NEWS
Great Grandmother Olive up for an Oscar

NFTS animation short The Incredible Story of my Great Grandmother Olive is one of five finalists that will be vying for the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Science's 2009 Honorary Foreign Film award in the 36th Annual Student Academy Awards competition.

The film, a graduation animation directed by Alberto Rodriguez, written by Brian Wallace and produced by Sunny Midha, was completed in March this year.

The five finalists were selected from a record 57 entries representing 39 countries. The winning student filmmaker will join U.S.-based Student Academy Award winners in Los Angeles for a week of industry-related activities and social events, including the awards ceremony on Saturday, June 13, in Beverly Hills.

The Student Academy Awards is an annual competition for college and university filmmakers. Winners – selected by the professional filmmaker members of the Academy – receive trophies and cash prizes. Many – such as Spike Lee, Robert Zemeckis and Wall-E director John Lasseter – have gone on to have successful careers in movies and television. NFTS films have won the Honorary Best Foreign Film Award – the only category in which non-US film schools can compete – on 4 occasions since the award was introduced in 1981.

The news makes this a great week for the NFTS: as well as this nomination the NFTS is represented by three short films at Cannes. Graduation Fiction film By the Grace of God is competing in the Cinefondation section; recent graduate Emma Sullivan’s suspenser After Tomorrow is the only UK entry vying for the short film Palm d’Or; and Together (written by Eicke Bettinga and Zorana Piggott, who respectively directed and produced) is screening in Critics’ Week. Starring Matt Smith, the new Doctor Who, Together is the only British entry for the Critics prize.

Other films showing at Cannes on which NFTS Alumni worked include:
Fish Tank Editor Nicolas Chaudeurge (In Competition)
Inglourious Basterds - Executive Producer Lloyd Phillips (In Competition)
The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus - Draughtsman Will Coubrough (Out of Competition)
Bad Day to Go Fishing - 2nd Unit DoP/Camera Operator Carlos Catalan (Critics’ Week)








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