Ben Affleck and Kathryn Bigelow may have been snubbed for a best director Oscar nomination, but that left room on the list for "Beasts of the Southern Wild" director Benh Zeitlin. Zeitlin paid a trip to the District in November to receive one of Smithsonian Magazine's American Ingenuity Awards and talked about his link to the institution. "My parents worked here before I ever existed and I came back sometimes for the Folklife Festival," he said. "So I was a little kid running around the Smithsonian Folklife Festival and that's the only reason that makes me think I'm on this stage right now," he noted. Perhaps an Oscar win will prove it wasn't nepotism.