SAVANNAH, Ga. () — The Savannah College of Art and Design (SCAD) is hosting its 28th annual SCAD Savannah Film Festival from October 25 to November 1. This event is the largest university-managed film festival in the United States, celebrating the art of filmmaking for both professionals and students. It attracts prominent figures in the film industry such as renowned directors, writers, and actors.

As a significant event on the Academy Awards festival circuit, the SCAD Savannah Film Festival plans to showcase 167 films. This includes 56 narrative feature films, 15 documentary feature films, and 96 short films. Among these, there will be seven world premieres and three U.S. premieres.

The 2025 festival lineup features a variety of events such as Gala and Signature Screenings, Special Presentations, along with professional and student competition films. Also included are the Docs to Watch and Pixels and Pencils series, as well as the Behind Their Lens and Below the Line panel discussions. Historically, the festival has showcased over 225 Academy Award-nominated films and recognized nearly 200 notable actors, directors, producers, and writers worldwide. Students from SCAD’s acclaimed programs in acting, animation, film and television, production design, sound design, themed entertainment design, dramatic writing, and more have the chance to learn directly from industry leaders during the festival, gaining valuable insights for their future careers in entertainment.

SCAD President and Founder Paula Wallace remarked, “Each October, SCAD turns Savannah into a filmmaking master class, featuring our 2025 lineup with stars like Jennifer Lopez, Mark Hamill (who famously played Skywalker), and Wicked’s Jon M. Chu. These interactions help SCAD students transition from classroom learning to professional film sets. Come for the Oscar-hopeful premieres and enjoy the beauty of the South’s most cinematic city. This is where film dreams happen — lights, camera, SCAD!”

Gala Screenings

The SCAD Savannah Film Festival is well-known for highlighting films likely to earn major awards, offering previews of studio and streaming films before their general release. The event kicks off on Saturday, October 25, with the screening of Eternity. The Centerpiece Gala Presentation will feature Song Sung Blue on Thursday, October 30. The festival concludes with a screening of Wake Up Dead Man: A Knives Out Mystery on Saturday, November 1. Moreover, 18 films have been chosen for special screenings.

• ​​Bugonia — Focus Features (dir. Yorgos Lanthimos)
• Christy — Black Bear Pictures (dir. David Michôd)
• The Chronology of Water — The Forge (dir. Kristen Stewart)
• Eternity — A24 (dir. David Freyne)
• Frankenstein — Netflix (dir. Guillermo del Toro)
• Hamnet — Focus Features (dir. Chloé Zhao)
• Is This Thing On? — Searchlight (dir. Bradley Cooper)
• Jay Kelly — Netflix (dir. Noah Baumbach)
• No Other Choice — Neon (dir. Park Chan-wook)
• Nouvelle Vague — Netflix (dir. Richard Linklater)
• Nuremberg — Sony Pictures Classics (dir. James Vanderbilt)
• Rebuilding — Bleecker Street (dir. Max Walker-Silverman)
• Rental Family — Searchlight (dir. HIKARI)
• Sentimental Value — Neon (dir. Joachim Trier)
• Song Sung Blue — Focus Features (dir. Craig Brewer)
• The Testament of Ann Lee — Searchlight (dir. Mona Fastvold) 
• Train Dreams — Netflix (dir. Clint Bentley)
• Wake Up Dead Man: A Knives Out Mystery — Netflix (dir. Rian Johnson)

Special Presentations

This festival is an excellent opportunity to see exciting films from world-renowned filmmakers, which may not yet be widely released. Historically, films showcased here have gone on to win Academy Awards and achieve other notable honors.

• Belén — Amazon MGM Studios (dir. Dolores Fonzi)
• Breathless (1960) — Rialto Pictures (dir. Jean-Luc Godard)
• It Was Just an Accident — Neon (dir. Jafar Panahi)
• Left-Handed Girl — Netflix (dir. Shih-Ching Tsou)
• The Love That Remains — Sideshow/Janus (dir. Hlynur Palmason)
• Merrily We Roll Along — Sony Pictures Classics (dir. Maria Friedman)
• Peter Hujar’s Day — Sideshow/Janus (dir. Ira Sachs)
• The President’s Cake — Sony Pictures Classics (dir. Hasan Hadi)
• A Private Life — Sony Pictures Classics (dir. Rebecca Zlotowski)
• The Secret Agent — Neon (dir. Kleber Mendonça Filho)
• Sirât — Neon (dir. Oliver Laxe)
• Urchin — 1-2 Special (dir. Harris Dickinson)

Signature Screenings

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

• Blue Moon — Sony Pictures Classics (dir. Richard Linklater)
• Big Rock Burning — (dir. David Goldblum)
• Don Bluth: Somewhere Out There — (dir. Dave LaMattina, Chad Walker) 
• E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial — Universal Pictures and Amblin Entertainment (dir. Steven Spielberg)
• Hedda — Amazon MGM Studios (dir. Nia DaCosta)
• Highest 2 Lowest — A24 (dir. Spike Lee)
• Him — Universal Pictures (dir. Justin Tipping)
• If I Had Legs I’d Kick You — A24 (dir. Mary Bronstein)
• Kiss of the Spider Woman — Roadside Attractions (dir. Bill Condon)
• The Life of Chuck — Neon (dir. Mike Flanagan)
• One Battle After Another — Warner Bros. Pictures (dir. Paul Thomas Anderson)
• Preparation for the Next Life — Amazon MGM Studios (dir. Bing Liu)
• SCAD Presents: André Leon Talley — Style is Forever (dir. Zach Stafford, Clay Haskell)
• Sinners — Warner Bros. Pictures (dir. Ryan Coogler)
• The Smashing Machine — A24 (dir. Benny Safdie)
• Splitsville — Neon (dir. Michael Angelo Covino)
• Twinless — Roadside Attractions (dir. James Sweeney)

In Conversation: Wicked: For Good with Director Jon M. Chu

Director Jon M. Chu sits down with Vanity Fair’s Rebecca Ford for an in-depth exploration of the extraordinary artistry of the two Wicked films and their remarkable journey to the big screen. This In Conversation event will include a discussion of Chu’s award-winning career and will feature new revelations and insights into Wicked: For Good, the epic, electrifying, emotional conclusion to last year’s global cinematic cultural sensation, which became the most successful Broadway film adaptation of all time.

Docs to Watch

The 12th 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:

• 2000 Meters to Andriivka (dir. Mstyslav Chernov)
• The Alabama Solution (dir. Andrew Jarecki, Charlotte Kaufman)
• Apocalypse in the Tropics (dir. Petra Costa)
• Come See Me in the Good Light (dir. Ryan White)
• It’s Never Over, Jeff Buckley (dir. Amy Berg)
• My Mom Jayne (dir. Mariska Hargitay)
• Natchez (dir. Suzannah Herbert)
• The Perfect Neighbor (dir. Geeta Gandbhir)
• Riefenstahl (dir. Andres Veiel)
• The Tale of Silyan (dir. Tamara Kotevska)

Pixels and Pencils: Top Animated Contenders

Presented in partnership with Variety, Pixels and Pencils highlights the directors behind the top animated films of the year. Showcasing a broad array of artistic avenues and animation styles, this series culminates in the directors roundtable panel, hosted by Variety senior awards editor Clayton Davis.  Selected films include:

Arco (dir. Ugo Bienvenu)

Elio (dir. Madeline Sharafian, Domee Shi)

First Look: In Your Dreams (dir. Alex Woo)

KPop Demon Hunters (dir. Chris Appelhans, Maggie Kang) 

Little Amélie or The Character of Rain (dir. Maïlys Vallade)

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Chrome Alone 2 — Lost in New Jersey (dir. Kent Seki)

Panels

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

• The Behind Their Lens series, presented in partnership with IndieWire, celebrates cinematic powerhouses who defy the odds and obstacles to bring us some of the most influential and poignant films and television series in recent years. Panels include:

• Behind Their Lens: Directors, with panelists Mary Bronstein (If I Had Legs I’d Kick You), HIKARI (Rental Family), Leslye Headland (The Acolyte), and Eva Victor (Sorry, Baby).
• Behind Their Lens: Producers, with panelists Ellen Goldsmith-Vein (Springsteen: Deliver Me From Nowhere), Debra Hayward (Good Grief), Riva Marker (Reality), and Alison Owen (Back to Black), Kaila York (Gridiron Grind). 
• Behind Their Lens: Artisans, with panelists Kira Kelly (cinematographer, Him), Pam Martin (editor, Springsteen: Deliver Me From Nowhere), Taylor Joy Mason (editor, Him), and Shunika Terry (hair designer, Sinners).

• The Below the Line series, highlighting the contributions of below-the-line talent to the art of cinema, with a focus on costume design and production design:
• Below the Line: The Power of Casting
• Panelists include Kate Rhodes James (Gladiator 2) and Bernard Telsey (Wicked: For Good). Additional panelists to be announced.
• Below the Line: The Art of Production Design
• Panelists include Juliana Baretto (Rebuilding), Jim Bissell (E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial), and Alexandra Schaller (Train Dreams).
• Below the Line: Scoring for the Screen with the Alliance for Women Film Composers
• Panelists include Chanda Dancy (Swiped), Florencia di Concilio (The Mysterious Gaze of the Flamingo), Laura Karpman (American Fiction), and moderator Allyson Newman (Arrest the Midwife).

• The SCAD Alumni Voices panel highlights graduates of the university’s top-ranked film and television degree programs. Panelists include actor Sebiye Behtiyar, animation supervisor Nathan Engelhardt, and composer EmmoLei Sankofa, with more to be announced.

• The exclusive Entertainment Weekly’s Breaking Big Panel and Awards, hosted by festival media partner Entertainment Weekly. This year’s honorees, who will all participate in an awards presentation and panel discussion moderated by Entertainment Weekly Editor-in-Chief Patrick Gomez, include:

• Julia Butters (Freakier Friday)
• Tati Gabrielle (The Last of Us)
• Tonatiuh (Kiss of the Spider Woman)
• Grace Van Patten (The Twisted Tale of Amanda Knox/Tell Me Lies)
• Tyriq Withers (Him)

• Behind the Curtain: The Sound Design of Wicked: For Good will step inside the soundscape of the upcoming film with the artisans who shaped its unforgettable and transporting audio world. John Marquis (Supervising Sound Editor and Sound Design/Re-Recording Mixer) and Jack Dolman (Supervising Music Editor) will reveal the artistry, technical wizardry, and creative collaboration that brought the voices, music, and magic of Wicked to life for the screen.

• Variety’s 10 Artisans to Watch, hosted by festival media partner Variety. Participants will be announced Wednesday, Oct. 15.

• The Art of Representation: Gersh Agents on Building Careers in Entertainment welcomes a panel of agents from Gersh, one of the largest entertainment and sports agencies in the world, as they pull back the curtain on the art of representation. 

• The ABC’s of Entertainment Law will break down the essentials of Entertainment legalese, such as contracts, copyrights, credits, and distribution terms, in clear, practical applications that every emerging creative should know. 

• Writing Bond: Crafting the Legend of 007 with screenwriters Neal Purvis and Robert Wade will explore how the writing pair have been the creative force shaping the world’s most famous spy. In this conversation, Purvis and Wade pull back the curtain on their collaborative process. 

Competition Films

The SCAD Savannah Film Festival celebrates the work of established and emerging filmmakers, from feature-length films to shorts. The juried competition showcases the best of professional, animated, and student films selected from more than 2,100 entries annually. Festival jurors include Alex Barasch (journalist, The New Yorker), Clifton Collins Jr. (actor), Leslye Headland (director, writer), Richard Lawson (critic), and Mary Neely (actor, producer, writer). 

Narrative Features

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

• Charliebird (dir. Libby Ewing)
• Rains Over Babel (dir. Gala del Sol)
• Rosemead (dir. Eric Lin)
• She Dances (dir. Rick Gomez)

Documentary Features

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

• The Librarians (dir. Kim A. Snyder)
• Natchez (dir. Suzannah Herbert)
• Room to Move (dir. Alexander Hammer)
• Yanuni (dir. Richard Ladkani)

Professional Shorts

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

• All the Empty Rooms (dir. Joshua Seftel)
• Beyond Silence (dir. Marnie Blok)
• Freeman Vines (dir. André Robert Lee, Tim Kirkman)
• The Last Dance (dir. Hayden Mclean)
• OK/NOTOK (dir. Pardeep Sahota)
• Rise (dir. Jessica J. Rowlands)
• The Singers (dir. Sam Davis)
• Synthesize Me (dir. Bear Damen)

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:

• anyone lived in a pretty how town (dir. Daniel Kreizberg)
• Cardboard (dir. Jean-Philippe Vine)
• Éiru (dir. Giovanna Ferrari)
• Forevergreen (dir. Nathan Engelhardt, Jeremy Spears)
• Hullabaloo: The Curse of the Cheshire Cat (dir. James Lopez)
• Murmuration (dir. Janneke Swinkels, Tim Frijsinger)
• Saq Nikté and the Spirit of the Mask (dir. Ester Weiner)
• Snow Bear (dir. Aaron Blaise)
• ReRooted (dir. Delphine Coudray)
• Wednesdays with Gramps (dir. Chris Copeland, Justin Copeland)

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 around the world that are part of the competition include:

• Student Animated Shorts

• Acrobats (dir. Eloïse Alluyn, Hugo Danet, Anna Despinoy, Antonin Guerci, Alexandre Marzin, Shali Reddy)
• Bugsick (dir. Venya Aggarwal)
• Catfish (dir. Aurélie Galibois, Aurélie Martin, Camille Naud, Cristina Ganusciac, Hee Young Park, Vedushi Sinha)
• The Day We Flew (dir. Ryan Wang)
• Dragfox (dir. Lisa Ott)
• Forever (dir. Theo Djekon, Pierre Ferrari, Cyrine Jouini, Pauline Philippart, Anissa Ferrier)
• How to make a friend (dir. Jinfei Ge, Bin He, Myrtille Huet, Julie Jarrier-Stettin, Yuqiang Zhang)
• ÜMIT (dir. Amina Ömirjan)
• Jour de vent (Windy Day) (dir. Martin Chailloux, Al Kim Crespin, Elise Golfouse, Chloe Lab, Hugo Taillez, Camille Truding)
• Lost Track (dir. Sam “Luna” McKee)
• The Shyness of Trees (dir. Bingqing Shu, Maud Le Bras, Jiaxin Huang, Simin He, Lina Han, Loïck Du Plessis D’Argentré, Sofiia Chuikovska)
• Snubbed (dir. Jesse Braak, Kian Sherritt)
• The Story of Three Sisters (or How the World Came to Have Four Seasons Instead of One) (dir. Raphaëlle Bourgon, Anchi Huang, Vega Lázaro, Son Tra Le, Priyam Parikh, Jianuo Wen, Di Wu)
• Wormwood (dir. Matthieu Dupille, Binlin Xie, Alexander Vanderplank, Ninon Quemener, Philémon Martin, Chenhe Liu)

• Student Narrative Shorts

• Breastmilk (dir. Ifeyinwa Arinze)
• If Birds Believed in God (dir. Samer Saifan)
• Take Two (dir. Colleen Ryan)
• Wrestle-Off (dir. Sabatino Ciatti Jr.)
• You & Me (& Chaz & Rodney) (dir. Lilly Lion)

• SCAD Student Documentary Shorts

• Cornellskop: Freedom from Fear (dir. Nathan Oliva)
• Drag Me To Church (dir. Isabella Sullivan)
• Get Your Gravel On: Gravel Racing in the Borderlands (dir. Pablo Echevarría)
• The Last Lobsterman (dir. Jason Conforti)
• The Path of Puma-36 (dir. Amelie Bluestone)
• Real Fake War (dir. Tommy Dilger)
• Terpsichore (dir. Abigail Cunningham)

Global Shorts Forum

The Global Shorts Forum is a curated collection of international shorts across multiple genres that focus on world issues. These include:  

• For the Love of Sport

• Forward is a Pace (dir. Robin Oroso)
• Hoops, Hopes & Dreams (dir. Glenn Kaino)
• Icebreakers (dir. Marlo Poras, Jocelyn Glatzer)
• It’s Our Ball (dir. David Morrison)
• Into the Chutes (dir. Jenna Rice)
• We’ll Go Down in History (dir. Cameron Richards, Charlie Tidmas)

• Portraits of Perseverance

• The Green Buffalo (dir. Joel Caldwell)
• Ibuka, Justice (dir. Justice Rutikara)
• Inside, The Valley Sings (dir. Nathan Fagan)
• Oh Whale (dir. Winslow Crane-Murdoch)
• The Return (dir. Jeremy S. Levine)

• A Place in This World

• _PREVIEW_ (dir. Quinlan Orear)
• Art with Every Breath (dir. Caroline Josey Karoki)
• A Color I Named Blue (dir. Sybilla Patrizia)
• Call to Serve (dir. Cole Sax, Phil Hessler)
• Largo (dir. Salvatore Scarpa)
• No Way Back (dir. Tom Turner)
• Retirement Plan (dir. John Kelly)
• Susana (dir. Gerardo Coello Escalante, Amandine Thomas)
• Shanti Rides Shotgun (dir. Charles Frank)

Shorts Spotlight

This year’s Shorts Spotlight themes are: 

• Dearest Daughter

• Curly Joe, Two Kittens, Four Boxes & Scent of Fire (dir. Apo W. Bazidi, Anna Benner)
• Hatchlings (dir. Jahmil Eady)
• Koko Suzanne (dir. Zach Bandler)
• KÜĪ (dir. Kahu Kaiha)
• Miriam (dir. Josie Andrews)
• Of All The Things (dir. Steff Lee)
• On a Sunday at Eleven (dir. Alicia K. Harris)
• Who Are You, Nanu? (dir. Anjini Taneja Azhar)

• Reality Askew in Black & White

• Cineál Fiáin (WildKind) (dir. John McDaid)
• Collectors (dir. Susan C. O’Brien)
• Em & Selma Go Griffin Hunting (dir. Alexander Thompson)
• Hurikán (dir. Jan Saska)
• Two People Exchanging Saliva (dir. Alexandre Singh, Natalie Musteata)
• Without Heaven (Cennetsiz) (dir. Merve Bozcu)

• Sweetness in the Bitter

• Automagic (dir. Ashok Vish)
• Dressed to the Nines (dir. Madeleine Shenai, Ivana Mazza-Coates)
• Everywhere I Look (dir. November Nolan)
• Old Dykes (dir. Ezra Rose)
• One Day This Kid (dir. Alexander Farah)
• The Second Time Around (dir. Jack Howard)
• Witness (dir. Radha Mehta, Saif Jaan)

• After Dark — The Horror Within

• Chew (dir. Félix Dobaire)
• The Lone Piper (dir. Matthew Kravchuk)
• Luz Diabla (dir. Gervasio Canda, Paula Boffo, Patricio Plaza)
• The Pearl Comb (dir. Ali Cook)
• Playing God (dir. Matteo Burani)
• The Rebirth (dir. Connie Shi)
• Wait, Your Car? (dir. Reece Feldman)

Previously announced honorees at this year’s festival are:

• Tessa Thompson will receive the Distinguished Performance Award. 
• Will Arnett will receive the Luminary Award
• Hannah Beachler will receive the Variety Creative Impact in Production Design Award
• Craig Brewer will receive the Spotlight Director Award
• Rose Byrne will receive the Luminary Award
• Miles Caton will receive the Rising Star Award
• Park Chan-wook will receive the International Auteur Award
• Jon M. Chu will receive the Vanguard Director Award
• Zoey Deutch will receive the Breakthrough Performance Award
• Joel Edgerton will receive the Vanguard Award
• Brendan Fraser will receive the Outstanding Achievement in Cinema Award
• Mark Hamill will receive the Lifetime Achievement Award
• Oscar Isaac will receive the Icon Award
• Rian Johnson will receive the Outstanding Achievement in Directing Award
• Spike Lee will receive the Legend of Cinema Award
• Inga Ibsdotter Lilleaas will receive the Discovery Award
• Jennifer Lopez will receive the Virtuoso Award
• Dylan O’Brien will receive the Lumiere Award
• Benny Safdie will receive the Maverick Director Award
• Amanda Seyfried will receive the Vanguard Award
• Kristen Stewart will receive the Rising Star Director Award
• Sydney Sweeney will receive the Spotlight Award
• Miles Teller will receive the Distinguished Performance Award