ASC announces Student Heritage Award winners

The American Society of Cinematographers (ASC) announced winners in this year’s Student Heritage Awards on Saturday night (March 5) during a virtual presentation. Three student filmmakers were chosen for demonstrating exceptional cinematography skills in their submitted work.

Lawrence Sher, ASC presented the Judy Irola Student Heritage Award (Graduate Category) to Seth MacMillan of the American Film Institute for My Life Stopped at 15.

The Isidore Mankofsky Heritage Award (Undergraduate Category) was presented by Tommy Maddox-Upshaw, ASC to Zhili “Evan” Feng of Chapman University for Where the Bird Goes.

Shana Hagan, ASC gave the Haskell Wexler Documentary Award to Tristan Owen of Florida State University for The Castle Builder.

ASC President Stephen Lighthill, Student Awards Co-Chairs Crag Kief and Armando Salas, and Sony’s Manager of Digital Cinema Camera Sales and Business Development Daniel Perry also took part in this special ceremony. As this year’s student awards sponsor, Sony bestowed gift packages to all the winners.

The ASC Student Heritage Awards are designed to encourage and support the next generation of cinematographers, and also celebrate the memory of an ASC member. Irola was a cinematographer, documentarian and educator (An Ambush of Ghosts, Niger ’66: A Piece Corps Diary). Mankofsky, a longtime chairperson of the ASC Student Awards, earned three Emmy nominations and shot feature films including The Jazz Singer and Somewhere in Time. The Documentary category is enduringly dedicated to Oscar-winner Wexler ASC (Who’s Afraid of Virginia Wolf?, Bound for Glory).

The ASC Student Heritage Award program was inaugurated in 1999. Many of the students previously recognized have gone on to have successful careers in filmmaking, including the Student Awards Committee Co-chairs Craig Kief and Armando Salas, alongside other ASC members Nelson Cragg, Masanobu Takayanagi, and Lisa Wiegand.