GLOBAL – VERMONT, USA, AUGUST 12, 2010 — The 2010 recipients of the Kodak Scholarship Program were announced and honored last night during a reception at the University Film and Video Association Conference (UFVA) at Champlain College. Kodak’s annual global competition is designed to recognize superior filmmaking skills and creativity of the next generation. The student winners, as judged by Emmy®-winning documentary cinematographer Buddy Squires, hail from schools across the U.S. and Europe.
The winners and respective prizes are:
Gold Award for Excellence in the Craft of Filmmaking: Guy Godfree from the American Film Institute for the film Revelations. The award includes a $5,000 Kodak motion picture film product grant and a $1,000 cash award. Revelations is about a young priest called to deal with a trailer park resident who has been behaving oddly, only to discover the resident is also a priest, and that the two are not alone.
Silver Award for Excellence in the Craft of Filmmaking: Edit Blaumann from the University of Theatre, Film and Television in Budapest for Lesson. Blaumann receives a Kodak motion picture film grant valued at $4,000. Lesson follows a young girl who is failing mathematics and trying to discover what that means for herself, her parents and her teacher.
Bronze Award for Excellence in the Craft of Filmmaking: Wonjung Bae from Columbia College Chicago for Made in Makanda. The award comes with a grant of $3,000 in Kodak motion picture film. Bae’s black-and-white documentary chronicles the days of a master Krenovian-style woodworker, as he wanders an Illinois forest in search of fallen trees to make his minimalist furniture pieces.
Honorable Mention for Excellence in the Craft of Filmmaking: Soraya Burtnett from the University of California-Los Angeles for Counting Backwards, and Leandro Ferrao from Lusofona University in Lisbon, Portugal, for Act of Life. Both Honorable Mention awards include a $2,000 grant for Kodak motion picture film.
"There is a vast pool of talented, emerging filmmakers, and this is one way for Kodak to recognize their hard work and creativity," says Kodak’s Worldwide Education Segment Manager Johanna Gravelle. "Our goal is to support the next generation, and the film schools and faculty who foster their careers. In addition to the scholarships, Kodak’s sponsorship of the UFVA conference provides opportunities to listen to the needs of professors and students, as well as to join conversations about the best way to educate future filmmakers, so they can succeed in a competitive industry. Our commitment to the future of quality filmmaking is unwavering."
Accredited film schools from every region of the world submitted student candidates who were judged on a combination of their past work, faculty recommendations and academic achievement. In addition to Squires, Wenhwa Tsao, graduate program director for the Film & Video Department at Columbia College Chicago, and Kodak cinematographer Randy Tack assessed the entries.
Kodak introduced its worldwide film school program in 1991. Through the years, that program has grown to include a wide range of initiatives to help both students and educators enrich their knowledge and enhance their skills in the art and craft of filmmaking.
For more information, visit www.kodak.com/go/education.
