The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences has announced that five finalists, selected from a record 49 entries representing 33 countries, will compete for the 2007 Honorary Foreign Film Award in the 34th Annual Student Academy Awards competition.
In June, the winning student filmmaker will be brought to Los Angeles to participate, along with U.S.-based Student Academy Award winners, in "a week of industry-related activities and social events that will culminate in the awards presentation ceremony on June 9 in Beverly Hills."
All nominees are from European schools, three of which are German. According to the Academy press release, this is the first time a film representing Serbia has made it to the finals in the Honorary Foreign Film category. (Perhaps because this is the first time in nearly a century that a country named "Serbia" exists.)
The finalists are (listed in alphabetical order):
Fair Trade (right), Michael Dreher, Hochschule fur Fernsehen und Film, Munich, Germany. Fair Trade is set on the Strait of Gibraltar, which separates wealthy Europe from poor Africa. Last year, the film won the short film audience award at the AFI FEST in Los Angeles.
Land gewinnen / Gaining Ground, Marc Brummund, Hamburg Media School, Germany. Land gewinnen won a special award at this year's Berlin Film Festival.
Love, Death & Air Guitar, Lourens Blok, Nederlandse Film en Televisie Academie, the Netherlands
Milan, Michaela Kezele, Faculty of Dramatic Arts, Serbia
NimmerMeer / Nevermore (top), Toke Constantin Hebbeln, Filmakademie Baden-Wurttemberg, Germany. In NimmerMeer, the life of a young fisherman's son is changed by a small miracle at sea.
Several past winners in the Honorary Foreign Film competition have gone on to receive further Academy recognition. The 2005 winner, Ulrike Grote's Ausreisser / The Runaway, was nominated in the Live Action Short Film category at the 78th Academy Awards. In 2002, Martin Strange-Hansen of Denmark won an Oscar for This Charming Man; he had won an Honorary Foreign Film award that same year with Feeding Desire. And in 2000 Florian Gallenberger of Germany won both the Honorary Foreign Film Award and the Oscar in the Live Action Short Film category with Quiero Ser.
Additionally, two previous Honorary Foreign Film winners, Jan Sverák of the former Czechoslovakia, and Mike van Diem of the Netherlands, have gone on to direct Oscar winners in the Foreign Language Film category. (Sverák won for Kolya in 1996; van Diem for Karakter in 1997.)
Tickets for the 34th Student Academy Awards presentation ceremony, at which the winning foreign student film will be screened in its entirety along with the other Gold Medal-winning films, are free and available now. To request a maximum of four tickets, call the Academy's box office at (310) 247-3000 x130. The ceremony will be held on Saturday, June 9, at 6 p.m. at the Academy's Samuel Goldwyn Theater.
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Boyd,
Thanks. I'd actually checked both "Kolya" and "Karakter," though because of some internal wiring issues, I typed "Kontakt" instead.
I saw "Karakter" at the AFI FEST here in Los Angeles. Van Diem was present, and answered questions from the audience.
I certainly had no idea his movie was going to end up winning that year's foreign-language film Oscar.
Just a small correction: Van Dien's Oscar-winning feature was called "Karakter", not "Kontakt". Sadly, he hasn't made a film since (I guess getting an Oscar for your first and only short film and for your first and only feature film doesn't give you much else to strive for…).