The Directors Guild of America has announced the winners of its 1997 Student Film Awards for African-American, Asian/Pacific, Latino and women filmmakers. The awards, which bring prizes of $2500 from the DGA along with product grants of 2000 feet of 16mm film provided by Kodak’s Worldwide Student Film Program to the winner in each group and 1200 feet of 16mm film to each of the runners-up, are designed to honor, encourage and bring attention to outstanding minority and women film students in California film schools.

The 1997 DGA Student Film Awards will be presented on Wednesday, November 12, at 7:30 PM, in Theatre 1 at DGA Headquarters, 7920 Sunset Boulevard, following the screenings of the winning films. The screenings and awards presentation are open to the public. To RSVP, please call 310-289-5300.

The winners in each category are:

African-American: Carmen Elly (American Film Institute), A Guy Walks into a Bar

(Honorable Mention: Damani Mangum (USC), The Solution, and Marc Pitre (USC), Show and Prove)

Asian/Pacific: Hak J. Chung (USC), Seoul II Soul

(Honorable Mention: Patrick Yu (USC), Hing Dai and the Man)

Latino: Jacqueline Barcos (USC), Mala Sangre

(Honorable Mention: John Colorado (USC), Interrogation)

Women: Jodi Lane (USC), Big Bucks for Buddha

(Honorable Mention: Janet Howard (USC), Breaking Ground: Men Against Rape)

The awards rules and procedures mandate that competing films must have been made in the 1996/97 school year (September 1996 - August 1997), and must have been produced for course credit or under the supervision of a faculty member. Dramas, documentaries and experimental films are all eligible: animated films are not. Applicants must be enrolled in or be a recent (one year) graduate from an accredited post-secondary four-year institution in California which offers a degree in film or television. Eligible films are those in which every major crew position was held by a student. Productions in which a non-student, professional or a faculty member served as cinematographer, camera operator, sound recordist, editor, lighting director or screenwriter are not eligible. Panels consisting of Director members of the DGA from the respective groups (African-American, Asian/Pacific, Latino and women) reviewed the entries and selected the winners.