Germans, Israeli among student Oscar winners

LOS ANGELES - A young German filmmaker won the best foreign movie student Academy Award on Saturday, at a film-school version of the Oscars.

Student directors from British, Israeli and US institutes were also among winners as organizers announced medal placements at the 41st Student Academy Awards show.

Lennart Ruff of Munich's University of Television and Film won gold in the foreign movie section for "Nocebo," about a man who escapes a drug study when he discovers a fellow participant has died.

"I feel like I'm in a dream," Ruff told AFP, adding that the medal placement wasn't that important, "because the attention you get, that's the most important thing.

"It's not about getting awards," said the 28-year-old, who listed his cinematic heroes as including German Robert Schwentke, as well as Stanley Kubrick, Martin Scorsese and many others.

Hadas Ayalon of Tel Aviv University took silver for "Paris on the Water," while Peter Baumann, a German filmmaker studying at Britain's Northern Film School, took bronze for "Border Patrol." The awards were presented by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, which organizers the Oscars, the climax to Hollywood's annual awards season.

The foreign trio won in one of five sections at the student awards, which saw 12 other laureates from American universities take home prizes.

The Academy launched the student awards in 1972 to "encourage excellence in filmmaking at the collegiate level." Past winners have gone on to secure 46 Oscar nominations and win or share eight Academy Awards. They include big names such as John Lasseter, Pete Docter, Robert Zemeckis, Trey Parker and Spike Lee.

Here are the medal placements in the other categories:

Alternative
Gold: "Person" by Drew Brown of the Art Institute of Jacksonville, Florida.
Silver: "Oscillate" by Daniel Sierra of the School of Visual Arts, New York.

Animation
Gold: "Owned" by Daniel Clark and Wesley Tippetts of Brigham Young University, Utah.
Silver: "Higher Sky" by Teng Cheng of the University of Southern California.
Bronze: "Yamashita" by Hayley Foster of Loyola Marymount University, California.

Documentary
Gold: "The Apothecary" by Helen Hood Scheer of Stanford University.
Silver: "White Earth" by J. Christian Jensen of Stanford University.
Bronze: "One Child" by Zijian Mu of New York University.

Narrative
Gold: "Above the Sea" by Keola Racela of Columbia University, New York.
Silver: "Door God" by Yulin Liu of New York University.
Bronze: "Interstate" by Camille Stochitch of the American Film Institute, California.