Foreign Finalists Selected for Student Academy Award®

Beverly Hills, CA – Five finalists, selected from 45 entries representing 29 foreign countries, will compete for the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences’ 2008 Honorary Foreign Film award in the 35th Annual Student Academy Awards® competition. The winning student filmmaker will be brought to Los Angeles, along with U.S.-based Student Academy Award winners, to participate in a week of industry-related activities and social events that will culminate in the awards presentation ceremony on June 7 in Beverly Hills.

The finalists are (listed in alphabetical order of film title):

“I Am Bigger and Better,” Martin Duda, Film and TV School of the Academy of Performing Arts, Prague, Czech Republic
“New Dress,” Sergi Perez, Escola Superior de Cinema i Audiovisuals de Catalunya, Spain
“On the Line,” Reto Caffi, Academy of Media Arts Cologne, Germany
“Roads,” Lior Geller, Tel Aviv University Film and Television Department, Israel
“Vučko,” Matev Luzar, University of Ljubljana - Akademija za Gledališèe Radio Film in Televizijo, Slovenia

This is the first time a film from Slovenia has made it to the finals in the Honorary Foreign Film category.

Several past winners in the Honorary Foreign Film competition have gone on to earn further recognition by the Academy. 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.” He had won the Honorary Foreign Film award that same year (2002) with “Feeding Desire.” In 2000 Florian Gallenberger of Germany won both the Honorary Foreign Film award and the Oscar in the Live Action Short Film category with “Quiero Ser.” Two other previous winners, Jan Sverak, who was a student in the former Czechoslovakia, and Mike van Diem of The Netherlands, have gone on to direct films that won Oscar statuettes in the Foreign Language Film category.

Tickets for the 35th Annual Student Academy Awards presentation ceremony, at which the winning foreign student film and the Gold Medal award-winning films from the U.S. will be screened in their entirety, are free and will be available beginning May 1. A maximum of four tickets may be requested online at www.oscars.org in person at the Academy box office, by mail or by calling the Student Academy Awards department at (310) 247-3000, ext. 130. The ceremony will be held on Saturday, June 7, at 6 p.m. at the Academy’s Samuel Goldwyn Theater, located at 8949 Wilshire Boulevard in Beverly Hills. Doors open at 5 p.m. All seating is unreserved.