Clifton's Amitabh Joshi Nominated for Student Academy Award

Clifton's Amitabh Joshi has been nominated for an Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences’ Student Academy Award for his five minute documentary "Wonder Workshop". 

The film takes place in Tanzania, where Joshi filmed a school where people afflicted by physical disabilities are trained in arts and crafts - and then sell their work for a living.

"The work gave them purpose," Joshi told Patch. "I think in some ways non-fiction provides me a way to tell real stories, and this was a story I wanted to tell."   

Joshi, 24, is a graduate of the New School of Northern Virginia and Dickinson College in Pennsylvania. He recently received his Master's for Social Documentary Film at the School of Visual Arts in New York. 

"I just choose stories that I'm interested and care for," he said. "So, I just want to know more, and when you approach people like that, they generally will talk to you."

The 40th annual awards ceremony pits 500 film schools across the country against each other. And winning can mean everything (more than awards and scholarships), and past winners include Spike Lee (Do The Right Thing), Robert Zemekis (Forrest Gump) and Trey Parker (South Park).

Thirty-eight students from 17 U.S. colleges and universities, and nine students from foreign universities are chosen as finalists in the competition.

The categories are documentary, narrative, animation and alternative.

"Wonder Workshop" was screened in Los Angeles on May 7.  

http://patch.com/A-4vVl

Joshi, who is a regional finalist, is now competing to be brought to Los Angeles for a week of industry activities and social events that will culminate in the awards ceremony on Saturday, June 8, at 7:30 p.m. in the Academy’s Samuel Goldwyn Theater in Beverly Hills.