Thirteen students from nine U.S. colleges and universities as well as three students from foreign universities have been selected as winners in the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences’ Student Academy Awards competition. They will be brought to Los Angeles for a week of industry activities that will culminate in the awards ceremony, hosted by 1978 Student Academy Award winner and comedian Bob Saget, at 7:30 p.m., June 8, at the Academy’s Samuel Goldwyn Theater in Beverly Hills.
This year saw first-time honors go to Elon University, Occidental College and the University of Michigan in the U.S. competition, as well as to Zurich University of the Arts, Switzerland, and RITS School of Arts, Belgium, in the foreign competition. The medal placements – gold, silver and bronze – in each of the award categories will be announced at the June 8 ceremony.
The winners are:
Alternative
Bottled Up, Rafael Cortina, Occidental College
The Compositor, John Mattiuzzi, School of Visual Arts
Zug, Perry Janes, University of Michigan
Animation
Dia de los Muertos, Lindsey St. Pierre and Ashley Graham, Ringling College of Art and Design
Peck Pocketed, Kevin Herron, Ringling College of Art and Design
Will, Eusong Lee, California Institute of the Arts
Documentary
Every Tuesday: A Portrait of The New Yorker Cartoonists, Rachel Loube, School of Visual Arts
A Second Chance, David Aristizabal, University of Southern California
Win or Lose, Daniel Koehler, Elon University
Narrative
Josephine and the Roach, Jonathan Langager, University of Southern California
Ol’ Daddy, Brian Schwarz, University of Texas at Austin
Un Mundo para Raúl (A World for Raúl), Mauro Mueller, Columbia University
Foreign Film
Miss Todd, Kristina Yee, National Film and Television School, United Kingdom
Parvaneh, Talkhon Hamzavi, Zurich University of the Arts, Switzerland
Tweesprong (Crossroads), Wouter Bouvijn, RITS School of Arts, Erasmus College Brussels, Belgium
To reach this stage, U.S. students competed in one of three regional competitions. Each region is permitted to send up to three finalists in each of the four categories. The Student Academy Awards executive committee screened and voted on the finalists in the foreign film category.
The Student Academy Awards were established in 1972 to support and encourage excellence in filmmaking at the collegiate level. Past winners have gone on to receive 46 Oscar nominations and have won or shared eight awards. The roster includes such distinguished filmmakers as John Lasseter, Pete Docter, Robert Zemeckis, Trey Parker and Spike Lee.
