SARA Ziff's Picture Me started out as a video diary depicting the rise of a catwalk model but is now making waves on the film festival circuit.

The film recently won the audience award for Best Picture at the Milan International Film Festival.

Shot over five years, the documentary follows Ziff's modelling career and reveals what goes on behind the scenes.

Ziff sneaked her co-director and then-boyfriend, Ole Schell, into runway shows, shoots and parties, allowing him to film 'without other people realising'.

Despite being thrown out on occasion, Ziff and Schell collected hundreds of hours of footage which they edited into Picture Me.

It shows how the modelling profession is populated by men exploiting young, vulnerable girls.

For example, an interview with top model Sena Cech revealed how she was instructed by a top photographer to take off her clothes during a casting.

The photographer then undressed, and his assistant instructed her to touch him in a manner which was 'sexual and gross'.

Ziff herself has had similar encounters.

A model since the age of 14, she calls the industry a 'predatory environment', which is highly self-protective and notoriously hushed.

As a clothes horse for brands like Prada, Calvin Klein, Stella McCartney, Ziff seems an unlikely candidate to expose the industry that brought her fame and fortune.

Ziff says: 'At the end of the day I used to wonder: what's the difference between doing a shoot in your underwear for Calvin Klein and being a stripper?

'Obviously, you are compromising yourself. How far am I willing to go? How much am I willing to show for a big fat cheque?'