2015 Student Academy Award winners revealed

The Academy has voted fifteen students as winners of the 42nd Student Academy Awards competition. The Academy received a record number of entries this year — 1,686 films from 282 domestic and 93 international colleges and universities — which were voted upon by a record number of Academy members. Past Student Academy Award winners have gone on to receive 47 Oscar® nominations and have won or shared eight awards. Previous winners include Pete Docter, John Lasseter, Spike Lee, Trey Parker and Robert Zemeckis.

The winners are (listed alphabetically by film title):

Alternative
“Chiaroscuro,” Daniel Drummond, Chapman University, California
“Zoe,” ChiHyun Lee, The School of Visual Arts, New York

Animation
“An Object at Rest,” Seth Boyden, California Institute of the Arts
“Soar,” Alyce Tzue, Academy of Art University, San Francisco
“Taking the Plunge,” Nicholas Manfredi and Elizabeth Ku-Herrero, The School of Visual Arts

Documentary
“Boxeadora,” Meg Smaker, Stanford University
“I Married My Family’s Killer,” Emily Kassie, Brown University
“Looking at the Stars,” Alexandre Peralta, University of Southern California

Narrative
“Day One,” Henry Hughes, American Film Institute, California
“Stealth,” Bennett Lasseter, American Film Institute
“This Way Up,” Jeremy Cloe, American Film Institute

Foreign Film
“Everything Will Be Okay…,” Patrick Vollrath, Filmakademie Wien, Austria
“Fidelity,” Ilker Catak, Hamburg Media School, Germany
“The Last Will,” Dustin Loose, Filmakademie Baden-Wuerttemberg, Germany

Students will arrive in Los Angeles for a week of industry activities that will culminate in the awards ceremony on Thursday, September 17, at 7:30 p.m., at the Samuel Goldwyn Theater in Beverly Hills. The medal placements – gold, silver and bronze – in the five award categories will be announced at the ceremony.

First-time honors go to Chapman University in the Alternative category and Filmakademie Wien in the Foreign Film competition. Academy members voted the winners from a field of 33 finalists, announced last month.

The 42nd Student Academy Awards ceremony on September 17 is free and open to the public, but advance tickets are required. Tickets may be obtained online at oscars.org 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.