Clemente '93 is First Filipino-American Woman Nominee in Academy History
 Film producer Pia Clemente, a Barnard graduate, has become the first Filipino-American woman to receive an Oscar nomination for her short film "Our Time Is Up," about a dying therapist who adopts a fresh approach in his final days: brutal honesty.
Clemente, who directed her first short film when she was a senior at Barnard in 1993, was nominated along with writer-director Rob Pearlstein for producing the 14-minute comedy, which stars Kevin Pollack as the therapist who finds out he has six weeks to live.
Clemente began her film career when she was a senior at Barnard (she majored in English literature with a minor in theatre). She noticed a flyer on campus announcing a filmmaking grant, and decided to apply.
"I had just directed a play," Clemente says. "And that [got] my juices flowing."
Clemente was awarded the grant and made her first film. Four years later, she produced another short film, "Christmas in New York," with Mark Millhone (then a Columbia graduate student) as director. The film won a Student Academy Award for Best Film for Millhone in 1997.
"I really enjoyed my experience at Barnard and have such great memories there," Clemente says. " It's an inspiration: the people who teach you and the people around you. Barnard lays a groundwork to launch you into anything you want to do. I feel very fortunate to have had that."
Clemente, who also attended the American Film Institute (AFI) graduate producing program in Los Angeles, has been producing commercials as well as more narrative personal projects ever since. Most recently she line produced the independent feature The Debut, which she described at a Filipino coming of age story.
To read more about Clemente, go to:
Asian Week Or
The Phillipine News
Or
Inq7.net
The winner of the Academy Aware for Live Action short was "Six Shooter."
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