May 17,  2001

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

CONTACT:  Leslie Unger - (310) 247-3000

lunger@oscars.org

Beverly Hills, CA - Twelve film students from ten U.S. universities have been selected as winners in the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences' 28th Annual Student Academy Awards competition. They will participate in a week of industry-related activities and social events that will culminate June 10 with the awards presentation ceremony at the Academy's Samuel Goldwyn Theater. A film student from Mexico also has been selected to receive this year's Honorary Foreign Film Award.

Following are this year's winners (alphabetical by film title within category):

Alternative Category

• "Warmth," Michael Schaerer, School of Visual Arts, New York.

Animation Category

• "Boobie Girl," Brooke Keesling, California Institute of the Arts, Valencia, California.
• "That Special Monkey," Sean McBride, University of the Arts, Philadelphia.
• "The Yellow Umbrella," Victor Robert and Rodney Hom, Art Center College of Design, Pasadena, California.

Documentary Category

• "Green," Laura Dunn, University of Texas, Austin.
• "Undesirables," Marianna Yarovskaya, University of Southern California.
• "XXXY," Porter Gale and Laleh Soomekh, Stanford University, Palo Alto, California.

Narrative Category

• "The Confession," Carl Pfirman, University of California, Los Angeles.
• "Lector," Greg Marcks, Florida State University, Tallahassee.
• "Zen and the Art of Landscaping," David Kartch, Columbia University, New York.

Honorary Foreign Film

• "The Eye on the Nape," Rodrigo Pla, Centro de Capacitacion Cinematografica, Mexico City, Mexico

While the students 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. Only Schaerer, the sole recipient in the alternative category and therefore an automatic gold medal winner, and Pla will attend the ceremony knowing exactly what they've won. Besides trophies, gold medalists receive $5,000, silver medalists are awarded $3,000 and bronze medal recipients are presented with $2,000.

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

The Honorary Foreign Film winner was selected from an original pool of 27 submissions from 23 countries. This is the second time that a Mexican student film has won this particular award. Javier Bourges, who attended the same school as Pla, was the 1993 recipient.

The Student Academy Awards were established by the Academy in 1972 to support and encourage excellence in filmmaking at the collegiate level.