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Academy Announces 2006 Student Academy Award Winners

Thirteen students from nine different colleges and universities have been named winners in the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences' 33rd annual Student Academy Awards competition. They will participate in a week of industry-related activities and social events culminating June 10, 2006, with the awards presentation ceremony at the Academy's Samuel Goldwyn Theater. One film student from South Africa also has been selected to receive this year's Honorary Foreign Student Film Award.

The winners are (listed alphabetically by film title within category):

Alternative* 6 A.M., Carmen Vidal Balanzat, City College of New York* PERSPECTIVE, Travis Hatfield and Samuel Day, Ball State University, Indiana

Animation* THE DANCING THIEF, Meng Vue, Ringling School of Art and Design, Sarasota, Florida* THE POSSUM, Chris Choy, California Institute of the Arts* TURTLES, Thomas Leavitt, Brigham Young University

Documentary* REPORTER ZERO, Carrie Lozano, University of California, Berkeley* THREE BEAUTIES, Mak Hossain, Purdue University* THE WOMENS KINGDOM, Xiaoli Zhou, University of California, Berkeley

Narrative* CHRISTMAS WISH LIST, Sean Overbeeke, University of North Carolina* EL VIAJE (ONE DAY TRIP), Cady Abarca-Benavides, Columbia University* POP FOUL, Moon Molson and Jennifer Handorf, Columbia University

Honorary Foreign Student Film Award* ELALINI, Tristan Holmes, The South African School of Motion Picture Medium and Live Performance (AFDA).

While the U.S. winners know they will each receive an award, the level of that award gold, silver or bronze will not be revealed until the June 10 ceremony. Besides trophies, gold medalists receive $5,000, silver medalists are awarded $3,000 and bronze medal recipients are presented with $2,000. The Honorary Foreign Film winner receives $1,000 in addition to the trophy.

The U.S. students first competed in one of three regional competitions. Each of those regions was permitted to nominate as many as three finalists in each of the four award categories. Academy members then screened these finalists' films and voted to select the winners.

ELALINI was selected from an original pool of 29 submissions from 22 countries. Holmes is the first student from South Africa to win this award.

The Student Academy Awards were established by the Academy in 1972 to support and encourage excellence in filmmaking at the collegiate level. Among past winners who have gone on to prominent careers as filmmakers are Spike Lee, Robert Zemeckis, John Lasseter and Trey Parker. Three of last years winners received Oscar nominations earlier this year: Dan Krauss for his documentary, THE DEATH OF KEVIN CARTER: CASUALTY OF THE BANG BANG CLUB, Shane Acker for his animated short film, 9, and Honorary Foreign Film winner Ulrike Grote for her live action short THE RUNAWAY (AUSREISSER). Overall, 33 past Student Academy Award winners have garnered Oscar nominations over the years.

The June 10 Student Academy Awards presentation ceremony begins at 6:00 pm. It is free and open to the public. Clips from the bronze and silver medal films will be shown, and the gold medal films and Honorary Foreign film will be screened in their entirety. Seating is on a first-come, first-served basis only, and early arrival is suggested as once capacity is reached even ticket holders will be turned away. To request up to a maximum of four tickets, call the Academy at (310) 247-3000, ext. 130. The Academy is located at 8949 Wilshire Blvd. in Beverly Hills.

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Rick DeMott
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