Nicholas Fox-Gieg, alumni, Exp. Animation program/Integrated Media program, graduate MFA May 2004, has been awarded a Fulbright grant to the Netherlands. He will studying realtime animation and music composition.

Chris Choy, alumni, School of Film/Video, character animation program
was awarded the gold medal, Saturday, June 10th for his film "The
Possum" (read more about the award below). Congratulations to Chris!!!

Animation*
Gold Medal: �The Possum,� Chris Choy, California Institute of the Arts

Beverly Hills, CA � Thirteen students from nine different colleges and
universities were honored tonight (June 10) as winners in the Academy of
Motion Picture Arts and Sciences� 33rd annual Student Academy Awards
competition. For several days, they had participated in a slate of
industry-related activities and social events culminating with the
awards ceremony, which featured actress/writer Nia Vardalos, filmmaker
Kevin Smith and Academy President Sid Ganis as presenters, at the
Academy�s Samuel Goldwyn Theater. One film student from South Africa
also was selected to receive this year�s Honorary Foreign Student Film
Award.

The winners are:

*Alternative**
Gold Medal: �Perspective,� Travis Hatfield and Samuel Day, Ball
State University, Indiana
Silver Medal: � 6 A.M.,� Carmen Vidal Balanzat, City College of New York
* Only gold and silver medals were awarded in the Alternative category.

*Animation*
Gold Medal: �The Possum,� Chris Choy, California Institute of the Arts
Silver Medal: �The Dancing Thief,� Meng Vue, Ringling School of Art
and Design, Sarasota, Florida
Bronze Medal: �Turtles,� Thomas Leavitt, Brigham Young University

*Documentary*
Gold Medal: �Reporter Zero,� Carrie Lozano, University of
California, Berkeley
Silver Medal: �The Women�s Kingdom,� Xiaoli Zhou, University of
California, Berkeley
Bronze Medal: �Three Beauties,� Mak Hossain, Purdue University

*Narrative*
Gold Medal: �Christmas Wish List,� Sean Overbeeke, University of
North Carolina
Silver Medal: �El Viaje� ("One Day Trip"), Cady Abarca-Benavides,
Columbia University
Bronze Medal: �Pop Foul,� Moon Molson and Jennifer Handorf, Columbia
University

*Honorary Foreign Student Film Award*
�Elalini,� Tristan Holmes, The South African School of Motion
Picture Medium and Live Performance

While the U.S. winners knew they would each receive an award, the level
of that award � gold, silver or bronze � was not revealed until the
ceremony. Besides trophies, gold medalists received $5,000, silver
medalists were awarded $3,000 and bronze medal recipients were presented
with $2,000. The Honorary Foreign Film winner received $1,000 in
addition to the trophy.

The U.S. students first competed in one of three regional competitions.
Each of those regions was permitted to nominate as many as three
finalists in each of the four award categories. Academy members then
screened these finalists� films and voted to select the winners.

�Elalini,� by Honorary Foreign Film winner Tristan Holmes, was selected
from an original pool of 29 submissions from 22 countries. Holmes is the
first student from South Africa to win this award.

The Student Academy Awards were established by the Academy in 1972 to
support and encourage excellence in filmmaking at the collegiate level.
Among past winners who have gone on to prominent careers as filmmakers
are Spike Lee, Robert Zemeckis, John Lasseter and Trey Parker. Three of
last year�s winners received Oscar nominations earlier this year: Dan
Krauss for his documentary, �The Death of Kevin Carter: Casualty of the
Bang Bang Club,� Shane Acker for his animated short film, �9,� and
Honorary Foreign Film winner Ulrike Grote for her live action short �The
Runaway� (�Ausreisser�). Overall, 33 past Student Academy Award winners
have garnered Oscar nominations over the years.