|
The New York branch of the Motion Picture Academy selected three narrative films to represent the Eastern region of the Student Academy Awards in this year's national competition. All three films were directed by Columbia University M.F.A. candidates.
El Viaje (One-Day Trip), directed by Cady Abarca; Good Girl, directed by Kang heayun; and Pop Foul, directed by Moon Molson were selected on April 28 from 81 submissions. In addition, Columbia had one of the two regional winners in the alternative category: A Very Small Trilogy of Loneliness, directed by Bogdan Apetri.
 |
| In Good Girl, Kijong, a young girl living in a redevelopment area in the heart of Seoul, must learn to care for herself and her younger brother after their mother abandons them. |
"For these talented Columbia students, this is obviously a great personal accomplishment and we congratulate them," said Columbia President Lee Bollinger. "On a broader level, it speaks to the enormous quality and creativity of the young people who attend Columbia's School of the Arts, the training they receive from a dedicated faculty and staff led this year by Acting Dean Dan Kleinman, and also to the importance we place on making the arts central in the life of a great university whose home is a world capital for arts and culture."
The SoA films will be sent to Los Angeles, along with selections from the other two national regions, where voters from the Motion Picture Academy will choose the national winners.
Films directed by Columbia students have taken a gold medal in the national Student Academy Awards in seven of the last nine years. National winners for 2006 will be announced in Los Angeles on June 10.
CU Film Festival Runs in New York City, May 1-11
Good Girl and Pop Foul, along with 37 other student films, can be seen this week and next as part of the 19th Annual Columbia University Film Festival, which runs May 1-11. Among the more than $120,000 in festival prizes to be awarded is the first-ever A&E IndieFilms Talent Development Award for Nonfiction Filmmaking. Films will screen at the IFC Center, 323 Sixth Ave., at West 3rd Street.
The festival also will include 13 screenplays.
Columbia University film students, alumni and faculty have won multiple honors this year at the Oscars, Golden Globes, Berlin International Film Festival, Asian American International Film Festival, Independent Spirit Awards and have been featured at Sundance and the current Tribeca Film Festival.
For complete details and ticket information, visit the Film Festival Web site.
|
