Holding onto dreams of future Oscar® glory, 50 students from Inner-City Filmmakers (ICF), a training and film industry job development program, will carry the 50 Oscar statuettes of the 79th Academy Awards® down the red carpet to the Kodak Theatre at Hollywood & Highland Center® on Feb 24, at 10 am.

Leading the parade will be Anacleto Medina of R.S. Owens & Company in Chicago, the awards specialty company that has been pouring and handcrafting the statuettes since 1983. Medina has been helping to craft the Oscars® that entire time.

The Oscar statuettes will overnight backstage, under close watch, until they are presented to the winners at the Awards ceremony on Feb 25.

From their current display cases at “Meet the Oscars: An Exhibition of 50 Golden Statuettes,” where the statuettes have been residing since Feb 9 for public viewing, they will be transported to the red carpet, where they will be placed in the excited hands of the ICF students – the industry’s future animators, cinematographers, costume designers, directors, editors, sound editors, screenwriters and visual effects specialists – each of whom will then carry 1 statuette down the red carpet.

Established by filmmakers Fred Heinrich and Stephania Lipner following the 1992 civil unrest in Los Angeles, ICF reaches out to socially and economically underprivileged youth by creating awareness about and providing access to the professional world of filmmaking. This year’s nominee for Best Animated Feature Film, Gil Kenan of Monster House, was a beneficiary of the program.

The organization provides free year-round professional and business training, mentors, and paid work opportunities to young adults (age 17 to 22) who aspire to 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.

Academy Awards for outstanding film achievements of 2006 will be presented on Sunday, February 25, 2007, at the Kodak Theatre at Hollywood & Highland Center.

The Oscars® will be televised live by the ABC Television Network at 5 p.m. PST (8 p.m. EST), beginning with a half-hour red carpet arrivals segment, The Road to the Oscars.