Six student filmmakers qualified for next year's Academy Awards on Saturday night by winning gold medals at the Student Academy Awards ceremony in Beverly Hills. The six now have an opportunity to follow in the footsteps of Luke Matheny, the NYU student whose road to the 2010 Best Live-Action Short Film Oscar began with a victory one year ago at the Student Oscars.
The students won top prizes in the Student Academy Awards' narrative, alternative, animation and foreign categories.
Tal S. Shamir of the New School in New York won the gold medal in the alternative category, Zach Hyer of the Pratt Institute in New York and Shaofu Zhang of the Academy of Art Institute in California tied for the top award in the animation category, Julian Higgins of the American Film Institute in Los Angeles (left) won in the narrative category and Hallvar Witzo of the Norwegian Film School took the gold in the foreign student film field.
Six other students won silver and bronze medals in those categories; another three won awards in the Documentary category, which does not qualify its winner for the Oscars.
Stanford University was the only school to have two winning films, both in the documentary category – though a third entry, from Wonjung Bae of Columbia College in Chicago, took the gold medal.
The 15 students went into Saturday night's ceremony knowing that they were winning awards, but didn't know whether their medals would be gold, silver or bronze, which carry cash grants of $5,000, $3,000 and $2,000, respectively. The awards ceremony came after a week of industry activities and social events, including a dinner with members of the Academy's board of governors.
The awards were handed out at the Academy's Samuel Goldwyn Theater. Participants in the show included actress Jennifer Garner, Oscar-nominated animator John Musker, Oscar-winning producer Edward Zwick and Academy president Tom Sherak.
In the 40-year history of the Student Academy Awards, according to AMPAS, student Oscar winners have received 43 Oscar nominations and won or shared eight Academy Awards. Two of the five nominees in the 2010 Best Live-Action Short Film category, Matheny's winning "God of Love" and Tanel Toom's "The Confession," qualified last year by winning Student Oscars.
The winners:
ALTERNATIVE
Gold Medal: “The Vermeers,” Tal S. Shamir, The New School, New York
ANIMATION
Gold Medal (tie): “Correspondence,” Zach Hyer, Pratt Institute, New York; and Dragonboy,” Bernardo Warman and Shaofu Zhang, Academy of Art University, California
Bronze Medal: “Defective Detective,” Avner Geller and Stevie Lewis, Ringling College of Art and Design, Florida
DOCUMENTARY
Gold Medal: “Vera Klement: Blunt Edge,” Wonjung Bae, Columbia College Chicago
Silver Medal: “Imaginary Circumstances,” Anthony Weeks, Stanford University
Bronze Medal: “Sin Pais (Without Country),” Theo Rigby, Stanford University
NARRATIVE
Gold Medal: “Thief,” Julian Higgins, American Film Institute, California
Silver Medal: “High Maintenance,” Shawn Wines, Columbia University
Bronze Medal: “Fatakra,” Soham Mehta, University of Texas at Austin
FOREIGN STUDENT FILMS
Gold Medal: “Tuba Atlantic,” Hallvar Witzo, The Norwegian Film School, Norway
Silver Medal: “Bekas,” Karzan Kader, Stockholm Academy of Dramatic Arts, Sweden
Bronze Medal: “Raju,” Max Zaehle, Hamburg Media School, Germany
(Photo by Todd Warwychuk/AMPAS)
