Student Academy Awards Celebrates The Next Wave Of Talent

For the 35th time, the Academy Awards celebrated and honored a young batch of emerging filmmakers at the Student Academy Awards. The awards are a bit different than the "big show" since they offer a Gold, Silver and Bronze award for each category. The categories are Best Alternative Film, Best Animated Film, Best Documentary, Best Narrative and a Foreign Film Award.

Several of Hollywood's current stars have won a Student Academy Award while in college. Some notable winners include Robert Zemeckis, Spike Lee and John Lasseter. A complete list of past notable winners can be viewed HERE.

Here is a list of this year's winners:

Alternative Award

• Gold Medal Winner: Shih-Ting Hung from University of Southern California for her film Viola: The Traveling Rooms of a Little Giant
• Silver Medal Winner: Phoebe Tooke from San Francisco State University for her film Circles of Confusion

Animation Award

• Gold Medal Award Winner: Nicole Mitchell from California Institute of the Arts for her film Zoologic
• Silver Medal Award Winner: Tatchapon Lertwirojkul from School of Visual Arts in New York for is film Simulacra
• Bronze Medal Award Winner: Evan Mayfield from Ringling College of Art and Design for his film The Visionary

Documentary Award

• Gold Medal Award Winner: Laura Waters Hinson from American University for her film As We Forgive
• Silver Medal Award Winner: J.J. Adler from Columbia University for her film Unattached
  
• Bronze Medal Award Winner: Brian Davis from University of Southern California for his film If a Body Meets a Body

Narrative Award

• Gold Medal Award Winner: Brian Davis from University of Southern California for his film A Day's Work
• Silver Medal Award: Z. Eric Yang from Florida State University for his film The State of Sunshine
• Bronze Medal Award Winner:  Melanie McGraw from University of Southern California for her film Pitsop

Foreign Film Award

• Reto Caffi from Academy of Media Arts, Cologne, Germany for his film On the Line (Auf Der Strecke)
  

You can find a complete bio and a brief synopsis of all the winners on the official site HERE

Check out NowPublic's featured coverage of the Oscars 2009