SCAD Lacoste Film Festival Expands in Its Third Year, Features Four Honorees and a Mix of Classic and New Programming

Awards Daily’s Megan McLachlan traveled to France for the SCAD Lacoste Film Festival, a three-day event now in its third year.

Savannah College of Art & Design is renowned for hosting the largest university-run film festival in the world every October, but many might not know that three years ago it launched an additional film festival at its Lacoste study broad campus in France. Just as SCAD and its notable alumni continue to grow, so does the institution’s footprint across the globe.

The SCAD Lacoste campus resides on a hill filled with stone pathways (“Lacoste” translates to “hill” in French), and each quarter, 150 students from SCAD Savannah and Atlanta stay on this campus to get the experience of a lifetime, honing their craft in a destination steeped in history and art. In fact, the campus used to be artist Bernard Pfriem’s art school before SCAD purchased it.

After welcoming Jeremy Irons and Lesley Manville as special guests in previous years, the SCAD Lacoste Film Festival expanded their honorees in 2024, recognizing actress Miranda Richardson, costume designer Janty Yates, director Sam Taylor-Johnson, and writer/director Jean-Pierre Jeunet. In addition to the festival, SCAD Fash showcased selected works from fashion designer Jean Paul Gautier, based around his film inspirations, including A Clockwork Orange and Jacques Becker’s Falbalas from 1945, which had a special screening on Saturday night.

Master Class with Costume Designer Janty Yates/Special Screening of Gladiator

Day One of the fest kicked off with a Master Class with Janty Yates led by Chair of Production Design and SCAD alum, Lisa Ryan. Yates discussed what it was like to meet Ridley Scott ahead of her Academy Award-winning work in 2000’s Gladiator.

“I was asked to fly over to meet Sir Ridley Scott,” said Yates, “and oh my god, that was one of the happiest days of my life. I was there for like five hours and waited with bated breath, terrified. Who would ask a girl, a girl with no fighting experience, no armor experience, to do something like Gladiator? But he took a chance, and he’s asked me back a couple of times.”

“A couple of times” is of course a joke, as Yates has worked with Scott on more than a dozen movies, including the upcoming Gladiator sequel.

“He’s extraordinarily inspirational. He studied art for seven years at the Royal College of Art. If you can’t get what he’s describing, he’ll draw it for you. I have lots of those in my back pocket. He’s very pro costume. He’s also so extraordinarily detailed. He will do every shot on a storyboard before we get to shoot. He always uses 8 to 10 cameras, and he’ll have drawn impeccably, with cover, today’s shooting. And he does two to three takes, and that’s it.”

Ahead of showing a special screening of Gladiator, Yates received the Lifetime Achievement in Costume Design Award from SCAD Lacoste. Read an interview with Yates where she discusses Gladiator 2 and why she and Scott will never retire. 

Miranda Richardson Received Etoile Award Ahead of Special Screening of Kansas City

Two-time Academy Award nominee Miranda Richardson was featured in a Master Class with students before receiving the Etoile Award (“Star Award”). That afternoon, SCAD Lacoste showed 1996’s Kansas City starring Richardson in celebration of her recognition.

In my interview with Richardson, she says she remembers what being a student was like at Bristol Old Vic Theatre School and is jealous of the energy and excitement the students at SCAD have.

“It’s not that you’ll never feel that free again, but the lack of responsibility is huge. It may not feel like it, but it’s fabulous. And it’s always summer.”

Read the full interview with her here, where she talks about her passion for falconry.

Sam Taylor-Johnson Received Outstanding Director Award and Screened Back to Black on Night Two

In her acceptance speech for the Outstanding Director Award, Sam Taylor-Johnson recounted her experience road-tripping in Savannah, Ga., tasked to take photos for Elton John’s Peachtree Road album cover—with a bodyguard in tow (appointed by John himself).

“We ended up on our journey in this tiny fried chicken shack where this old man was wearing Dungarees. I put in my order and went off to the bathroom and came back, and he said, ‘Excuse me, ma’am? Are you Sam Taylor-Johnson?’ And I was like, ‘Oh my gosh, I am!” And he said, ‘Oh, you left your purse here!’ Savannah definitely put me back on the ground where I needed to be.”

After the screening of her latest film, the Amy Winehouse biopic Back to Black, Taylor-Johnson and producer Alison Owen discussed how they scrapped the original script.

“[Taylor-Johnson] was always my absolute no. 1 choice to make the movie,” said Owen. “I took the script to Sam, and Sam called me the day afterward and said, ‘You want the good news or the bad news?’ And I said, ‘I suppose I’m going to hear both.’ She said, ‘The good news is I want to make this my next film. But I have one condition: I need to start again with the script.’ That’s a big deal with a producer because that’s two years’ work for half a million dollars.”

“It was a different approach,” said Taylor-Johnson about the script issue. “It was a good template, but I felt it was quite traditional and ‘biopic,’ and I wanted to make something different. I said Matt Greenhalgh who wrote Nowhere Boy, if he could come on, I feel like he would be the right writer. We collaborate well, and he’s fun to work with.”

Read a full interview with Taylor-Johnson about why she’s drawn to controversial film projects.

Jean-Pierre Jeunet Accepted Auteur Award in the Rain Before Amelie During Final Night of Festival

In a romantic scene like something out of a movie, Amelie director Jean-Pierre Jeunet discussed in the misty rain (under an umbrella) why his film hasn’t aged in nearly 25 years in a Q&A with Associate Chair of Film & Television, Brett Wagner.

“Visually, it’s timeless,” said Jeunet. “Probably because it speaks about generosity. Amelie wants to help people and doesn’t want anything in return. Human beings are the worst things on earth, but somewhere we have something good inside. When you speak about that, you have to avoid being too sugary—I hope I did—and you touch the hearts of the people everywhere. Also, because I show beautiful Paris—a fake one—with no dog shit on the street in the film.”

I had a candid conversation with Jeunet, where he talked about the legacy of Amelie as well as Alien: Resurrection and why that film couldn’t have been made today.

SCAD Lacoste Film Festival ran June 27-29.