rugged, mystical tension Zeitlin was aiming for in his acclaimed indie film that stars non-actors as a father and daughter facing environmental threats on the impoverished watery fringes of southern Louisiana.

"The oil spill happening created this sort of strange, life imitates art on set that was going on as we were shooting," Zeitlin told Reuters in an interview for the film that opens in the US on Wednesday. "The whole time you would wake up in the morning and check the oil and it would get closer and closer ... It was really eerie."

Beasts has had a dream run this year, coming from nowhere to win best film at the Sundance Film Festival to the Cannes festival where it won best debut. And just last week, it won the audience award for best narrative feature at the Los Angeles Film Festival.

Zeitlin, 29, who co-wrote and directed the feature after his 2008 25-minute short film Glory at Sea was made in reaction to Hurricane Katrina.

Beasts, filmed in a poetic, cinematic style that has been compared to Terrence Malick, follows a 6-year-old heroine called Hushpuppy, played by a charismatic unknown, Quvenzhane Wallis. With her father, Wink, depicted by fellow newcomer Dwight Henry, they struggle to survive in a town of poor, hard-drinking outcasts called The Bathtub.

The film was made with a budget of around $1.5 million.