The Student Academy Awards may be a low-key, understated affair compared to that other awards show the Academy stages, but it will have at least one Oscar-nominated actor on hand to add star power to the proceedings.
“The Hurt Locker” star Jeremy Renner has been booked to present at the June 12 ceremony, which will take place at the Samuel Goldwyn Theater in the Academy’s Beverly Hills headquarters.
Presenters at the student Oscars generally include actors (Gary Oldman, Zooey Deschanel, Randy Quaid and Kathy Bates have all done the honors in recent years) as well as filmmakers and AMPAS officials.
The Academy has already announced the 13 student filmmakers, from 10 different schools, who are responsible for 11 winning films. In addition, one foreign student film has beeen selected to win an honorary award. But the filmmakers will not know the level of their prize – gold, silver or bronze – until the ceremony. Cash prizes are $2,000 for the Bronze Medal, $3,000 for the Silver and $5,000 for the Gold.
This year’s Student Academy Awards will be the 37th. Past winners include Spike Lee, John Lasseter, Pete Docter, Robert Zemeckis, Bob Saget and “South Park” creator Trey Parker.
In addition to his Oscar nomination for "The Hurt Locker" (he lost to Jeff Bridges), Renner won awards for the film from the Boston, Chicago and Las Vegas film critics, the National Board of Review, the National Society of Film Critics and the Online Film Critics Society.
His next film is "The Town," a crime drama directed by Ben Affleck and also starring Affleck, Jon Hamm, Rebecca Hall and Chris Cooper.
(AMPAS photo by Jeff Lipsky)
