Two short films from Switzerland in the running for a Student Oscar

Two short films From Switzerland are on the shortlist of finalists for a Student Academy Award.

26.04.2013

Two short films From Switzerland are on the shortlist of finalists for a Student Academy Award: “Parvaneh,” Talkhon Hamzawi’s graduation film at the Zurich University of the Arts (ZHDK), has received a nomination in the Best Foreign Film category; Mauro Mueller’s “Un mundo para Raúl” is among the nine nominees in the Narrative category.

The 24-minute film “Parvaneh” by the Iranian-Swiss Talkhon Hamzawi graduate from the Zurich University of the Arts (ZHDK) has been nominated together with eight other films for the Student Academy Award in the Foreign Film category. The film tells the story of a young female migrant from Afghanistan who lives in a transit centre for asylum-seekers in Switzerland. It won the Prix Interculturel for Best Film Fostering Intercultural Dialog at the Munich International Festival of Filmschools last November.

The short fiction film “Un mundo para Raúl” by Zurich filmmaker Mauro Mueller has been nominated for a Student Academy Award. The 15-minute work, which has already been screened at various festivals in Europe and the USA and won numerous awards, is one of the nine short film productions nominated for an award in the Narrative category, which is exclusively reserved for productions from film schools in the United States. The film illustrates the dilemma of social class differences in Latin America based on an example of abuse. The film, coproduced by Contrast Film in Zurich Film, is Mauro Mueller’s gradate work from Columbia University in New York, where he studied film directing and scriptwriting.

Prestigious trophy
The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, which also awards the Oscars, presents the Student Oscar works by film students every year. Until now, the prestigious trophy has been won by two student directors from Switzerland: Reto Caffi for “Auf der Strecke” in the Best Foreign Student Film category in 2009; and Michael Schaerer for “Warmth” in the Alternative Fiction category in 2001. The 40th award ceremony will take place in the Samuel Goldwyn Theater in Beverly Hills on June 8, 2013.

Zurich, April 26, 2013

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