November 11, 2004
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
CONTACT:  John Pavlik - (310) 247-3000

Pair Named 2004 Academy Film Scholars

Beverly Hills, CA - Two new Academy Film Scholars have been selected by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.  They are writer Cari Beauchamp and Yale professor Charles Musser.

Beauchamp and Musser are the fifth pair of film scholars to be selected by the Grants Committee of the Academy Foundation for the honor.  Each will receive $25,000 from the Academy.  The 2004 Academy Film Scholars were selected on the basis of their proposals for new scholarly works presented to the committee.

Beauchamp will write a biography of Joseph P. Kennedy's Hollywood career, and Musser will complete a study of the changing approaches to "truth" in nonfiction film.

"Joe Kennedy's Hollywood" will be the fourth cinema history book by Beauchamp, a prolific writer of essays and articles about Hollywood's past.  Musser is co-chair of the film studies program and professor of American Studies and Film Studies at Yale University.  His book will be titled "Film Truth, Documentary Practice: A History."

The first half of each $25,000 grant will be presented at a luncheon January 7 at the Beverly Hills Hotel.  The remaining half will be presented upon completion of the manuscripts. The Academy Film Scholars program was created in 1999 to "stimulate and support the creation of new and significant works of film scholarship about aesthetic, cultural, educational, historical, theoretical or scientific aspects of theatrical motion pictures." The two Academy Film Scholars will present their projects in lecture form at a public Academy event following the completion of their work.

Beauchamp and Musser join eight other Academy Film Scholars who currently are at work on their projects: Tino Balio, University of Wisconsin, Madison; Donald Crafton, University of Notre Dame, South Bend, Indiana; Thomas Doherty, Brandeis University, Waltham, Massachusetts; Jane Gaines, Duke University, Durham, North Carolina; Dana Polan, University of Southern California, Los Angeles; David Rodowick, Harvard University; Steven J. Ross, USC and Shelley Stamp, University of California, Santa Cruz.

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