Ludwigsburg, September 16, 2020

Press Release:
Student Academy Award for graduates of Filmakademie Baden-Württemberg's Animationsinstituts

 

 

The Beauty, a diploma film produced at Animationsinstitut of Filmakademie Baden-Württemberg (Director: Pascal Schelbli, VFX Supervisor: Marc Angele, Animation: Noel Winzen, Producer: Tina Vest, Aleksandra Todorovic) wins the Student Academy Award 2020 in the international competition in the category Animation.  Filmakademie along with its Animationsinstitut congratulates the whole team on their outstanding success.

 

 

 

The Oscar Academy announced the 18 winners on Tuesday evening (September 15, 2020), who were selected from nearly 1500 entries from 207 American and 121 international universities. The winners and their films will be honored in a virtual ceremony on October 21 in Los Angeles.

 

The Beauty deals with the pollution of the ocean through plastic waste. The four-minute short film sends the audience on a poetic journey through a fascinating underwater world in which plastic and nature become one. For one breath, worries and feelings of guilt dissolve between eerily beautiful coral reefs and the mysterious depths of the ocean. But a dark awakening will come...

 

With The Beauty, the prestigious award goes to a FABW production for the sixth time after 1998 (Thorsten Schmid for Rochade), 2007 (Toke Constantin Hebbeln for NimmerMeer), 2012 (Thomas Stuber for Von Hunden und Pferden), 2015 (Dustin Loose for Erledigung einer Sache) and 2017 (Johannes Preuss for Galamsey - Für eine Handvoll Gold). Since Filmakademie was founded, seventeen student productions have made it to the final round of the world's most important competition for young film making talents.

 

Petra Olschowski, State secretary at the Ministry of Science, Research and the Arts Baden-Württemberg: “I am very happy and congratulate the student team of Filmakademie and especially director Pascal Schelbli for this top-class award. Winning the Student Academy Award is a wonderful success - both for the students with their extraordinary animated short film and for Filmakademie Baden-Württemberg. Once again, the unique Ludwigsburg training concept has proven to be so successful because it gives students enough freedom to develop creative ideas and implement their own artistic methods.”

 

Prof. Thomas Schadt, Director of Filmakademie Baden-Württemberg: “I congratulate the whole team of The Beauty from the bottom of my heart - they have created a special piece of VFX magic in captivatingly beautiful pictures, which opens the eyes in the best sense of the word. I am proud of our students and very happy that the Student Academy Award has now been brought to Ludwigsburg for the sixth time. Winning these internationally significant and globally coveted awards from the film industry for student projects also marks an important milestone in the internationalization strategy of Filmakademie Baden-Württemberg.”

 

Prof. Andreas Hykade, Head of Animationsinstitut of Filmakademie Baden-Württemberg: "We congratulate the team of The Beauty on the Student Academy Award. Our special thanks go to all teachers of Animationsinstitut and Filmakademie, who, guided by Prof. Juri Stanossek, supervised this very special VFX project. The award also comes at the right time, as we are currently in the process of setting future-oriented impulses in the field of VFX throughout Filmakademie."

 

The Student Academy Award is considered the film industry's most important award for student projects and crowns a successful year for The Beauty: Director Pascal Schelbli's team won the Jury's Choice Award at SIGGRAPH 2020 and has already secured the renowned VES Award in the category "Outstanding Visual Effects in a Student Project".

 

The Student Academy Awards are presented in the "International Film Schools" section in four categories: The three best feature films receive an Oscar Award in gold, silver and bronze in the category "Narrative", while in the categories "Animation", "Documentary" and "Alternative/Experimental" one film each receives the award in gold. Thus, The Beauty has already secured its gold award. The winners will also take part in a one-week program in Hollywood, which will end with the award ceremony. In addition, all winning films are eligible for the regular Oscars.

 

See a making-of of the film here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0GzhOYdpRZ0

 

More about the winners of the Student Academy Awards 2020: https://www.oscars.org/news/academy-reveals-2020-student-academy-awardr-winners