AFI Tops List of Student Oscar Winners

American Film Institute is the only school with two Student Academy Award winners; USC, UCLA and NYU also have winning films

The American Film Institute, USC, UCLA, NYU and Columbia were among the schools that will be represented at the 2012 Student Academy Awards ceremony on June 9.

Those schools were home to some of the 10 students who were named winners of this year's Student Oscars, which the Academy announced on Tuesday.

Winners were announced in the alternative, animation, documentary and narrative categories, with half the winners coming from Southern California film schools: two from AFI, the only school to have more than one winner, and one each from USC, UCLA and CalArts.

Other schools with winners included NYU, Columbia, Ringling College of Art and Design, American University and, for the first time, Art Institute of Jacksonville.

Although voters can choose up to two films in the alternative category, they opted for a single winner, "The Reality Clock" from USC.

In the foreign film category, which was announced last week, two films from Germany and one from the UK were selected from the 51 entries from 29 countries.

But while students now know that they are winners, they do not yet know exactly what they've won. Student Academy Awards are given out at three levels: gold, silver and bronze, which carry cash prizes of $5,000, $3,000 and $2,000, respectively.

The gold medals also qualify films for next February's Academy Awards. In recent years, a number of Student Oscar winners have gone on to receive Oscar nominations, with 2010 winner "God of Love" winning the big award eight months after taking home the student prize.

Bob SagetPast Student Academy Award winners include Pixar's John Lasseter, "South Park" creator Trey Parker and, in 1978, comic-to-be Bob Saget (right).

Over the years, Student Oscar winners gone on to receive 46 nominations and win eight Oscars. Two of last year's foreign winners, "Raju" and "Tuba Atlantic," also won Oscar nominations.

NYU had led all schools with four films on the list of 35 finalists released by the Academy on May 2. USC, UCLA and Columbia each had three films on the list.

Schools that had students on the list of finalists but not the list of winners include the University of Texas at Austin, the Rochester Institute of Technology, Stanford University and the School of Visual Arts.

The 39th Student Academy Awards ceremony will take place on Saturday, June 9 at the Samuel Goldwyn Theater in the Academy's Beverly Hills headquarters. Tickets are free to the public, but must be obtained in advance from the Academy at www.oscars.org or (313) 247-3600.

The winners:

Alternative
:
"The Reality Clock," Amanda Tasse, University of Southern California

Animation
:
"Eyrie,"
David Wolter, California Institute of the Arts

"The Jockstrap Raiders," Mark Nelson, University of California, Los Angeles

"My Little Friend," Eric Prah, Ringling College of Art and Design

Documentary:

"Dying Green," Ellen Tripler, American University
"Hiro: A Story of Japanese Internment," Keiko Wright, New York University

"Lost Country," Heather Burky, Art Institute of Jacksonville

Narrative
:
"Nani,"
Justin Tipping, American Film Institute

"Narcocorrido," Ryan Prows, American Film Institute
"Under," Mark Raso, Columbia University

Foreign Films:
"For Elise,"
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

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