The Savannah College of Art and Design’s 28th annual SCAD Savannah Film Festival will take place October 25th–November 1st. 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.
A key stop on the Academy Awards festival circuit, the SCAD Savannah Film Festival will screen 167 films, including 56 narrative feature films, 16 documentary feature films, and 96 short films, with seven world premieres and three U.S. premieres among its selections.
The 2025 schedule includes Gala and Signature Screenings, Special Presentations, professional and student competition films, the Docs to Watch and Pixels and Pencils series, and the Behind Their Lens and Below the Line panel series. Over its history, the SCAD Savannah Film Festival has screened more than 225 Academy Award-nominated films and has honored nearly 200 legendary actors, directors, producers, writers, and filmmakers from around the world. Students from an array of the university’s top-ranked programs, including acting, animation, film and television, production design, sound design, themed entertainment design, 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.
“Every October, SCAD transforms Savannah into a master class in moviemaking, with our 2025 SCAD Savannah Film Festival lineup featuring J.Lo, Mark Hamill (the original Skywalker!), ‘Wicked’s‘ Jon M. Chu, and so many more who help SCAD Bees make the leap from classroom to call sheet,” said SCAD President and Founder Paula Wallace. “Come for the Oscar-bound premieres and stay for the splendor of the South’s most cinematic city. Silver-screen dreams live here — lights, camera, SCAD!”
Gala Screenings
The SCAD Savannah Film Festival is renowned for spotlighting major award contenders, screening a multitude of studio and streamer films prior to their wider release. The festival will open Saturday, October 25th, with a screening of “Eternity.” “Song Sung Blue” will screen on Thursday, October 30th, as the Centerpiece Gala Presentation. On Saturday, November 1st, the festival will close with “Wake Up Dead Man: A Knives Out Mystery.” The following 18 films have been selected for distinguished 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
Get a look at buzzworthy films from the world’s leading filmmakers, premiering at the festival or not yet in wide release. In previous years, these films have gone on to win Academy Awards and other prestigious accolades:
A Private Life — Sony Pictures Classics (dir.Rebecca Zlotowski)
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)
Merrily We Roll Along — Sony Pictures Classics (dir. Maria Friedman)
Peter Hujar’s Day — Sideshow/Janus (dir. Ira Sachs)
Sirât — Neon (dir. Oliver Laxe)
The Love That Remains — Sideshow/Janus (dir. Hlynur Palmason)
The President’s Cake — Sony Pictures Classics (dir. Hasan Hadi)
The Secret Agent — Neon (dir. Kleber Mendonça Filho)
Urchin — 1-2 Special (dir. Harris Dickinson)
Signature Screenings
The Signature Screenings series features premieres and special screenings, with some followed by Q&As with select directors, writers, actors, and producers. This year’s selection of films and series includes:
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)
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 Debra Hayward (Good Grief), Riva Marker (Reality), and Alison Owen (Back to Black).
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, Florencia di Concilio, Laura Karpman, and moderator Allyson Newman.
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.
Variety’s 10 Artisans to Watch, hosted by festival media partner Variety. Participants will be announced on Wednesday, October 15th.
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 has 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:
Rains Over Babel (dir. Gala del Sol)
Rosemead (dir. Eric Lin)
She Dances (dir. Rick Gomez)
Charliebird (dir. Libby Ewing)
Documentary Features
Beyond simple subject matters, these documentaries present compelling stories that illuminate and educate audiences in a thought-provoking and timely manner:
Room to Move (dir. Alexander Hammer)
The Librarians (dir. Kim A. Snyder)
Natchez (dir. Suzannah Herbert)
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:
The Last Dance (dir. Hayden Mclean)
All the Empty Rooms (dir. Joshua Seftel)
Rise (dir. Jessica J. Rowlands)
The Singers (dir. Sam Davis)
Freeman Vines (dir. André Robert Lee, Tim Kirkman)
Beyond Silence (dir. Marnie Blok)
Synthesize Me (dir. Bear Damen)
OK/NOTOK (dir. Pardeep Sahota)
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:
Snow Bear (dir. Aaron Blaise)
Saq Nikté and the Spirit of the Mask (dir. Ester Weiner)
Murmuration (dir. Janneke Swinkels, Tim Frijsinger)
Hullabaloo: The Curse of the Cheshire Cat (dir. James Lopez)
ReRooted (dir. Delphine Coudray)
Forevergreen (dir. Nathan Engelhardt, Jeremy Spears)
Éiru (dir. Giovanna Ferrari)
anyone lived in a pretty how town (dir. Daniel Kreizberg)
Cardboard (dir. Jean-Philippe Vine)
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
How to make a friend (dir. Jinfei Ge, Bin He, Myrtille Huet, Julie Jarrier-Stettin, Yuqiang Zhang)
ÜMIT (dir. Amina Ömirjan)
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)
Snubbed (dir. Jesse Braak, Kian Sherritt)
Catfish (dir. Aurélie Galibois, Aurélie Martin, Camille Naud, Cristina Ganusciac, Hee Young Park, Vedushi Sinha)
The Day We Flew (dir. Ryan Wang)
Jour de vent (Windy Day) (dir. Martin Chailloux, Al Kim Crespin, Elise Golfnse, Chloe Lab, Hugo Taillez, Camille Truding)
Wormwood (dir. Matthieu Dupille, Binlin Xie, Alexander Vanderplank, Ninon Quemener, Philémon Martin, Chenhe Liu)
Bugsick (dir. Venya Aggarwal)
Acrobats (dir. Eloïse Alluyn, Hugo Danet, Anna Despinoy, Antonin Guerci, Alexandre Marzin, Shali Reddy)
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)
Dragfox (dir. Lisa Ott)
Forever (dir. Theo Djekon, Pierre Ferrari, Cyrine Jouini, Pauline Philippart, Anissa Ferrier)
Student Narrative Shorts
Take Two (dir. Colleen Ryan)
Wrestle-Off (dir. Sabatino Ciatti Jr.)
Breastmilk (dir. Ifeyinwa Arinze)
If Birds Believed in God (dir. Samer Saifan)
You & Me (& Chaz & Rodney) (dir. Lilly Lion)
SCAD Student Documentary Shorts
The Path of Puma-36 (dir. Amelie Bluestone)
Real Fake War (dir. Tommy Dilger)
Get Your Gravel On: Gravel Racing in the Borderlands (dir. Pablo EchevarrÃa)
The Last Lobsterman (dir. Jason Conforti)
Drag Me To Church (dir. Isabella Sullivan)
Cornellskop: Freedom from Fear (dir. Nathan Oliva)
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
We’ll Go Down in History (dir. Cameron Richards, Charlie Tidmas)
Forward is a Pace (dir. Robin Oroso)
Icebreakers (dir. Marlo Poras, Jocelyn Glatzer)
It’s Our Ball (dir. David Morrison)
Into the Chutes (dir. Jenna Rice)
Hoops, Hopes & Dreams (dir. Glenn Kaino)
Portraits of Perseverance
The Green Buffalo (dir. Joel Caldwell)
Ibuka, Justice (dir. Justice Rutikara)
The Return (dir. Jeremy S. Levine)
Inside, The Valley Sings (dir. Nathan Fagan)
Oh Whale (dir. Winslow Crane-Murdoch)
A Place in This World
A Color I Named Blue (dir. Sybilla Patrizia)
Art with Every Breath (dir. Caroline Josey Karoki)
Call to Serve (dir. Cole Sax, Phil Hessler)
_PREVIEW_ (dir. Quinlan Orear)
Largo (dir. Salvatore Scarpa)
Susana (dir. Gerardo Coello Escalante, Amandine Thomas)
No Way Back (dir. Tom Turner)
Shanti Rides Shotgun (dir. Charles Frank)
Retirement Plan (dir. John Kelly)
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)
Miriam (dir. Josie Andrews)
Koko Suzanne (dir. Zach Bandler)
Of All The Things (dir. Steff Lee)
KÜĪ (dir. Kahu Kaiha)
Who Are You, Nanu? (dir. Anjini Taneja Azhar)
On a Sunday at Eleven (dir. Alicia K. Harris)
Reality Askew in Black & White
Two People Exchanging Saliva (dir. Alexandre Singh, Natalie Musteata)
Collectors (dir. Susan C. O’Brien)
Cineál Fiáin (WildKind) (dir. John McDaid)
Em & Selma Go Griffin Hunting (dir. Alexander Thompson)
Without Heaven (Cennetsiz) (dir. Merve Bozcu)
Hurikán (dir. Jan Saska)
Sweetness in the Bitter
Dressed to the Nines (dir. Madeleine Shenai, Ivana Mazza-Coates)
Old Dykes (dir. Ezra Rose)
Witness (dir. Radha Mehta, Saif Jaan)
Everywhere I Look (dir. November Nolan)
The Second Time Around (dir. Jack Howard)
One Day This Kid (dir. Alexander Farah)
Automagic (dir. Ashok Vish)
After Dark — The Horror Within
Wait, Your Car? (dir. Reece Feldman)
The Rebirth (dir. Connie Shi)
Playing God (dir. Matteo Burani)
The Lone Piper (dir. Matthew Kravchuk)
Chew (dir. Félix Dobaire)
Luz Diabla (dir. Gervasio Canda, Paula Boffo, Patricio Plaza)
The Pearl Comb (dir. Ali Cook)
Previously announced honorees at this year’s festival are:
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.
Jon M. Chu will receive the Vanguard Director Award.
Zoey Deutch will receive the Breakthrough Performance Award.
Joel Edgerton will receive the Vanguard 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.
Jennifer Lopez will receive the Virtuoso Award.
Dylan O’Brien will receive the Lumiere Award.
Benny Safdie will receive the Maverick Director Award.
Miles Teller will receive the Distinguished Performance Award.
Tessa Thompson will receive the Distinguished Performance Award.
Presented by the Savannah College of Art and Design, the SCAD Savannah Film Festival is filled with cinematic creativity from award-winning professionals and emerging student filmmakers. Each year, more than 75,000 people attend the eight-day festival. A distinguished stop on the road to the Academy Awards, the events of the Festival take place at SCAD’s historic theaters and industry-leading studio spaces throughout the historic city of Savannah.
Festival tickets for 2025 are available now online at filmfest.scad.edu, by phone at 912.525.5050, or in person at the SCAD Box Office (scadboxoffice.com) at 216 E. Broughton St. in Savannah.
Follow the festival on Facebook, Instagram, Letterboxd, and TikTok @savfilmfest. For additional information and tickets, visit filmfest.scad.edu.
What do you think of this announcement for the 2025 SCAD Savannah Film Festival? Will you be attending in-person? Please let us know your thoughts in the comments section below or on our XÂ account.
