Director Martin Brest Presents Wasserman Awards To Top Student Filmmakers At NYU's Tisch School Of The Arts

Director Martin Brest presented the prestigious Wasserman Awards to six student filmmakers from New York University's Tisch School of the Arts and two New York Picture Company Writing Awards on Monday, April 7, at Lincoln Center's Alice Tully Ha ll in a ceremony that concluded NYU's Annual First Run Film Festival. Brest, an alumnus of the Tisch School and director of Beverly Hills Cops, Midnight Run and Scent of a Woman, also presented the top awards in video.

The winning films -- selected from more than 120 works by undergraduate and graduate students in the film program -- were featured in the festival, which ran from March 31-April 6 at New York's Cinema Village. Whether humorous or tragic, sentimental o r socially-conscious, the winning films are thought-provoking and thematically complex, and reflect a high level of technical expertise.

Mary Schmidt Campbell, dean of the Tisch School, congratulated this year's Wasserman Award winners, noting, "Many of the works screened at the First Run Festival will go on to be featured in international and national film festivals and on cable televi sion. We congratulate all of the student filmmakers who completed projects and screened them at this year's festival." The Dean also offered a special thanks to Deborah Penchina of New York Film Company for underscoring the importance of writing by offe ring awards for the best comedy and best dramatic screenplay.

The 1997 Wasserman Awards were presented to:

First Prize Graduate: La Leçon, by Craig Marsden A serious comedy about sex, class, and furniture. Undergraduate: Truckstop, by John Morning Penniless and alone, Sue and her two children are abandoned at a shady truckstop.

Second Prize Graduate: Trim, by Bryan Gunnar Cole Two people, one house. Undergraduate: Old Salt, by Joshua Colover A heartwarming tale of a lonely twelve-year-old and his discovery of an old fisherman's past.

Third Prize Graduate: Little Man, by Amyn Kaderali On a basketball court in Brooklyn, a boy must confront the dangers and dilemmas that sometimes come with growing up. Undergraduate: Thicker Than Water, by Evette Vargas A film about a thirty-year-old woman who returns to her hometown after twelve years. She returns on the day of her father's funeral to re-establish relationships between herself and her mother and brother.

The Tisch School also presented writing awards. Funded by NYU alumna Deborah Penchina, the New York Picture Company Awards were presented to the best comedy screenplay and the best dramatic screenplay.

The 1997 New York Picture Company Awards were presented to: Dramatic: Simon Says, by Gary Sunshine Comedy: Engaged, by David Gips

Awards were also presented to two students, who were chosen from a group of seven semifinalists, for their accomplishments in video.

The 1997 Awards for Video were presented to:

first prize:
Little Kings, by Marylou Tibaldo-Bongiorno. The story of three Italian-American brothers, their relationships with each other and the women in their lives. Their predicaments touch upon the universal themes of romantic love, family loyalty, and betrayal.

second prize:
One Morning on Easter Island, by Karl Staven. Animation, computer-generated video.

This year's winners for best films join past award recipients Spike Lee, Ang Lee, and Nancy Savoca. They were selected from a group of more than twenty semifinalists by a panel of judges from the entertainment industry, which included Susan Cartsonis, Windancer Productions; Wendy Keys, Film Society of Lincoln Center; Barbara De Fina, Cappa Productions; Adam Kanter, Creative Artists Agency, and other representatives from several major talent agencies and film production companies.

The Wasserman Awards are named for Edie and Lew Wasserman, benefactors and good friends of the Tisch School, and are supported by director and NYU alumnus Chris Columbus, producer Bernie Brillstein, Creative Artists Agency, New York Picture Company, an d the William Morris Agency.

Judges for The 1997 New York Picture Company Awards were screenwriter Jim Hart, and authors Julie Salomon and Erica Silverman.

Judges for The 1997 Video Awards were independent filmmaker Paula Heredia, Asian CineVision's Vivian Huang and Quantel's David Rosenblatt.

The First Run Film Festival is well-known in industry circles because it offers student filmmakers the opportunity to present their work to producers, agents and other key industry executives, as well as to family and friends.

The Institute of Film and Television at the Tisch School of the Arts provides an intensive and professional education in filmmaking. The graduate program shared first place in U.S. News and World Report's most recent rankings of the nation's fi lm programs; since 1992, eight Student Academy Award gold medals have been presented to NYU student filmmakers. Recent NYU alumni have screened their films at Cannes, Sundance and the New York Film Festivals.

Film students -- approximately 1,050 undergraduates and 150 graduate students -- pursue degrees in film and television production, photography, cinema studies, dramatic writing and interactive telecommunications at the Tisch School. Distinguished alum ni include Martin Scorsese, Oliver Stone, Spike Lee, Joel Coen, Ang Lee, Chris Columbus, Billy Crystal, Susan Seidelman, Martha Coolidge, Jim Jarmusch, Amy Heckerling, Ernest Dickerson, Oz Scott, Todd Solondz, Barry Sonnenfeld and many others.

4/7/97