Academy Announces U.S. Finalists for 2011 Student Academy Awards, Including Animation
33 students from 22 U.S. colleges and universities have been selected as finalists in the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences’ 38th Annual Student Academy Awards competition. Academy members will view the finalists’ films at special screenings and vote to select the winners. Gold, Silver and Bronze Medal awards, along with accompanying cash grants of $5,000, $3,000 and $2,000, respectively, may be presented in each of four categories: Alternative, Animation, Documentary and Narrative. The winning filmmakers will be brought to Los Angeles for a week of industry-related activities and social events that will culminate in the awards ceremony on Saturday, June 11, at the Academy’s Samuel Goldwyn Theater.
The finalists are (listed alphabetically by film title):
[Editor’s Note: Edited to show only Animation Category. Full list of finalists can be seen here.]
Animation
The Birds Upstairs, Christopher Jarvis, New York University
Correspondence, Zach Hyer, Pratt Institute, New York
Defective Detective, Avner Geller and Stevie Lewis, Ringling College of Art and Design, Florida
Dragonboy, Bernardo Warman, Academy of Art University, California
The Girl and the Fox, Tyler Kupferer, Savannah College of Art and Design, Georgia
Heart, Erick Oh, University of California, Los Angeles
The Renter, Jason Carpenter, California Institute of the Arts
Swing, Yen-Ting Kuo, School of Visual Arts, New York
Treasure, Chelsea Bartlett, Ringling College of Art and Design, Florida
To reach this stage, students competed in one of three regional competitions. Each region is permitted to send to the Academy up to three finalists in each of the four categories. For the first time this year, up to three films may be honored in the Foreign Student Film category. Academy members have selected students from the Czech Republic, Germany, Norway, Sweden and the United Kingdom as finalists.
The Academy established the Student Academy Awards in 1972 to support and encourage excellence in filmmaking at the collegiate level. Past Student Academy Award® winners have gone on to receive 43 Oscar® nominations and have won or shared eight awards. At the 83rd Academy Awards earlier this year, 2010 Student Academy Award winner Luke Matheny took home the Oscar for Live Action Short Film for “God of Love.”  Tanel Toom, another 2010 Student Academy Award winner, also was nominated in the Live Action Short Film category for “The Confession,” and John Lasseter, a 1979 and 1980 Student Academy Award winner, was a nominee in the Adapted Screenplay category for “Toy Story 3.”
The 38th Annual Student Academy Awards ceremony on June 11 is free and open to the public, but advance tickets are required. Tickets will be available on May 2. Tickets may be obtained online at www.oscars.org, in person at the Academy box office or by mail. The Samuel Goldwyn Theater is located at 8949 Wilshire Boulevard in Beverly Hills. For more information, call (310) 247-3600.