Savannah Film Festival

SCAD Celebrates 25 Years of the SCAD Savannah Film Festival With A Thrilling Programming Line-up

  

2022 honorees include Kerry Condon, JD Dillard, Nicholas Hoult, Jonathan Majors, 

Janelle Monáe, Jeremy Pope, Sandy Powell, Eddie Redmayne, Henry Selick, and Sadie Sink 

  

The nation’s largest university-run film festival to feature Opening Night Screening of The Banshees of Inisherin and Closing Night Screening of Living 

and a Special Presentation of Top Gun: Maverick with Miles Teller 

 

SAVANNAH, GEORGIA — The Savannah College of Art and Design celebrates 25 years with the 25th annual SCAD Savannah Film Festival, taking place in person October 22–29, 2022. The largest university-run film festival in the U.S., this eight-day celebration of cinematic excellence honors both professional and student filmmakers and welcomes major industry luminaries, including award-winning directors, writers, and actors. 

 

This year, SCAD will honor Kerry Condon with the Distinguished Performance Award for The Banshees of Inisherin, JD Dillard with the Rising Star Director Award for Devotion, Nicholas Hoult with the Vanguard Award for The Menu, Jonathan Majors with the Spotlight Award for Devotion, Janelle Monáe with the Spotlight Award for Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery, Jeremy Pope with the Distinguished Performance Award for The Inspection, Sandy Powell with the Variety Creative Impact Award in Costume Design for Living, Eddie Redmayne with the Virtuoso Award for The Good Nurse, Henry Selick with the Outstanding Achievement in Animation Award for Wendell and Wild, and Sadie Sink with the Rising Star Award for The Whale. Previously announced honorees include Colson Baker (Machine Gun Kelly) who will receive the Discovery Award for Taurus and Ron Howard who will receive the Lifetime Achievement Award in Directing for Thirteen Lives. 

 

The festival kicks off Saturday, Oct. 22, with the opening-night Gala Screening of The Banshees of Inisherin, directed by Martin McDonagh. The festival culminates Saturday, Oct. 29, with the closing-night Gala Screening of Living and a Spotlight Gala Screening The Whale, directed by Darren Aronofsky, will feature on Friday, Oct. 28. Miles Teller (2016 Vanguard Award recipient) will attend an In Conversation following a Special Presentation of Top Gun: Maverick. Former U.S. Congresswoman and Presidential Medal of Freedom recipient Gabby Giffords will appear with Oscar nominated directors Julie Cohen and Betsy West following a Special Screening of the celebrated documentary Gabby Giffords Won’t Back Down. A key stop on the Academy Awards festival circuit, the SCAD Savannah Film Festival will screen 143 films, including 53 narrative feature films, 20 documentary feature films, and 79 shorts, with eight world premieres and six U.S. premieres.  

 

The 2022 schedule includes Gala and Signature Screenings, professional and student competition films, the Docs to Watch, Sketch to Screen: Top Animated Contenders, Shorts Spotlight, and Global Shorts Forum series, and the Wonder Women and Below the Line panel series. The SCAD Savannah Film Festival has screened more than 140 Academy Award-nominated films and has honored more than 100 legendary actors, directors, producers, writers, and filmmakers from around the world. Students from an array of the university’s top ranked programs, including film and television, sound design, animation, performing arts, themed entertainment, dramatic writing, and more, will have the opportunity to engage and interact with these creative leaders throughout the festival providing insight that prepares them for future creative careers in the entertainment industry.  

 

“Join me as we celebrate the cultural phenomenon of film at SCAD’s silver anniversary SCAD Savannah Film Festival,” said SCAD president and founder Paula Wallace. "Each year, the world’s preeminent university-run film festival delights tens of thousands of theatergoers who love to escape into the screen to preview future Academy Award winners. The lights will be bright, the red carpets rolled out, and Hollywood royalty will be in the house. There’s no telling who you might see strolling down Broughton Street.” 

 

“The 25th annual SCAD Savannah Film Festival is set to delight guests with our exciting group of honorees and stellar film line-up”, said SCAD Savannah Film Festival Executive and Artistic Director Christina Routhier. “This milestone anniversary for the festival is an incredible accomplishment. For the past 25 years, the university has achieved unprecedented growth and academic success and the film festival has become a venerable stop for films on their way to the Academy Awards. With a slate of nearly 150 films, including some filmed right here in Savannah, we are ready for eight full days of outstanding cinema.” 

 

Gala Screenings

The SCAD Savannah Film Festival is renowned for spotlighting major award contenders, screening a multitude of studio films prior to their wider release. Twenty-two films have been selected for the distinguished Gala Screenings: 

 

 

Signature Screenings

The Signature Screenings series features premiere and special screenings, followed by Q&As with select directors, writers, actors, and producers. This year’s selection of films include: 

 

 

Docs to Watch

The ninth annual Docs to Watch series will be accompanied by a roundtable with the directors, hosted by Scott Feinberg of The Hollywood Reporter. Selected films include: 

 

 

Sketch to Screen: Top Animated Contenders

Hosted by Clayton Davis of Variety, Sketch to Screen highlights the top animated films of the year. Showcasing a broad array of artistic avenues and animation styles, these films tell compelling stories as they contend for Oscar acclaim. Directors participate in post-screening Q&As and join Davis for an Animation Roundtable during the festival. Films include: 

 

 

After Dark

The SCAD Savannah Film Festival's home for late night fun and genre fare, these soon-to-be cult classics are selected to thrill, scare, and entertain: 

 

 

Panels

Join the SCAD Savannah Film Festival for conversations and panels with industry stars and insiders. This year’s panels include: 

 

 

Competition Films

The SCAD Savannah Film Festival celebrates the work of established and emerging filmmakers, from feature-length films to two-minute shorts. The juried competition showcases the best of professional, animated, and student films selected from more than 1,700 entries annually. 

 

Narrative Features

From side-splitting comedies to heart-wrenching dramas, the narrative feature films selected represent diversity in storytelling, excellence in acting and directing, and exemplary cinematography and editing: 

 

 

Documentary Features

Beyond simple subject matters, documentaries present compelling stories that illuminate and educate audiences in a thought-provoking and timely manner: 

 

 

Professional Shorts

Running the gamut of subject matter and style, these short films are selected based on their individual merits in storytelling and execution:

 

 

Documentary Shorts

In this mesmerizing collection of shorts, filmmakers explore art, history, politics, and personal profiles to offer a captivating panorama of our world. 

 

 

Animated Shorts

These animated films represent the diversity of the craft — from simple, hand-drawn figures to stop-motion and digital rendering — showcasing unique storytelling at its finest: 

 

 

Student Shorts

With solid storytelling and emerging vision, these films represent a broad range of categories including live action, narrative, documentary, and animation. Shorts from student filmmakers at SCAD and universities in France, Germany, Canada, and the U.S. that are part of the competition include: 

 

 

Global Shorts Forum

The Global Shorts Forum is a curated collection of international shorts across multiple genres that focus on world issues. This year's themes include: 

 

XX: A nuanced selection of films examining female-identifying perspectives drives this collection. 

Of the Land: These short films explore the unique and sometimes harrowing relationships that humans have with the natural world and their environment, offering diverse perspectives and experiences.

 

Shorts Spotlight

This year’s Shorts Spotlight themes include: 

 

Amusing Perspectives: A short film collection that reminds us that life is too short to miss out on the pursuit of amusement or a good laugh. 

Person First: Through struggles great and small, at the heart of every story is a unique human being trying to navigate their way through a world riddled with unknown challenges and obstacles to survive. 

 

About the SCAD Savannah Film Festival

Celebrating its 25th year, the SCAD Savannah Film Festival and competitions provide SCAD students with opportunities as unique as the selected films. This year, the festival received more than 1,700 submissions for the competition series. During the festival, students from every academic discipline connect with leaders from the entertainment industry through master classes, coffee talks, lectures, workshops, and panel discussions. Presented each year in Savannah, a premier film hub in the Southeast, the festival promotes quality movies produced by independent and studio filmmakers. 

 

Follow the festival on Facebook and Instagram @savfilmfest and TikTok @scaddotedu and use #SCAD and #SAVFF. 

 

About SCAD: The University for Creative Careers

SCAD is a private, nonprofit, accredited university, offering more than 100 graduate and undergraduate degree programs across locations in Atlanta and Savannah, Georgia; Lacoste, France; and online via SCADnow.  

 

SCAD enrolls more than 16,000 undergraduate and graduate students from more than 120 countries. The future-minded SCAD curriculum engages professional-level technology and myriad advanced learning resources, affording students opportunities for internships, professional certifications, and real-world assignments with corporate partners through SCADpro, the university’s renowned research lab and prototype generator. SCAD is No. 1 in the U.S., according to Art & Object’s 2023 Best Art Schools ranking, with additional top rankings for degree programs in interior design, architecture, film, fashion, digital media, and more. Career success is woven into every fiber of the university, resulting in a superior alumni employment rate. For the past five years, 99% of SCAD graduates were employed, pursuing further education, or both within 10 months of graduation. SCAD provides students and alumni with ongoing career support through personal coaching, alumni programs, a professional presentation studio, and more. For more information, visit scad.edu. 

 

About the SCAD School of Film and Acting

With resources that rival Hollywood studios, award-winning professors, stunning locations, a professionally run casting office, and stellar film and television festivals, the SCAD School of Film and Acting is the ideal place to launch into the film and television industry. The SCAD film and television, performing arts, production design, and sound design programs prepare students to command roles onstage and on screen through films, live performances, TV sitcoms, dramatic series, music videos, commercials, and more. 

 

SCAD is making a significant investment in the futures of the SCAD School of Film and Acting, the SCAD School of Animation and Motion, and the SCAD School of Creative Technology, building a Hollywood-style film backlot and two state-of-the-art mixed reality (XR) stages in Savannah and Atlanta for virtual productions. As its phased expansion is completed, Savannah Film Studios will be the largest, most comprehensive university film studio complex in the U.S. These facilities will further SCAD's tremendous impact on the film and television industry in Georgia and beyond, producing the next generation of creative leaders in film, TV, digital media, and more.