2012 Student Academy Awards – foreign film winners

Beverly Hills, CA (May 11, 2012) – Three student films, selected from 51 entries representing 29 countries, have been selected as winners in the Foreign Film category in the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences’ 39th Annual Student Academy Awards competition. The student filmmakers will be brought to Los Angeles to join U.S.-based Student Academy Award® recipients for a week of industry activities. The festivities will culminate in the awards ceremony on Saturday, June 9, at 6 p.m. at the Academy’s Samuel Goldwyn Theater in Beverly Hills.

The 2012 Foreign Film winners are (listed alphabetically by film title):

For Elsie, David Winstone, University of Westminster, United Kingdom
Of Dogs and Horses, Thomas Stuber, Film Academy Baden-Wüerttemberg, Germany
The Swing of the Coffin Maker, Elmar Imanov, The International Film School Cologne, Germany

Academy members have viewed these films at special screenings to determine the winners’ placements – Gold, Silver or Bronze – which will be revealed at the June 9 ceremony. Gold Medal award winners receive cash grants of $5,000, Silver Medal award winners receive $3,000 and Bronze Medal award winners receive $2,000.

Several past winners in the Foreign Film competition have gone on to earn further recognition from the Academy. At the 84th Academy Awards earlier this year, 2011 Student Academy Award winners Hallvar Witzø and Max Zähle were nominated in the Live Action Short Film category for Tuba Atlantic and Raju, respectively. The 2010 Foreign Film award winner, Tanel Toom, was a nominee at the 83rd Academy Awards in the Live Action Short Film category for The Confession. Reto Caffi, a winner in 2008, received a nomination in the Live Action Short Film category for Auf der Strecke (On the Line) at the 81st Academy Awards. In 2005, at the 78th Academy Awards, student winner Ulrike Grote’s Ausreisser (The Runaway) was nominated in the Live Action Short Film category. At the 75th Academy Awards, student winner Martin Strange-Hansen of Denmark won the Oscar® in the Live Action Short Film category for This Charming Man (Der Er En Yndig Mand). He had won the Foreign Film award that same year (2002) with Feeding Desire. In 2000 Florian Gallenberger of Germany won the Foreign Film award and then the Oscar in the Live Action Short Film category with Quiero Ser (I want to be…). Two other previous student winners, Jan Sverak of the former Czechoslovakia, and Mike van Diem of The Netherlands, went on to direct films that won Oscars® in the Foreign Language Film category.

The 39th Annual Student Academy Awards ceremony on June 9 is free and open to the public, but advance tickets are required. Tickets are available 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.