2008 Woodie Awards
28 YEARS LATER
STUDENT SHOW CELEBRATES NOTEWORTHY ANIMATION PROJECTS AND FILM SHORTS
Jan McDaniel
If you're thinking this show is the usual "Best Of" parade, think again. De Anza film/television students have won more Emmys, Student Academy Awards and Focus awards than students at any other two-year school in the U.S.
Student projects have been featured in such notable venues as the New York Film Festival, MTV and the Chicago International Film Festival. De Anza alumni include Dayna Goldfine, a documentary filmmaker who won an Emmy for her film "Kids of Survival," writer-director Len Wiseman ("Underworld," "Die Hard 4"), and sound and Foley editor Greg ten Bosch ("The Da Vinci Code," "Spider-Man 3").
This year the Film and Video Show will present 13 short films as well as six animation projects. These projects, ranging from 30 seconds to 11 minutes in length, were selected from over 50 submissions.
Film/Television Coordinator Zaki Lisha, who founded the De Anza the department 33 years ago, is one of four faculty members and instructors who viewed the submissions and selected the featured pieces.
Four of the students in this year's festival have also been honored at one or more other film festivals.
Namit Kumar's "Choices" was screened at the Asian American International Film Festival in New York, Howard Kim's "Last Time Around" won the Traditional Animation award at the Cali- fornia Community Colleges Media Arts Awards, Omar Ferero's "Try" was shown at aluCine Toronto Latin@ Media Festival and Cameron Thrower's "B/4 You Left" was honored at the Best of Myspace Film Festival.
"The Film and Video Show is a celebration, not a competition," said event coordinator Su- san Tavernetti. "We don't give 'Best of the Fest' awards to the films selected. This is a non-competitive showcase celebrating our students' work in all its diversity and recognizing that film is a collaborative art form."
At the same time, two awards are being bestowed this year to De Anza film/television students: one to an animation student and one to a film/television production student.
The Chadwick S. Okamoto Awards are presented each year in memory of a De Anza film/television student who died in 2001, less than a month after he had been hired as a professional animator. The awards are bestowed onto students who exemplify Okamoto's traits: artistic excellence, tireless work ethic and generous assistance to others.
The 28th Annual Student Film
and Video Show will be presented
on Friday, June 8 at 7:30 p.m. in
room A-11. Admission is $5 and
tickets go on sale at 6:45 p.m.
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