April 26, 2000

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

CONTACT: Leslie Unger - (310) 247-3000

                        lunger@oscars.org

Beverly Hills, CA - Five film students - including two from German film schools - have been selected as finalists in the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences' Student Academy Awards Honorary Foreign Film category. The winner, along with the winning film students from the United States, will be flown to Los Angeles to participate in a week of film industry-related activities and social events, culminating in the Student Academy Awards Presentation ceremony on June 11 in Beverly Hills.

The Honorary Foreign Film Award finalists are (alphabetically by film title):

• "Counting Sheep," Sven Taddicken, Filmakademie Baden-Wurttemberg, Germany;
  
  
• "In the Box," Michal Strauss, Vysoka Skola Muzickych Umeni Filmova a Televizna Fakulta, Slovakia;
  
  
• "Little Man," Peter Schopmau Fog, National Film School of Denmark;
  
  
• "Quiro ser," Florian Gallenberger, Hochschule fur Fernsehen und Film, Germany;
  
  
• "Test," Vaclav Svankmajer, Akademie Muzickych Umeni Filmova a Televizni Fakulta, Czech Republic.

The five finalists were selected from a pool of 26 submissions from 19 countries. This will be the 20th time the Academy has presented an award to a foreign student as part of the Student Academy Awards program (which is now in its 27th year). Two previous winners, Jan Sverak, who was a student in the former Czechoslovakia, and Mike Van Diem of the Netherlands, have gone on to win Oscar^® statuettes in the Foreign Language Film category for subsequent works. Last year's winning Foreign Student film, "Kleingeld," by Marc-Andreas Bochert of Germany, received a nomination in the Live Action Short Film category at the most recent Academy Awards.

This year's finalist films will now be screened and voted upon by members of the Academy. The winner will be announced in May.