21st SCAD Savannah Film Festival Announces Award Winners

SAVANNAH, Georgia — Saturday, Nov. 3 – The Savannah College of Art and Design (SCAD) announced the award winners for the 21^stcelebration of the SCAD Savannah Film Festival during an awards brunch held at The Olde Pink House. A key stop on the Oscar festival circuit, SCAD Savannah Film Festival screened a total of 164 films, including 33 narrative films, 16 documentary films and 115 shorts, more than any year before.

Twenty-seven awards were announced from the 105 films that competed in the categories of narrative features, documentary features, professional shorts, animated shorts, and student shorts selections.

PROFESSIONAL COMPETITION

• Best Narrative Feature – Tomorrow
• Best Documentary Feature – The Human Element
• Best Narrative Short – Geoff
• Best Directing – Will Kenning & Michael Rouse – Geoff
• Best Editing – Hold The Night
• Jury Award for Acting – Skyler Samuels – Spare Room
• Jury Award for Screenwriting – One Cambodian Family Please For My Pleasure
• Jury Award, Unheard Voices – Facing The Dragon

STUDENT & ANIMATION

• Best Animated Short – Grands Canons
• Animation Jury Award – The Likes and Dislikes of Marj Bagley
• Best Student Short – Blue Christmas
• Best Student Animation – Creature From The Lake
• Silver Screen Society – Best Short Film by a SCAD Student – $30 To Antarctica
• Student Jury Award – Cinematographer

GLOBAL SHORTS FORUM

• Best Global Short Overall – Period. End of Sentence.
• Best Global Short: Narrative – Believe Her
• Best Global Short: Documentary – Period. End of Sentence.
• Best Global Short: LGBTQ & You – Conway Pride
• Best Global Short: Woman Walks Ahead – Period. End of Sentence.
• Best Global Short: Don’t Dis My Ability – Take Me To The Waves
• Best Global Short: A Sporting Chance – The Conqueror
• Global Shorts: Jury Award – Boy Saint
• Global Shorts Jury Award – Marie’s Crisis

SHORTS SPOTLIGHT

• Shorts Spotlight: Best of Show – My Indiana Muse
• Shorts Spotlight: Best Animated Delight – One Small Step
• Shorts Spotlight: Best LOLz Short – Bertie
• Shorts Spotlight: Best Bump in the Night Short – Other Side of the Box

Professional jury members were Laura Berwick (Berwick & Kovacik), Kevin Fallon (The Daily Beast), Amy Kaufman (LA Times), Bill Keith (Entertainment Weekly), Richard Lawson (Vanity Fair), Elise Pearlstein (Participant Media), David Westhead (actor/produce) and Alison Willmore (Buzzfeed).

Celebrating 21 years of cinematic creativity, the SCAD Savannah Film Festival is the nation’s largest university-run festival. Highlights from this year’s event included:

• The festival featured gala screenings of Ben is Back, Boy Erased, Destroyer, The Favourite, The Front Runner, Green Book, If Beale Street Could Talk, The Kindergarten Teacher, A Private War, Roma and Widows.
• SCAD honored 17 masters of their craft including Emily Blunt, Icon Award; John Krasinski, Vanguard Award; Maggie Gyllenhaal, Outstanding Achievement in Acting and Producing Award; Hugh Jackman, Legend of Cinema Award; Armie Hammer, Outstanding Achievement in Cinema Award; Kayli Carter, SCAD40 Prize; Stephan James and KiKi Layne, Discovery Award; Chloë Grace Moretz, Lumiére Award; Amandla Stenberg, Rising Star Award; and John David Washington, Distinguished Performance Award. Entertainment Weekly’s Breakout Award honorees included SCAD alumna Kayli Carter (Private Life), Raúl Castillo (We the Animals),Winston Duke (Black Panther), Elsie Fisher (Eighth Grade), Thomasin McKenzie (Leave No Trace), Hari Nef (Assassination Nation) and Millicent Simmonds (A Quiet Place).
• Kalyli Carter also received the SCAD40 Prize. Awarded at signature events throughout this 40th anniversary year, the SCAD40 Prize is presented to graduates who give all of themselves — hand, head, and heart — to their creative careers in the highest ranks of culture and business.
• The Docs to Watch series featured several top must-see documentaries from this year that are gaining award season attention. Those who attended were directors Morgan Neville (Won’t You Be My Neighbor?), Julie Cohen and Betsy West (RBG), Tim Wardle (Three Identical Strangers), Elizabeth Chai Vasarhelyi and Jimmy Chin (Free Solo), Gabe Polsky (In Search of Greatness), Cristina Costantini and Darren Foster (Science Fair), Nathaniel Kahn (The Price of Everything), Alan Hicks and Rashida Jones (Quincy), Stephen Maing (Crime + Punishment) and Matt Tyranuer (Studio 54).The filmmakers participated in a Q&A for their respective films and a panel moderated by Scott Feinberg, awards columnist for The Hollywood Reporter.

About SCAD Savannah Film Festival

Celebrating its 21^st year, the festival and the competition provide SCAD students with opportunities as unique as the selected films. This year, the SCAD Savannah Film Festival received a record-breaking 2,300 submissions for the competition film 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. Savannah, a premier film hub in the Southeast, promotes quality movies produced by independent and studio filmmakers.