Student Academy Awards are awarded annually by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences to the best student films in five categories: animated, documentary, feature, alternative and foreign feature, animated and documentary film. The winners can apply for an Academy Award nomination. This year, over 1700 films were submitted to the competition; only 5 percent of them, that is, about 80 productions, qualified for the semifinals. Today, the names of the finalists have been announced, who will compete for the student awards of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts. In the category foreign feature film, among 7 productions, there is the short film "The Tenants" by Klara Kochańska.
The film was made at the Polish National Film, Television and Theatre School in Lodz. The film tells the story of Justyna, a single thirty-year-old, who, in spite of the risk which goes with it, buys an apartment at a bailiff auction. On the day of moving to her dream home, it turns out that the keys do not fit the lock, and Justyna cannot go inside. Sometimes dreams come true in a nightmarish way…
The film has already been appreciated at Warsaw Film Festival, when it won the Grand Prix award, and at the Global Chinese Universities Student Film, from where it returned with the best foreign film award. Recently, the film was shown at the 51st Karlovy Vary International Film Festival within the frames of the programme Future Frames. In July, the film was given the Grand Jury Prize at FIRST International Film Festival in China.
The full list of films nominated for the Student Academy Awards can be found on the website of the Academy.