Student Academy Awards 2012

Meet the talented student filmmakers identified as future stars at this year’s prestigious Student Academy Awards.

On Saturday 9 June, the US Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (popularly known as the Academy) rolled out the red carpet for some of the film industry’s well-known faces – and some as yet unknown.

No, it wasn’t the Oscars; this was the Student Academy Awards – the annual award ceremony for student filmmakers in the US.

An excited audience filled the Academy’s Samuel Goldwyn Theatre in Beverly Hills, where awards were presented by film stars Laura Dern, Greg Kinnear, Mena Suvari and Cuba Gooding, Jr., as well as Academy president Tom Sherak.

But the real stars of the night were the student filmmakers, honored for their creations in four categories: narrative, animation, documentary and alternative.

This year’s event was somewhat dominated by students from top film schools in California – perhaps unsurprising, as the state is home to the Hollywood film industry.

Amanda Tasse, a student at the University of Southern California, took a gold medal in the ‘alternative’ category, while the gold medal for animation went to David Wolter of the California Institute of the Arts.

Mark Nelson, of the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), was presented with the silver award for animation.

Meanwhile the American Film Institute, based in Los Angeles, was the only institution to have two winning students: Ryan Prows and Justin Tipping took home the silver and bronze awards for narrative films.

The gold award in the narrative category went to Columbia University’s Mark Rasso, while the documentary gold award was won by New York University’s Keiko Wright.

Other student filmmakers honoured at this year’s Student Academy Awards included Eric Prah from Ringling College of Art and Design, Ellen Tripler from American University and Heather Burky from the Art Institute of Jacksonville.

These ten US students were joined by three students from top films schools in Europe, who were recognized in the ‘foreign film’ category.

Gold went to David Winstone from the University of Westminster, UK; silver to Thomas Stuber from the Film Academy Baden-Württemberg, Germany; and bronze to Elmar Imanov from The International Film School, also in Germany.

As well as a cash prize – US$5,000 for gold, US$3,000 for silver and US$2,000 for bronze – the awards come with a promise of future greatness.

Former Student Academy Award winners who have gone on to enjoy success in the industry include Pixar’s John Lasseter, South Park co-creator Trey Parker, prolific film producer Spike Lee, and director Robert Zemeckis, whose filmography includes box-office hits such as Forrest Gump, The Polar Express and the Back to the Future series.

Now it’s over to this year’s 13 winning student filmmakers to show what they can do – and see if they can join the many past Student Academy Award winners who have returned to collect an Oscar.