Student Academy Award Winners Announced

All Winning Films Now Eligible for Animated Short Film, Live Action Short Film or Documentary Short Subject Oscars 

The Academy has voted 19 students as winners of the Student Academy Awards^®45th competition.  This year, the Student Academy Awards competition received a total of 1,582 entries from 278 domestic and 122 international colleges and universities, which were voted upon by a record number of Academy members.  The 2018 winners join the ranks of such past Student Academy Award winners as Patricia Cardoso, Pete Docter, Cary Fukunaga, John Lasseter, Spike Lee, Trey Parker, Patricia Riggen, and Robert Zemeckis.

The winners are (listed alphabetically by film title):

Alternative (Domestic Film Schools)
Shae Demandt, “Reanimated,” Florida State University

Animation (Domestic Film Schools)
Yu Yu, “Daisy,” University of Southern California
Hanna Kim, “Raccoon and the Light,” California Institute of the Arts
Eaza Shukla, “Re-Gifted,” Ringling College of Art and Design

Animation (International Film Schools)
Pierre Perveyrie, Maximilien , , Marine Goalard, Irina Nguyen-Duc and Quentin Dubois, “The Green Bird,” MOPA

Documentary (Domestic Film Schools)
Mathieu Faure, “An Edited Life,” New York University
Lauren Schwartzman, “Dust Rising,” University of California, Berkeley
Yiying Li, “Love & Loss,” University of Southern California

Documentary (International Film Schools)
Mart Bira, “Nomadic Doctor,” University of Hertfordshire

Narrative (Domestic Film Schools)
Brian Robau, “Esta Es Tu Cuba”/“This Is Your Cuba,” Chapman University
Kelley Kali, “Lalo’s House,” University of Southern California
Hua Tong, “Spring Flower,” University of Southern California

Narrative (International Film Schools)
István Kovács, “A Siege,” University of Theatre and Film Arts, Budapest
Lisa Gertsch, “Almost Everything,” Zurich University of the Arts
Jonatan Etzler, “Get Ready with Me,” Stockholm Academy of the Arts

First-time honors go to MOPA and the University of Hertfordshire.  This year, the Student Academy Awards honors one returning winner in the Domestic Narrative category, Brian Robau, a Silver Medal winner in 2016 for “It’s Just a Gun.” Additionally, for the first time, a team of five directors is being honored in the International Animation category.  Previously the limit had been two directors that could be honored per film. 

All Student Academy Award-winning films are eligible to compete for 2018 Oscars® in the Animated Short Film, Live Action Short Film or Documentary Short Subject category.  Past winners have gone on to receive 59 Oscar nominations and have won or shared 11 awards. This past year two 2017 Student Academy Award winners received Oscar nominations in the Live Action Short Film category: Kevin Wilson, Jr., a Gold Medal winner in the Domestic Narrative category for “My Nephew Emmett,” and Katja Benrath, a Gold Medal winner in the International Narrative category for “Watu Wote/All of Us.” 

Students will arrive in Los Angeles for a week of industry activities that will culminate in the awards ceremony on Thursday, October 11, at 7:30 p.m., at the Samuel Goldwyn Theater in Beverly Hills.  The medal placements – gold, silver and bronze – in the seven award categories will be announced at the ceremony. 

The 45th Student Academy Awards ceremony on Thursday, October 11 is free and open to the public, but advance tickets are required.  Tickets may be obtained online at oscars.org starting today.  Any remaining tickets will be made available at the door on the evening of the event.  The Samuel Goldwyn Theater is located at 8949 Wilshire Boulevard in Beverly Hills. 

The Student Academy Awards were established in 1972 to provide a platform for emerging global talent by creating opportunities within the industry to showcase their work. 

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Erik Anderson

Erik Anderson is the founder/owner and Editor-in-Chief of AwardsWatch and has always loved all things Oscar, having watched the Academy Awards since he was in single digits; making lists, rankings and predictions throughout the show. This led him down the path to obsessing about awards. Much later, he found himself in film school and the film forums of GoldDerby, and then migrated over to the former Oscarwatch (now AwardsDaily), before breaking off to create AwardsWatch in 2013.

He is a Rotten Tomatoes-approved critic, accredited by the Cannes Film Festival, Telluride Film Festival, Toronto International Film Festival and more, is a member of the International Cinephile Society (ICS), The Society of LGBTQ Entertainment Critics (GALECA), Hollywood Critics Association (HCA) and the International Press Academy. Among his many achieved goals with AwardsWatch, he has given a platform to underrepresented writers and critics and supplied them with access to film festivals and the industry and calls the Bay Area his home where he lives with his husband and son.

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