June 11,  2001

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

CONTACT:  Leslie Unger - (310) 247-3000

lunger@oscars.org

Beverly Hills, CA - Twelve film students from ten U.S. universities were honored yesterday (June 10) as winners in the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences' 28th Annual Student Academy Awards competition. They participated in several days of industry-related activities and social events prior to the awards presentation ceremony at the Academy's Samuel Goldwyn Theater. A film student from Mexico also was honored by the Academy, receiving this year's Honorary Foreign Film Award.

Following are this year's winners:

Alternative Category

• Gold Medal: "Warmth," Michael Schaerer, School of Visual Arts, New York.
  (No Silver or Bronze medals were awarded in this category.)

Animation Category

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

Documentary Category

• Gold Medal: "XXXY," Porter Gale and Laleh Soomekh, Stanford University, Palo Alto, California.
• Silver Medal: "Green," Laura Dunn, University of Texas, Austin.
• Bronze Medal: "Undesirables," Marianna Yarovskaya, University of Southern California, Los Angeles.

Narrative Category

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

Honorary Foreign Film

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

While the students knew they would each receive an award, the level of that award - gold, silver or bronze - was not revealed until the ceremony. Only Schaerer, the sole recipient in the alternative category and therefore an automatic gold medal winner, and Pla attended the ceremony knowing exactly what they'd won. Besides trophies, gold medalists received $5,000, silver medalists are awarded $3,000 and bronze medal recipients are presented with $2,000.

Academy Award-winning actress Kathy Bates ("Misery," 1990) presented the awards in the alternative and documentary categories; Oscar-nominated actor Randy Quaid ("The Last Detail," 1973) served as presenter for the animation and narrative categories. Academy President Robert Rehme presented the Honorary Foreign Film Award.

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.