Nicco Vasquez may be the next coming of Robert Rodriguez…

The 18-year-old Latino filmmaker, a San Antonio native, picked up the Best Young Filmmaker award at the Austin Film Festival for his short film Crumbs.

It was one of 16 finalists in the festival’s Young Filmmakers Program Competition, which received entries from filmmakers ages 13 to 18 around the world.

In the five-minute film, written by Keith Limon, a little girl buries her pet bird after it dies, but an apparently homeless boy digs it up and eats it for dinner.

“It’s a very unexpected ending,” says the Vasquez of the short film, which he made as a student at San Antonio’s Harlandale High School. “A lot of people freak out. I like darkness and grittiness in storytelling and filmmaking.”

Vasquez is currently attending Northwest Vista College and plans to major in digital video and cinema production.

Meanwhile, Latina filmmaker Chelsea Hernandez’s See The Dirt was the winner in the festival’s Documentary Short category. The Austin-native and University of Texas graduate directed the film with Erik Mauck.