2008 Student Academy Award Finalists
May 1st, 2008 by Andre Soares
Thirty-two students from 20 American colleges and universities have been selected as finalists in the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences‘ 35th Annual Student Academy Awards competition. Their films will be judged by Academy members, who will then vote to select the winners.
Gold, Silver, and Bronze Medal awards, in addition to cash prizes of $5,000, $3,000, and $2,000, respectively, "may be presented" in each of four categories: Alternative, Animation, Documentary, and Narrative. (I’m assuming that means that in some years there’ll be no, say, Gold for Animation or Bronze for Alternative.)
Winning filmmakers will take part in a week of "industry-related and social activities," the high point of which will be the awards ceremony on June 7, 2008.
The finalists are (listed alphabetically by film title within category):
Alternative
Circles of Confusion, Phoebe Tooke, San Francisco State University
Come Wander With Me, Phillip Van, New York University
Comfort Zone, Mandi Lin, California College of the Arts
A Convolution of Imagined Histories, Thomas Micah Stansell, Georgia State University
Doxology (above), Michael Langan, Rhode Island School of Design
Fish, Hyun Jeen Lee, The School of Visual Arts, New York
Viola: The Traveling Rooms of a Little Giant, Shih-Ting Hung, University of Southern California
Animation
The Gloaming, Andrew Huang, University of Southern California
Mr. Popcorn, Alexander Krivicich, Cornell University, New York
Paper Shepherd, David Houry, The Cleveland Institute of Art, Ohio
Simulacra (above), Tatchapon Lertwirojkul, The School of Visual Arts
Snow Day, Kim Hazel, Ringling College of Art and Design, Florida
Toumai, Carlos Stevens, The Art Institute of Portland, Oregon
The Visionary, Evan Mayfield, Ringling College of Art and Design
Zoologic, Nicole Mitchell, California Institute of the Arts
Documentary
As We Forgive, Laura Waters Hinson, American University, Washington, D.C.
If a Body Meet a Body, Brian Davis, University of Southern California
The Legend of Rosalie, Nicholas Berger, Stanford University
Recruiter, Adam Salky, Columbia University, New York
Song of a Sperm Donor (above), Emmanuel Dayan, Stanford University
Tijuana, Nada Mas, Yolanda Pividal, City College of New York
Unattached, J.J. Adler, Columbia University
Narrative
Cassandra (above), Mauricio Chernovetzky, San Diego State University
A Day’s Work, Rajeev Dassani, University of Southern California
A Death in Progress, Donald Bitters III, Columbia College Chicago
Mr. A., Joe Murphy, Columbia University
PAL/SECAM, Dmitry Povolotsky, Columbia University
Picture Day, Nick Paley, New York University
Pitstop, Melanie McGraw, University of Southern California
Red Wednesday, Nazanin Shirazi, University of Texas at Austin
The State of Sunshine, Z. Eric Yang, Florida State University
Wianbu — Comfort Woman, James Bang, Columbia University
Philip Van (in the Alternative category) won the Silver Medal in the Narrative category in 2007 with High Maintenance.
As per the Academy’s press release, "to reach this stage, students competed in one of three regional competitions. Each region is permitted to send to the Academy up to three finalist films in each of the four categories."
A foreign student will also be honored by the Academy in the Honorary Foreign Film category. Academy voters have selected finalists from the Czech Republic, Spain, Germany, Israel, and Slovenia.
The Academy established the Student Academy Awards in 1972 "to support and encourage excellence in filmmaking at the collegiate level." Past Student Academy Award winners have gone on to receive a total of 35 Oscar nominations and have won or shared six Academy Awards. Two former Student Academy Award winners were nominees in the Documentary Short Subject category at the 2008 Academy Awards — James Longley and Amanda Micheli (with Isabel Vega) for, respectively, Sari’s Mother and La Corona (The Crown).
Tickets for the 35th Annual Student Academy Awards presentation ceremony, at which the Gold Medal-winning films and the winning foreign student film will be screened in their entirety, are free and now available. A maximum of four tickets may be requested online at www.oscars.org, in person at the Academy box office, by mail, or by calling the Student Academy Awards department at (310) 247-3000, ext. 130. The ceremony will be held on Saturday, June 7, at 6 p.m. at the Academy’s Samuel Goldwyn Theater, located at 8949 Wilshire Boulevard in Beverly Hills. Doors open at 5 p.m. All seating is unreserved.
Technorati Tags: Student Academy Awards, AMPAS, Simulacra, Cassandra, Mauricio Chernovetzky, Rajeev Dassani, Yolanda Pividal
Turin Gay and Lesbian Film Festival Awards 2008
German Film Academy Awards 2008
Foreign Finalists Selected for 2008 Student Academy Award
David di Donatello Awards 2008
Tiburon Film Festival Awards 2008
SXSW Film Festival Awards 2008
Leave a Reply
Note: All comments are moderated, and may be edited at the discretion of the moderator. Different views and opinions are welcome, but abusive/bigoted remarks, and both flaming and generic (spam) comments will NOT be approved. Also, please be aware that the Alternative Film Guide has NO contact information for the talent mentioned in this blog or any information pertaining to or access to distributors'/producers' film prints.
