March 27,  2001

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

CONTACT:  John Pavlik - (310) 247-3000

Beverly Hills, CA - Michael Dudok de Wit, the winner of the 2000 Oscar for Best Animated Short Film, also won a high definition television set for giving the shortest acceptance speech - a thank you of only 18 seconds.

But he's not keeping the set. He said he'll donate it to a children's charity.

In an effort to control the length of the Awards telecast, Producer Gil Cates had laughingly promised the nominees at their annual luncheon on March 12 that he'd give a high definition television set to the Oscar winner who delivered the shortest speech.

Dudok's thank you was approximately nine seconds shorter than that of the runner-up, Tim Yip, who won the Oscar for art direction for "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon."

"I did not write the shortest speech to win the television set. I have many television sets," de Wit told Cates. "I wrote it to say what I had to say and no more."

"I wish more of his colleagues would do the same," Cates said.

Dudok's speech: "I would like to thank my two producers, Claire Jennings from London and Willem Thijssen from Amsterdam. And both for their dedication and very hard work. And I would like to thank especially my wife Arielle and for her support. Thank you, Academy members. This is fantastic."