Academy reveals 2016 Student Academy Award winners

The Academy has voted 17 students as winners of the 43rd Student Academy Awards® competition. The Academy received a record number of entries this year – 1,749 films from 286 domestic and 95 international colleges and universities – which were voted by a record number of Academy members. The 2016 winners join the ranks of such past Student Academy Award winners as Pete Docter, Cary Fukunaga, John Lasseter, Spike Lee, Trey Parker and Robert Zemeckis.

First-time honors go to Maharishi University of Management, DePaul University, Michigan State University, The Polish National Film, Television and Theatre School in Lodz.

All Student Academy Award-winning films are eligible to compete for 2016 Oscars in the Documentary Short Subject, Animated Short Film or Live Action Short Film category. Past Student Academy Award winners have gone on to receive 49 Oscar nominations and have won or shared eight awards in several categories, including Writing, Directing, Documentary Feature and Animated Feature Film.

Students will arrive in Los Angeles for a week of industry activities that will culminate in the awards ceremony on Thursday, September 22, 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.

New this year, the Foreign Film category has been expanded to include separate awards for narrative, animation and documentary entries. Gold, Silver and Bronze Medal awards will be given in the Foreign Narrative category; Gold Medal awards will be given in the Foreign Animation and the Foreign Documentary categories. The U.S. competition categories remain the same: Alternative, Animation, Narrative and Documentary. Gold, Silver and Bronze Medal awards will be given in each.

The winners are (listed alphabetically by film title):

Alternative
All These Voices, David Henry Gerson, American Film Institute
Cloud Kumo, Yvonne Ng, City College of New York
The Swan Girl, Johnny Coffeen, Maharishi University of Management

Animation
Die Flucht, Carter Boyce, DePaul University
Once upon a Line, Alicja Jasina, USC
The Wishgranter, Echo Wu, Ringling College of Art and Design

Documentary
Fairy Tales, Rongfei Guo, New York University
4.1 Miles, Daphne Matziaraki, University of California, Berkeley
From Flint: Voices of a Poisoned City, Elise Conklin, Michigan State University

Narrative
It’s Just a Gun, Brian Robau, Chapman University
Nocturne in Black, Jimmy Keyrouz, Columbia University
Rocket, Brenna Malloy, Chapman University

Foreign Narrative
Invention of Trust, Alex Schaad, University of Television and Film Munich (Germany)
Tenants, Klara Kochanska, The Polish National Film, Television and Theatre School (Poland)
Where the Woods End, Felix Ahrens, Film University Babelsberg KONRAD WOLF (Germany)

Foreign Animation
Ayny, Ahmad Saleh, Academy of Media Arts Cologne (Germany)

Foreign Documentary
The Most Beautiful Woman, Maya Sarfaty, Tel Aviv University (Israel)

The 43rd Student Academy Awards ceremony on September 22 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.