MEDIA CONTACT Daniel Gomez [email protected] March 28, 2016 FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE THE ACADEMY LAUNCHES 2016 STUDENT ACADEMY AWARDS® COMPETITION New Expanded Foreign Film Category Winners Eligible for Oscars® LOS ANGELES, CA - The Academy is now accepting entries for its 2016 Student Academy Awards® competition. All Student Academy Award® winners become eligible for Oscars® consideration. The entry deadline for submissions is Wednesday, June 1. New this year, the Foreign Film category has been expanded to include separate awards for narrative, animation and documentary entries. Gold, Silver and Bronze Medal awards may be given in the Foreign Film Narrative category; Gold Medal awards may be given in the Foreign Film Animation and the Foreign Film Documentary categories. The U.S. competition categories remain the same: Alternative, Animation, Narrative and Documentary. For the second year, students are asked to submit their films online using FilmFreeway, a Widely used festival and competition platform. Complete rules and a link to the online submission platform are available at www.oscars.org /saa. The 43rd Student Academy Awards presentation will be held on Thursday, September 22, at the Academy's Samuel Goldwyn Theater in Beverly Hills. Past winners have gone on to receive 49 Oscar nominations and have won or shared eight awards. This year two 2015 Student Academy Award winners received Oscar nominations in the Live Action Short Film category: Henry Hughes, a Gold Medal winner in the Narrative category for " Day One," and Patrick Vollrath, a Bronze Medal winner in the Fareign Film category for " Everything Will Be Okay (Alles Wird Gut)." Past Student Academy Award winners include acclaimed filmmakers Pete Docter, Cary Fukunaga, John Lasseter, Spike Lee , Trey Parker and Robert Zemeckis. .