SCAD Savannah Film Festival Announces 2020 Honorees

SAVANNAH, GEORGIA — The Savannah College of Art and Design (SCAD) today announces the distinguished 2020 honorees to be recognized at the 23rd annual SCAD Savannah Film Festival, taking place as a virtual experience Oct. 24–Oct. 31. The largest university-run film festival in the U.S., this annual tribute to cinematic excellence has screened more than 125 Academy Award-nominated films and honored more than 90 legendary actors, directors, producers, writers and filmmakers from around the world.

This year, SCAD will honor Yahya Abdul-Mateen II with the Distinguished Performance Award, Rachel Brosnahan and Delroy Lindo with the Spotlight Award, Millie Bobby Brown with the Maverick Award, Ethan Hawke with the Outstanding Achievement in Entertainment Award, Jennifer Hudson with the Virtuoso Award, and Glen Keane with the Lifetime Achievement in Animation Award. Additional honorees will be announced prior to the festival.

Entertainment Weekly returns as a media partner to help curate this year’s programming and moderate select talent panels. EW will host two exclusive panels: Entertainment Weekly’s Women Who Kick Ass Panel and Entertainment Weekly’s Breaking Big Panel and Awards. Panelists will be announced prior to the festival. Exclusive photo and video content will be available on EW.com and its social platforms.

The SCAD Savannah Film Festival has become a distinguished stop on the road to the Oscars, hosting exclusive premieres, competition films, feature films, documentaries, shorts, animated films, panel discussions and workshops at SCAD’s historic theaters and industry-leading studios. SCAD has a top-ranked film and television program with more than 230 SCAD alumni contributing to 21 films nominated for 2020 Academy Awards. The festival schedule will be announced Oct. 1.

Yahya Abdul-Mateen II – Distinguished Performance Award

Yahya Abdul-Mateen II recently won his first Emmy Award for Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Limited Series or Movie for his role as Cal Abar/Dr. Manhattan in HBO’s groundbreaking series Watchmen. Next up, Abdul-Mateen joins an all-star cast in Aaron Sorkin’s The Trial of the Chicago 7 as Black Panther Party co-founder Bobby Seale. He also stars in the Jordan Peele-produced remake of the 1992 horror classic Candyman and will appear in The Matrix 4, currently in production with original director and writer Lana Wachowski. His other credits include Aquaman, the “Striking Vipers” episode of Black Mirror, Us, The Greatest Showman, Boundaries, All Day and a Night, Sweetness in the Belly and The Get Down. He received critical acclaim for his role in First Match, which won the Audience Award at the SXSW Film Festival. He received the Sun Valley Film Festival’s Rising Star Award and was the recipient of the Yale School of Drama’s prestigious Herschel Williams Prize.

Rachel Brosnahan – Spotlight Award

Rachel Brosnahan currently stars in the Amazon Prime Video series The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel. Since the series premiered in 2017, she has won an Emmy Award, two Golden Globes, a Screen Actors Guild Award, two Critics’ Choice Awards and a TCA Award for her performance as Miriam “Midge” Maisel. She produced and stars in I’m Your Woman, an Amazon Studio movie directed by Julia Hart and co-written with Jordan Horowitz, which will be released later this year. Other film credits include Patriots Day, The Finest Hours, Louder Than Bombs, Burn Country and the upcoming The Courier opposite Benedict Cumberbatch. She is attached to star in and produce The Switch alongside Amblin Partners. Brosnahan also recently signed a first-look deal with Amazon Studios to develop television series under her Scrap Paper Pictures banner. Brosnahan currently serves on the Board of Directors of Covenant House, which oversees programs for homeless youth, and has been an Ambassador for Global Citizen for the past six years.

Millie Bobby Brown – Maverick Award

Millie Bobby Brown is best known for her performance as Eleven in the Emmy Award-winning Netflix series Stranger Things. Brown has been individually nominated for two Emmy Awards and two Screen Actors Guild Awards for her performance in the series. Brown can currently be seen starring in the critically acclaimed Netflix film Enola Holmes, which she also produced. She previously starred in Godzilla: King of the Monsters, and she will reprise her role in Godzilla vs. Kong, set to be released in 2021. Brown will also star in and produce the Netflix film adaptation of Tess Sharpe’s novel The Girls I’ve Been and will partner with Netflix on the film A Time Lost, which is currently in development. In 2018, UNICEF named Brown its youngest-ever Goodwill Ambassador.

Glen Keane – Lifetime Achievement in Animation Award

A 38-year veteran of Walt Disney Feature Animation, Glen Keane trained under Walt Disney’s Nine Old Men. Keane went on to create many beloved Disney characters such as The Little Mermaid, Aladdin, The Beast, Tarzan, and Rapunzel. In 2012, Keane departed Disney to begin Glen Keane Productions as a way to further his artistic explorations in animation, design and film. He has since gone on to collaborate with Google, the Paris Ballet and Kobe Bryant. His most recent project is the Academy Award-winning animated film Dear Basketball, which he animated and directed in collaboration with legends Kobe Bryant and John Williams. He is currently directing the animated film event Over the Moon, a co-production with Pearl Studio and Netflix, due to be released on October 23rd.

Ethan Hawke – Outstanding Achievement in Entertainment Award

Ethan Hawke is a four-time Academy Award-nominated actor, writer and director whose career spans three decades. He next makes his television debut with Blumhouse Television and Showtime’s The Good Lord Bird, which he stars in, co-wrote and executive produces. The seven-part series premieres Oct. 4. Hawke’s prolific filmography includes Dead Poets Society; Reality Bites; Gattaca; Training Day;  Before the Devil Knows You’re Dead; Boyhood; Born to Be Blue; Maudie; Richard Linklater’s trilogy Before Sunrise, Before Sunset and Before Midnight; and 2018’s First Reformed, for which he won Best Actor prizes from the Independent Spirit Awards, the New York Film Critics Circle, Los Angeles Film Critics Association, and Gotham Awards, among countless accolades. As a filmmaker, he most recently directed, co-wrote and produced IFC Films’ Blaze and made his documentary filmmaking debut with Seymour: An Introduction. Hawke is a Tony Award-nominated stage actor, having appeared on Broadway five times, most recently in Sam Shepard’s True West, as well as Tom Stoppard’s The Coast of Utopia, the title role in Macbeth, Henry IV. and The Seagull. He has also appeared and directed off-Broadway and regionally at BAM, the Steppenwolf and many others. Hawke is also a best-selling author. His written works include the novels The Hottest State and Ash Wednesday, the children’s book Rules for a Knight, and the graphic novel Indeh.

Jennifer Hudson – Virtuoso Award

Jennifer Hudson is a two-time Grammy Award-winning recording artist, Academy Award-winning actress and best-selling author. Hudson will soon be seen starring as Aretha Franklin in the highly anticipated biopic, Respect, directed by Liesl Tommy. Hudson, who was handpicked by Franklin to play this role, will also executive produce. In 2007, Hudson won an Academy Award for her role as Effie in Dreamgirls. Her breakout film performance also garnered a Golden Globe Award, a Screen Actors Guild Award, a BAFTA and an NAACP Image Award. Additional film and television credits include The Secret Life of Bees, Sex and the City: The Movie, Lullaby, Black Nativity, Winnie Mandela, The Inevitable Defeat of Mister and Pete, The Three Stooges, Call Me Crazy: A Five Film, Sing, Cats, Confirmation, Smash, Chi-Raq, The Voice, Hairspray LIVE! and Empire. Hudson made her Broadway debut as Shug Avery in 2015 in the Tony Award-winning production of The Color Purple, for which she won a Grammy. She is also an executive producer of and voices the role of the Forest in the short VR film Baba Yaga, which had its world premiere at the 2020 Venice Film Festival. Expanding her talents in the arts, Hudson added author to her list of accomplishments in 2012 with the release her New York Times bestselling memoir I Got This: How I Changed My Ways, Found Myself and Lost Everything that Weighed Me Down.

Delroy Lindo – Spotlight Award

Delroy Lindo can currently be seen in Spike Lee’s critically acclaimed film Da 5 Bloods, available on Netflix. Lindo has had memorable roles in films such as The Cider House Rules and Heist, and previously garnered critical acclaim in a trio of films with Lee: Clockers, Crooklyn, and Malcolm X. He will be seen next in the Netflix film The Harder They Fall.  On TV, Lindo appeared for four seasons as Adrian Boseman on CBS’ The Good Fight. He debuted on Broadway in Master Harold and the Boys; received Tony and Drama Desk Award nominations playing Herald Loomis in August Wilson’s Joe Turner’s Come and Gone; and played Walter Lee in the Kennedy Center and Los Angeles productions of A Raisin in the Sun (Helen Hayes Award nomination and NAACP Image Award, Best Actor). Lindo has an Honorary Doctorate in Arts and Humanities from Virginia Union University; a B.F.A. degree from San Francisco State University; and an M.F.A. from New York University’s Gallatin School.

Celebrating its 23rd year, the festival and competition provide SCAD students with opportunities as unique as the selected films. This year, the SCAD Savannah Film Festival received more than 1,500 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.

Follow the festival on Facebook and Instagram and use #SCAD and #SAVFF.

The Savannah College of Art and Design is a private, nonprofit, accredited university, offering more than 100 academic degree programs in more than 40 majors across its locations in Atlanta and Savannah, Georgia; Lacoste, France; and online via SCAD eLearning and SCADnow.

The university enrolls approximately 15,000 undergraduate and graduate students from more than 100 countries. The innovative SCAD curriculum is enhanced by advanced professional-level technology, equipment, and learning resources, as well as opportunities for internships, professional certifications, and collaborative projects with corporate partners. In 2019, the prestigious Red Dot Design Rankings placed SCAD as the No. 1 university in the U.S. and in the top two universities in the Americas and Europe for the third consecutive year. Career preparation is woven into every fiber of the university, resulting in a superior alumni employment rate.