Fifty-one students of the Inner-City Filmmakers Program in Santa Monica, California, marched fifty-one Oscar statuettes from the Meet the Oscars exhibit at Hollywood & Highlands Center to the Kodak Theatre in preparation for the the 78th Academy Awards®.

Holding onto dreams of future Oscar glory, 51 students from Inner-City Filmmakers (ICF), a training and film industry job development program, carried the 51 Oscar statuettes of the 78th Academy Awards® down the red carpet to the Kodak Theatre at the Hollywood & Highland Center® on Saturday, March 4.

Following the close of “Meet the Oscars: The 50 Golden Statuettes,” an exhibition where the statuettes had been residing since February 10 for public viewing, they were placed in the excited hands of ICF students – the industry’s future animators, cinematographers, costume designers, directors, editors, sound editors, screenwriters and visual effects specialists – who then carried each one down the red carpet.

Fifty-one students of the Inner-City Filmmakers Program in Santa Monica, California, marched fifty-one Oscar statuettes from the Meet the Oscars exhibit at Hollywood & Highlands Center to the Kodak Theatre in preparation for the the 78th Academy Awards®.

Established by filmmakers Fred Heinrich and Stephania Lipner following the 1992 civil unrest in Los Angeles, ICF targets socially and economically underprivileged youth by creating awareness about and providing access to the professional world of filmmaking.

The organization provides free year-round professional and business training, mentors and paid work opportunities to young adults (ages 17-22) who aspire to build careers in the entertainment industry. ICF has successfully matched graduates with more than 500 behind-the-scenes industry job opportunities. For more information on ICF, visit www.innercityfilmmakers.com.