Hollywood : 4 Win Film Fellowships

Four students interested in film careers have won fellowships that will allow them to work at Paramount Pictures for a year.

According to M. Kenneth Suddleson, a Paramount executive vice president, the students are the first winners of two new fellowship programs--the Paramount Pictures Fellowships and the Paramount Pictures/Eddie Murphy Fellowships--established last year.

Beginning in September, the fellows will work in Hollywood with the studio’s development, writing, production and distribution staffs in filmmaking and television. They will be paid $25,000.

“We feel there is an obligation on the part of the industry to return something,” Suddleson said of the fellowship programs. “Hopefully, it’s a way to identify new talent early and establish relationships with them.”

Winners of Paramount Pictures fellowships are: Adam Belanoff of USC for screen writing, Karin Kelly of New York University for producing, and Paul Pesce of Columbia University for directing. The Paramount Pictures/Eddie Murphy fellow is B. Mark Seabrooks of Howard University.

The Paramount Pictures fellows were chosen by a committee of Paramount executives from candidates nominated by five graduate schools of film--the American Film Institute, Columbia University, New York University, UCLA and USC.

“We encouraged each of the schools to have a true competition instead of picking their pet student,” Suddleson said. All candidates submitted scripts, films, videos or other samples of their work.

The Paramount Pictures/Eddie Murphy fellow was chosen by Paramount and Eddie Murphy Productions executives from student writers at two predominantly black schools, Hampton University in Virginia and Howard University in Washington. The fellowship was established “as a continuation of our effort to increase minority participation in the film industry,” Murphy said in a prepared statement.

All the work submitted was of “very high quality,” Suddleson said.

Each of the winners and finalists received $750. The participating schools received $10,000 each.