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“Crip Camp,” “Gunda” and “Mr. Soul!” led all films in nominations for the fifth annual Critics Choice Documentary Awards, which were announced on Monday by the Critics Choice Association.

The three films each received five nominations, including nods in the Best Documentary Feature category. As usual, that category cast a very wide net and contains far more nominees than other awards for nonfiction filmmaking — 14 this year, with nominations also going to “Athlete A,” “Belushi,” “Dick Johnson Is Dead,” “Feels Good Man,” “The Fight,” “The Go-Go’s,” “My Octopus Teacher,” “The Painter and the Thief,” “A Secret Love,” “The Social Dilemma” and “Time.”

Films with four nominations are “Athlete A,” “Dick Johnson Is Dead,” “Octopus Teacher” and “Totally Under Control.”

The list was missing many of the year’s most acclaimed nonfiction films, including “Welcome to Chechnya,” “The Dissident,” “Collective,” “Disclosure,” “76 Days” and “On the Record,” none of which received any nominations.

Updated with medalists: The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences revealed the gold, silver and bronze medalists for the 47th Student Academy Awards. The winning films were feted in a virtual ceremony that included presenters Shunsaku Hayashi, Glen Keane, Spike Lee, Dawn Porter and Lulu Wang and hosted by Eugenio Derbez.

The 18 students and their projects who were finalists for this year’s honors were announced last month. Here are the medalists announced today (watch them here).

Alternative/Experimental (Domestic and International Film Schools)

Gold: “Simulacra,” Curry Sicong Tian, USC

Animation (Domestic Film Schools)

Gold: “Ciervo,” Pilar Garcia-Fernandezsesma, Rhode Island School of Design

Silver: “Mime Your Manners,” Kate Namowicz and Skyler Porras, Ringling College of Art & Design

Bronze: “Hamsa,” Daniela Dwek, Maya Mendonca and Chrisy Baek, School of Visual Arts

Animation (International Film Schools)

Gold: “The Beauty,” Pascal Schelbli, Filmakademie Baden-Württemberg (Germany)

Documentary (Domestic Film Schools)

Gold: “Unfinished Lives,...

USC students won a pair of gold medals at the 2020 Student Academy Awards to lead all schools in the 47th annual event, the Academy announced on Wednesday.

At a virtual ceremony hosted by Eugenio Derbez, USC won gold medals in the Alternative category for Curry Sicong Tian’s “Simalacra,” and in the Documentary category for Yucong Chen’s “Unfinished Lives.” The other gold medalists among U.S. schools were Rhode Island School of Design with Pilar Garcia-Gernandezesma’s “Ciervo” in the Animation category, and NYU with Talia Smith’s “Umama” in the Narrative category.

International Student Oscars were won by Pascal Schelbli from Germany’s Filmakademie Baden-Wurttemberg for “The Beauty” in the Animation category; Maren Klakegg from Norway’s Westerdals Institute of Film and Media, Kristiania University College for “Dear Father … ” in the Documentary category; and German Golub from Estonia’s Tallinn University for “My Dear Corpses” in the Narrative category.

The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences honored 18 student winners from colleges and universities from around the world for the 47th Student Academy Awards ceremony. In a first-time virtual ceremony hosted by Eugenio Derbez, the gold, silver and bronze medalist winners were announced by a gathering of the industry’s most talented creatives. Showcasing another initiative by the Academy of embracing and nurturing the next generation of diverse talents, 13 out of the 18 winners are women, marking the most diverse class ever honored. The class is also encapsulated by multiple Asian, Latinx and Black artists.

Answering a question from Variety regarding if the group feels like the next generation of filmmakers, many had various perspectives. NYU graduate Karishma Dube, who grew up in India, says she “never really thought about it” while China-born Curry Sicong Tian wants to be accurately categorized as “more of a storyteller than a filmmaker.”

Access...

Rhode Island School of Design film senior Pilar Garcia-Fernandezsesma was nearly done with her animated short, “Ciervo,” when the pandemic struck in March. With less than a month before the school’s deadline, she had to be crafty.

“I had to go back to live with my parents. Luckily, I was done with the animation,” she said. “But I did have to switch sound programs completely. It came out fine… I ended up putting flute in my film when I probably wouldn’t have done it, because I had access to my middle-school flute lying in around in my bedroom.”

“Fine” is an understatement. Garcia-Fernandezsesma won a gold medal at the Student Academy Awards, one of 18 student winners at this year’s ceremony broadcast online Wednesday. Garcia-Fernandezsesma and her fellow winners spoke Tuesday during a virtual junket.

The winners were selected by Academy member votes from 1,474 entries, representing 207 domestic and 121 international colleges and universities.

Winning films eligible for 2020 Oscars in animated, live-action, documentary short categories.

The Academy has honoured filmmakers from Germany, Mexico, Norway and Estonia in the 47th Student Academy Awards, which took place at the event’s first virtual ceremony on Wednesday (October 21).

All winning films are eligible to compete for 2020 Oscars in the animated short film, live action short film or documentary short subject categories.

Past winners, who include Pixar head and Soul director Pete Docter, Cary Fukunaga, Spike Lee, Trey Parker, Patricia Riggen and Robert Zemeckis, have gone on to receive 64 Oscar nominations and have won or shared 13 awards.

Winners...

When Michael Fabiano was starting out as an opera singer 13 years ago, he was advised to stay in the closet and that coming out as gay could be a career killer.

“That was frustrating because my friends and my family know my personal life, but I can’t actually talk about my personal business with anyone outside of this kind of glass circle that I have?” Fabiano tells Variety from Europe, where he’s been performing in theaters under strict Covid-safe protocols.

Most in the opera world didn’t know he was gay until he announced his engagement in August 2017 to marketing consultant Bryan McCalister. By then, Fabiano was a decade into his award-winning career. “I had a lot of perplexed emails from people not realizing I was gay,” he says. “They had no clue I was gay because I never talked about it publicly. I never made a public declaration about it.

German Films has released a list of ten films that were submitted by German producers for consideration to become the country’s International Feature Oscar contender.

Among the front-runners for selection are likely to be Julia Von Heinz’s And Tomorrow The Entire World, Caroline Link’s When Hitler Stole Pink Rabbit, Burhan Qurbani’s Berlin Alexanderplatz and Christian Petzold’s Undine.

The ten films:

• When Hitler Stole Pink Rabbit – Caroline Link (Sommerhaus Filmproduktion)

• Berlin Alexanderplatz – Burhan Qurbani (Sommerhaus Filmproduktion)

• Crescendo #Makemusicnotwar – Dror Zahavi (Ccc-Filmkunst)

• Curveball – Johannes Naber (Bon Voyage Films)

• A Wet Dog – Damir Lukacevic (Carte Blanche International)

• Enfant Terrible – Oskar Roehler (Bavaria Filmproduktion)

• Fritzi – A Revolutionary Tale – Ralf Kukula, Matthias Brun (Balance Film)

• I’Ve Never Been To New York – Philipp Stölzl (Ziegler Film/UFA Fiction)

• Undine – Christian Petzold (Schramm Film Koerner + Weber)

• And Tomorrow The Entire World – Julia von Heinz (Seven Elephant Pictures)

An independent jury will select the German contender,...

USC led all schools with four winners at the 47th Student Academy Awards, the Academy announced on Tuesday. NYU was second with three winners, while the Rhode Island School of Design, the School of Visual Arts and Ringling College of Art & Design each won one award.

The Academy will announce the level of each award — gold, silver or bronze — at a virtual ceremony on Oct. 21. All winning films, regardless of level, qualify for the Academy Award in the Best Live Action Short, Best Animated Short or Best Documentary Short category.

Among international schools, the winners came from Filmakademie Baden-Württemberg in Germany, Westerdals Institute of Film and Media in Norway, Centro de Capacitación Cinematográfica in Mexico, Institut des Arts de Diffusion in Belgium and Baltic Film & Media School, Tallinn University in Estonia. It was the first Student Oscar win for the Belgian and Estonian schools.

The winners were chosen from among...

The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences today announced the 47th Student Academy Award winners. The 15 winning films, representing 18 individual student directors or directing teams, were selected by Academy member votes from 1,474 entries, representing 207 domestic and 121 international colleges and universities.

The gold, silver, and bronze medal placements in the seven student award categories will be revealed in a virtual program highlighting the winners and their films on October 21.

Today’s wins also mean the students are eligible to compete in the Animated Short Film, Live Action Short Film, or Documentary Short Subject categories for the 2021 Oscars. Past student-award winners have received 64 Oscar nominations, and won or shared 13 awards.

Previous Student Academy Award winners include Spike Lee, who won in 1983 for his master’s thesis film (“Joe’s Bed-Stuy Barbershop: We Cut Heads”), and “South Park” co-creator Trey Parker, who won in 1993 with “American History.” Other notable past winners include Patricia Cardoso,...

The film stars Toni Erdmann’s Peter Simonischek as a world-famous conductor who accepts the job of creating an Israeli-Palestinian youth orchestra.

Global Screen has added France and Japan to the line-up of territories which have now picked up Dror Zahavi’s drama Crescendo #makemusicnotwar.

Deals were signed on the eve of this year’s European Film Market (Efm) with France’s Bodega Films and Japan’s Shochiku, with the film’s inflight distribution rights being acquired by Encore.

Global Screen had previously concluded deals with Menemsha Films for the USA and Canada as well as with Satine (Italy), Adso...