Foreign Finalists Selected for Student Academy Award

April 18, 2006 — Beverly Hills, CA — Five finalists from 29 entries representing 22 foreign countries have been selected to compete for the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences’ 2006 Honorary Foreign Film Award in the Student Academy Awards competition. The winning student filmmaker will be brought to Los Angeles in June to participate, along with U.S.-based winners of the 33rd Student Academy Awards, in a week of industry-related activities and social events, culminating in the awards presentation ceremony on June 10 in Beverly Hills.

The finalists are:

“Being Holger,” Kasper Gårdsøe, The National Film School of Denmark.

“Elalini,” Tristan Holmes, The South African School of Motion Picture Medium and Live Performance (AFDA).

“The Measure of Things,” Sven Bohse, Filmakademie Baden-Wuerttemberg, Germany.

“Melodrama,” Filip Marczewski, The Polish National Film School.

“La Ruta Natural,” Alex Pastor, The Superior Graduate School of Cinema and Audiovisuals of Catalonia, Spain.

Several past winners in the Foreign Student Film competition have gone on to achieve further recognition by the Academy. Most recently, student winner Ulrike Grote’s "Ausreisser" ("The Runaway") was nominated in the live action short film category at the 78th Academy Awards®. 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. In 2000, the winning foreign student film, "Quiero Ser" by Florian Gallenberger of Germany, won the Oscar in the Live Action Short Film category and in 2002, the maker of the winning foreign student film, Martin Strange-Hansen of Denmark, won an Oscar for “This Charming Man.” (His Student Academy Award winning film that same year was “Feeding Desire”).

Tickets for the 33rd Student Academy Awards presentation ceremony, at which the winning foreign student film will be screened in its entirety along with the other Gold Medal-winning films from the U.S., are free and available beginning May 1. To request a maximum of four tickets, call the Academy at 310-247-3000, ext. 130, or print an order form from the Academy’s website at www.oscars.org. The ceremony will be held on Saturday, June 10, in the Academy’s Samuel Goldwyn Theater, at 6 p.m.

Contact Information

Leslie Unger

Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences

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